Americans With Disabilities Act Quotes

Then she told me that the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing “people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional-support pony on airlines.” So basically I could bring a goddamn pony on board with me. I’m pretty sure a pony wouldn’t fit under my seat or in my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me while I braided his mane.

At the “Capitol Crawl,” people using wheelchairs, leg braces, and canes made their way to the hundred steps in front of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Then they began to climb those stairs, leaving behind whatever gear couldn’t come with them, using their arms or whatever body parts they had available for mobility. Children as young as ten participated in what became a very public, strategic spectacle. That protest is considered by historians to have been the tipping point; the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, guaranteeing curb cut changes at every city sidewalk corner and ramped entrances at all newly constructed buildings, among other new provisions.

What the most advanced researchers and theoreticians in all of science now comprehend is that the Newtonian concept of a universe driven by mass force is out of touch with reality, for it fails to account for both observable phenomena and theoretical conundrums that can be explained only by quantum physics: A quantum view explains the success of small efforts quite differently. Acting locally allows us to be inside the movement and flow of the system, participating in all those complex events occurring simultaneously. We are more likely to be sensitive to the dynamics of this system, and thus more effective. However, changes in small places also affect the global system, not through incrementalism, but because every small system participates in an unbroken wholeness. Activities in one part of the whole create effects that appear in distant places. Because of these unseen connections, there is potential value in working anywhere in the system. We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In what Wheatley calls “this exquisitely connected world,” the real engine of change is never “critical mass”; dramatic and systemic change always begins with “critical connections.”14 So by now the crux of our preliminary needs should be apparent. We must open our hearts to new beacons of Hope. We must expand our minds to new modes of thought. We must equip our hands with new methods of organizing. And we must build on all of the humanity-stretching movements of the past half century: the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the civil rights movement; the Free Speech movement; the anti–Vietnam War movement; the Asian American, Native American, and Chicano movements; the women’s movement; the gay and lesbian movement; the disability rights/pride movement; and the ecological and environmental justice movements. We must find ourselves amid the fifty million people who as activists or as supporters have engaged in the many-sided struggles to create the new democratic and life-affirming values that are needed to civilize U.S. society.

My shrink suggested that if I was going to continue traveling so much that I could look into getting a service animal expressly trained to provide emotional support to people with anxiety disorders. I considered getting Hunter S. Thomcat trained, but then I remembered that he gets spontaneous nervous diarrhea every time he's in a moving car, and I'd imagine that holding a cat who seems to have explosive plane dysentery wouldn't necessarily *help* my anxiety as give me something new (and horribly unsanitary) to be anxious about. I called around to different service-animal specialists and spoke to a woman who told me it's better to get an animal who has already been trained and has the right temperament. She also told me cats aren’t preferred emotional-support animals for anxiety disorder, but my cats hate dogs so I figured I was fucked, but then she told me that the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing “people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional-support pony on airlines.” So basically I could bring a goddamn pony on board with me. I’m pretty sure a pony wouldn’t fit under my seat or in my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me while I braided his mane. Plus, Pony Danza would make a great pack animal and instead of bringing suitcases I could just put my extra clothes on him and that way I wouldn’t have to pay to check a bag. Plus, the pony wouldn’t get cold because it would be wearing my pajamas.

We cannot pick and choose whom among the oppressed it is convenient to support. We must stand with all the oppressed or none of the oppressed. This is a global fight for life against corporate tyranny. We will win only when we see the struggle of working people in Greece, Spain, and Egypt as our own struggle. This will mean a huge reordering of our world, one that turns away from the primacy of profit to full employment and unionized workplaces, inexpensive and modernized mass transit, especially in impoverished communities, universal single-payer health care and a banning of for-profit health care corporations. The minimum wage must be at least $15 an hour and a weekly income of $500 provided to the unemployed, the disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and those unable to work. Anti-union laws, like the Taft-Hartley Act, and trade agreements such as NAFTA, will be abolished. All Americans will be granted a pension in old age. A parent will receive two years of paid maternity leave, as well as shorter work weeks with no loss in pay and benefits. The Patriot Act and Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits the military to be used to crush domestic unrest, as well as government spying on citizens, will end. Mass incarceration will be dismantled. Global warming will become a national and global emergency. We will divert our energy and resources to saving the planet through public investment in renewable energy and end our reliance on fossil fuels. Public utilities, including the railroads, energy companies, the arms industry, and banks, will be nationalized. Government funding for the arts, education, and public broadcasting will create places where creativity, self-expression, and voices of dissent can be heard and seen. We will terminate our nuclear weapons programs and build a nuclear-free world. We will demilitarize our police, meaning that police will no longer carry weapons when they patrol our streets but instead, as in Great Britain, rely on specialized armed units that have to be authorized case by case to use lethal force. There will be training and rehabilitation programs for the poor and those in our prisons, along with the abolition of the death penalty. We will grant full citizenship to undocumented workers. There will be a moratorium on foreclosures and bank repossessions. Education will be free from day care to university. All student debt will be forgiven. Mental health care, especially for those now caged in our prisons, will be available. Our empire will be dismantled. Our soldiers and marines will come home.

