Disability Rights
Status
According to the National Organization on Disabilities, more than 54 million Americans have disabilities. That means that 1 in every 5 Americans has some form of disability, effecting not only the disabled but their families and friends.In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, and this legislation remains at the center of the disability rights debate today.Recent Supreme Court rulings have limited the protections offered by the ADA, however, and the battle for equal opportunity continues.As Americans and as members of the Jewish community, we must continue our support for disability rights, by educating our communities, supporting disability rights legislation and demanding enforcement of existing legislation.We must also work to ensure our synagogues and communities are inclusive to those who live with disabilities.
Legislative Summary
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA)
According to the FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics Report, 43 disability-biased hate crimes were reported in 2003. Under current legislation, crimes motivated by bias against those with disabilities are not considered hate crimes. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would include disability among the groups covered by federal hate crime law.
For more information on HCPA, visit the RAC's Hate Crimes issue page.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed on July 26, 1990, and guarantees disabled individuals equal access to public buildings. In addition the ADA prohibits discrimination in employment, social services, education, and public accommodations. The ADA defines a disability as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such an individual; a record of such an impairment; or being regarded as having such an impairment."
The ADA is responsible for major changes in public accommodations, including but not limited to: the lowering of ATM machines, water fountains, and public telephones, the widening of doorways in public buildings, and the installation of ramps and chair lifts in public buildings to accommodate individuals requiring wheelchairs. It also called for the appearance of sign language interpreters at concerts, meetings, and government functions; and public TDD telephones to aid the deaf.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees every student the right to a "free and appropriate education." Enacted in 1974, the statute is reauthorized every 6 years. Under the IDEA, all students, including those with disabilities, are entitled to learn in a Least Restricted Environment (LRE). In order to achieve this environment, special needs students require an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), a contract drawn up between student, parent, and teacher which details the best course of education for the student.Perhaps, most importantly, the law provided states and school districts with federal funding to assist them in meeting the requirements of this legislation.
On December 3, 2004, President Bush signed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, which reauthorized the IDEA.This bill was signed with broad bipartisan support, but disability rights and education advocates continue to worry that IDEA appropriations fall short of the needs of school district, in effect creating an unfunded mandate.
The 1996 Welfare Law
Among the many changes introduced in the 1996 Welfare Reform Legislation (S. 1124) were changes to the eligibility requirements for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a benefit upon which many people with disabilities depend. The new law required the Social Security Administration to review 263,000 of the approximately one million children receiving SSI benefits. In 1997, Representatives E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL) and Jim McCrery (R-LA) conducted this study and concluded many of the disabled children receiving SSI did not need assistance. In response to Representatives’ Shaw and McCrery's study, the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) issued its own report on child SSI recipients. The CDF study suggested the Congressmen's study was an inaccurate reflection of the SSI program. For example, the Congressional study argues that 50% of the closed SSI cases should be for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), yet CDF notes that based on reports from Social Security Administration (SSA), ADHD children only constituted about 8% of the children receiving SSI benefits.
Nevertheless, in response to the congressional study, an estimated 135,000 children lost their benefits. In many cases the children affected were severely disabled and dependent on those benefits. Congressmen Shaw and McCrery maintain the children cut did not necessarily require assistance because their disabilities were not severe.Children who lost benefits received a second review only if they fit into one of three categories: children whose primary diagnosis is mental retardation, children who were not reviewed because of past failures to cooperate in the redetermination process, and children whose redeterminations may have been inaccurate, as determined by SSA. As a result of the second reviews, approximately 35,000 children originally expecting to lose their benefits were able to retain their SSI benefits.
The original welfare reform legislation expired in 2002, but it has been reauthorized on a temporary basis since then.The most recent extention will expire on March 31, 2005.Restoring SSI benefits to children with disabilities is one of many issues that advocates will be pressing during the reauthorization process.
For more information about welfare reform, visit the RAC’s Economic Justice Issue Page.