While the overall systems of heterosexism and ableism are still with us, they have adapted in limited ways. These adaptations are held up as reassurance to those who fought long and hard for a particular change that equality has now been achieved. These milestones—such as the recognition of same-sex marriage, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title 9, the election of Barack Obama—are, of course, significant and worthy of celebration. But systems of oppression are deeply rooted and not overcome with the simple passage of legislation. Advances are also tenuous, as we can see in recent challenges to the rights of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex) people. Systems of oppression are not completely inflexible. But they are far less flexible than popular ideology would acknowledge, and the collective impact of the inequitable distribution of resources continues across history. COLOR-BLIND RACISM What is termed color-blind racism is an example of racism’s ability to adapt to cultural changes.3 According to this ideology, if we pretend not to notice race, then there can be no racism. The idea is based on a line from the famous “I Have a Dream” speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. At the time of King’s speech, it was much more socially acceptable for white people to admit to their racial prejudices and belief in white racial superiority. But many white people had never witnessed the kind of violence to which blacks were subjected. Because the struggle for civil rights was televised, whites across the nation watched in horror as black men, women, and children were attacked by police dogs and fire hoses during peaceful protests and beaten and dragged away from lunch counters.

Act and Title 1 of the American Disabilities Act. Oh, by the way, Herx was infertile, and so she was considered “disabled” under the act. These people are running our government!

All politicians lie; some of them steal too. 30+ year Washington columnist

Ted helped pass major social and civil rights legislation. His efforts include the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Child Care Act (both passed in 1990), and the Ryan White AIDS Care Act of 1990; he increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and many more educational, housing, medical, and support-services programs. The ADA specifically prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability, forcing the inclusion of millions of people with disabilities in education, housing, employment, sports, and more. Hatch said that even though he and Kennedy differed much on policy and philosophy, he “never doubted for a minute [Ted’s] commitment to help the elderly, the ill, and those Americans who have been on the outside looking in for far too long.

Unsurprisingly, given the eagerness of professors and students of identity studies to claim as many labels for themselves as possible, some individuals have sought to expand the definition of disability to include … well, themselves. At the "Wrong/ed Bodies" session at the Cultural Studies conference, Angela Lea Nemecek complained that when she breastfed in her office at the University of Virginia, she was made to feel as if she had a disability. In short, her breastfeeding was "constructed in the workplace" as a disability. Therefore, she reasoned, breastfeeding is a disability and should be protected under the Americans with Disability Act.

It was the beginning of his personal crusade to make life easier for the more than forty million disabled Americans. By 1990 he had moved Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that mandated changes in public buildings, accommodations, and transportation to make it easier for the disabled to function in American society. For Dole, it was his greatest legislative victory. Yet it was also a classic example of the two sides of Bob Dole. Although he was a champion of this federal directive that imposed on states and businesses rigid requirements that were costly and, in some cases, little used, he was also known for advocating a reduced role for the federal government. On

It turns out that it is easier for an employer to prove that it did not hire a disabled worker for a reason unrelated to the worker’s disability than it is to prove that it fired the worker for such a reason. Consequently, the Americans with Disabilities Act actually led to a decrease in employment rates for the disabled. The law had exactly the opposite effect that lawmakers intended.

Being terminated for any of the items listed below may constitute wrongful termination: Discrimination: The employer cannot terminate employment because the employee is a certain race, nationality, religion, sex, age, or (in some jurisdictions) sexual orientation. Retaliation: An employer cannot fire an employee because the employee filed a claim of discrimination or is participating in an investigation for discrimination. In the US, this "retaliation" is forbidden under civil rights law. Reporting a Violation of Law to Government Authorities: also known as a whistleblower law, an employee who falls under whistleblower protections may not lawfully be fired for reporting an employer's legal violation or for similar activity that is protected by the law. Employee's refusal to commit an illegal act: An employer is not permitted to fire an employee because the employee refuses to commit an act that is illegal. Employer is not following the company's own termination procedures: In some cases, an employee handbook or company policy outlines a procedure that must be followed before an employee is terminated. If the employer fires an employee without following this procedure, depending upon the laws of the jurisdiction in which the termination occurs, the employee may have a claim for wrongful termination. … In the United States, termination of employment is not legal if it is based on your membership in a group protected from discrimination by law. It is unlawful for an employer to terminate an employee based upon factors including employee's race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, or age (over 40), pursuant to U.S. federal laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. … Many laws also prohibit termination, even of at-will employees. For example, whistleblower laws may protect an employee who reports a legal or safety violation by the employer to an appropriate oversight agency. Most states prohibit employers from firing employees in retaliation for filing a workers' compensation claim, or making a wage complaint over unpaid wages. [firing someone for political affiliation or activism away from work is not on the list]

Too many places didn't want to hire her, claiming her lack of hearing was a liability that would put an unfair burden on their insurance. Never mind that she traveled with a submersible designed to her parameters, signaling all alarms and issues with flashing lights and pressure changes in the fabric of her seat; they were uncomfortable about the idea of working with a deaf woman, and while the Americans with Disabilities Act made it harder for them to refuse her employment, it didn't make it impossible. There would always be lawyers who specialize in keeping the disabled out of the workforce, especially when the jobs they wanted to do - the jobs they were trained to do - were difficult or dangerous or otherwise complex.

Even Donald Trump, with his rants against a long list of groups he dislikes (notably Latinos, Muslims, and disabled people), his promulgation of the “birther” lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and his history of discriminatory treatment of African Americans, felt the need to assure the public via Twitter that “I am the least racist person you have ever met” and that “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” “Justification,” Crandall and Eshelman explain, “undoes suppression, it provides cover, and it protects a sense of egalitarianism and a nonprejudiced self-image.”41

Once, I watched a police officer pull his patrol car up to Ger-Ger, Arleen’s eldest son, and say, “Man, you’re fucked up!” (Ger-Ger had a learning disability that caused him to move and talk slowly.) When I came out of the apartment for a closer look, the officer looked at me and drove away. He might have acted differently had I not been a white man with a notepad.

American Disabilities Act – ADA i. A federal law that prevents discrimination of disabled persons from receiving care from healthcare providers.

All progress we have made in the realm of civil rights has been accomplished through identity politics: women’s suffrage, the American with Disabilities Act, Title 9, federal recognition of same-sex marriage. A key issue in the 2016 presidential election was the white working class. These are all manifestations of identity politics.

On November 2, 1899, eight members of the United States Navy were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and service beyond the call of duty. On the night of June 2, 1898, they had volunteered to scuttle the collier USS Merrimac, with the intention of blocking the entry channel to Santiago de Cuba. On orders of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who was in command, their intention was to trap Spanish Admiral Cervera’s fleet in the harbor. Getting the USS Merrimac underway, the eight men navigated the ship towards a predetermined location where sinking her would seal the port. Their course knowingly took them within the range of the Spanish ships and the shore batteries. The sailors were well aware of the danger this put them into, however they put their mission first. Once the Spanish gunners saw what was happening, they realized what the Americans were up to and started firing their heavy artillery from an extremely close range. The channel leading into Santiago is narrow, preventing the ship from taking any evasive action. The American sailors were like fish in a barrel and the Spanish gunners were relentless. In short order, the heavy shelling from the Spanish shore batteries disabled the rudder of the Merrimac and caused the ship to sink prematurely. The USS Merrimac went down without achieving its objective of obstructing navigation and sealing the port. ‎Fête du Canada or Canada Day is the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Canadian Constitution Act. This weekend Americans also celebrate the United States’, July 4, 1776 birthday, making this time perfect to celebrate George Fredrick Phillips heroic action. Phillips was one of the men mentioned in the story above of the USS Merrimac. He was born on March 8, 1862, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and joined the United States Navy in March 1898 in Galveston, Texas. Phillips became a Machinist First Class and displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the Spanish bombardment during their operation. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1903, and died a year later at the age of 42 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His body was returned to Canada where he was interred with honors at the Fernhill Cemetery in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick.

It was official, this learning disability, because of a particularly brilliant plan that was hatched at the beginning of the year, when her new plump roommate, who was on several medications for her truly severe ADHD problems, let slip how many legally mandated accommodations she was entitled to, including someone to take notes for her, extra time for quizzes and tests, extended deadlines, excused absences, and so on. In other words, complete freedom from the scrutiny of her professors that—even better!—was legally binding under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

While implicit bias is always at play because all humans have bias, inequity can occur simply through homogeneity; if I am not aware of the barriers you face, then I won’t see them, much less be motivated to remove them. Nor will I be motivated to remove the barriers if they provide an advantage to which I feel entitled. All progress we have made in the realm of civil rights has been accomplished through identity politics: women’s suffrage, the American with Disabilities Act, Title 9, federal recognition of same-sex marriage. A key issue in the 2016 presidential election was the white working class. These are all manifestations of identity politics.

The Americans with Disabilities Act may protect people with cancer (and other serious illnesses) from discrimination on the job, but we’re on our own in the bedroom.

deaf president now Most of you have probably seen the phrase, but what do you know about the “Deaf President Now” movement? Despite being the first Deaf university in the world, Gallaudet had never had a Deaf president before, and in March 1988 that was finally about to change. The Board of Trustees was slated to choose the next president from a list of three finalist candidates, two Deaf, one hearing. In the lead-up to the board meeting, students and faculty had been campaigning and rallying in support of a Deaf president. THE CANDIDATES DR. ELIZABETH ZINSER, hearing, Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at University of North Carolina DR. HARVEY CORSON, Deaf, Superintendent of the Louisiana School for the Deaf DR. I. KING JORDAN, Deaf, Dean of College of Arts and Sciences at Gallaudet On March 6th, the board selected Zinser. No announcement was made. Students found out only after visiting the school’s PR office to extract the information. Students marched to the Mayflower hotel to confront the Board. Chair Jane Spilman defended the selection to the crowd, reportedly saying, “deaf people can’t function in the hearing world.” WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? MARCH 7TH: Students hot-wire buses to barricade campus gates, only allowing certain people on campus. Students meet with Board, no concessions made. Protesters march to the Capitol. MARCH 8TH: Students burn effigies, form a 16-member council of students, faculty, and staff to organize the movement. THE FOUR DEMANDS: Zinser’s resignation and the selection of a Deaf president Resignation of Jane Spilman A 51% Deaf majority on the Board of Trustees No reprisals against protesters WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? MARCH 9TH: Movement grows, gains widespread national support. Protest is featured on ABC’s Nightline. MARCH 10TH: Jordan, who’d previously conceded to Zinser’s appointment, joins the protests, saying “the four demands are justified.” Protests receive endorsements from national unions and politicians. DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! MARCH 10TH: Zinser resigns. MARCH 11TH: 2,500 march on Capitol Hill, bearing a banner that says “We still have a dream.” MARCH 13: Spilman resigns, Jordan is announced president. Protesters receive no punishments, DPN is hailed as a success and one of the precursors to the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Many abled Black and brown activists I know remain ignorant of the fact that sick and disabled Black and brown people are doing critical organizing and cultural work on issues from protesting the police murders of Black and brown disabled people to not being killed off by eugenics, killer cops, and medical neglect, from fighting the end of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and the Americans with Disabilities Act to claiming the right to exist as we are.

A protected group or protected class is a group of people qualified for special protection by a law, policy, or similar authority. In the United States, the term is frequently used in connection with employees and employment. U.S. federal law protects individuals from discrimination or harassment based on the following nine protected classes: sex, race, age, disability, color, creed, national origin, religion, or genetic information (added in 2008). Many state laws also give certain protected groups special protection against harassment and discrimination, as do many employer policies. Although it is not required by federal law, state law and employer policies may also protect employees from harassment or discrimination based on marital status or sexual orientation. The following characteristics are "protected" by United States federal anti-discrimination law: Race – Civil Rights Act of 1964 Religion – Civil Rights Act of 1964 National origin – Civil Rights Act of 1964 Age (40 and over) – Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 Sex – Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Civil Rights Act of 1964 Sexual orientation and gender identity as of Bostock v. Clayton County – Civil Rights Act of 1964 Pregnancy – Pregnancy Discrimination Act Familial status – Civil Rights Act of 1968 Title VIII: Prohibits discrimination for having or not having children Disability status – Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Veteran status – Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act Genetic information – Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Individual states can and do create other classes for protection under state law.

Consider the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was intended to safeguard disabled workers from discrimination.