The President's New Freedom Initiative
On February 1, 2001, President Bush announced his New Freedom Initiative, which outlined the Administration’s plans for “tearing down the barriers to equality- facing Americans with disabilities." Disability rights groups were exicted by President Bush's plan, which promised to renewed our government's commitment to fulfilling the promise of full equality for Americans with disabilities and called for the federal government to take affirmative steps, including:
- Increasing access to assistive and universally designed technologies;
- Increasing funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA);
- Integrating Americans with disabilities into the workforce by enforcing the ADA, providing funding for transportation, and expanding telecommuting;
- Promoting homeownership for people with disabilities through vouchers;
- Creating a National Commission on Mental Health to study and make recommendations for improving America's mental health service delivery system; and
- Providing federal matching funds to organizations currently exempt from the ADA, including churches, mosques, synagogues and civic organizations.
Little action has been taken on initiative however, and buget cuts to social services have made increased funding for these programs virtually impossible.
Court Decisions
In 2002, Justice O’Connor suggested that the Supreme Court’s term would be remembered as the “disabilities act term” for the number of cases that the Court ruled on that came out of disputes over the Americans with Disabilities Act. While the law passed with broad bi-partisan support, its enforcement has been limited by court disputes that have interpreted the law’s jurisdictions and regulations more narrowly than disability rights advocates had hoped. In its most recent decision, Tennessee v. Lane, the Court renewed its commitment to equality for disabled Americans. Below are some highlights of the ADA legislation:
Garret v. University of Alabama
In 2000, the Supreme Court heard Garrett v. University of Alabama, which called into question the constitutionality of the ADA. Garrett was actually two consolidated employment discrimination cases filed against the state of Alabama. One involved a woman with breast cancer and the other involved a man with severe asthma. At issue was whether Congress had the Constitutional authority to enact the ADA. In October 2000, the Supreme Court, dealing a blow to disability rights, ruled that the Eleventh Amendment bars suits in federal courts by state employees seeking to recover money damages for discrimination in violation of Title II of the ADA. Title II declares that no qualified individual with a disability shall be excluded from the participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination by a public entity. The Supreme Court’s decision in Garrett undermines the ability of state employees to enforce their rights under the ADA.
US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett
In April 2002, in a 5-4 decision, the Court continued its trend of narrowing the reach of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by holding that a request for reassignment to keep an employee with a disability working would most likely be found unreasonable when it conflicts with the terms of an employer's seniority system. Important to note that in its previous five ADA cases involving the workplace, the Court ruled against the applicant or employee each time.
Tennesseev. Lane
On May 17, 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that disabled Americans deserve equal access and accommodation at government buildings, such as courthouses and schools, in all states. In a 5-4 decision, the court concluded states were not exempt from all the provisions of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), such as those requiring elevators or ramps in public facilities.
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said previous government efforts have failed to adequately remedy "a pattern of unequal treatment in the administration of a wide range of public services, programs, and activities, including the penal system, public education, and voting." The key swing vote for the majority was cast by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Position of the Reform Jewish Movement
Reform Movement Policy
The Union for Reform Judaism, the CCAR and the CSA have each passed several resolutions on the issue of disabilities. Most recently, the CSA passed a resolution in 1996 entitled "The Right to Public Education for Individuals With Disabilities," resolving to:
- Support the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA);
- Support discipline provisions and adequate funding for students, teachers and schools; and
- Work in conjunction with others to promote the educational rights of disabled children.
Other resolutions passed by the Union, CCAR and CSA include:
CCAR
Union of Reform Judaism
- Disabled Persons
Adopted by the URJ 56th General Assembly, December 1981, Boston, Massachusetts
- The Disabled
Adopted by the URJ Board of Trustees, June 1978, New York
Lehiyot
In 1989, the URJ created a project entitled Lehiyot ("to be"), detailing how to make synagogues accessible to those with disabilities. It provides congregations with materials on how to modify synagogues and services to be more sensitive to the needs of the disabled members of congregations. The four basic goals are:
- to encourage accessibility of activities to the disabled;
- to educate congregations about and sensitize them to disabilities;
- to provide education about disabilities to Hebrew schools, helping them to develop more of an awareness to those with disabilities; and
- to provide member congregations with guidelines by which they can be certified as having accepted the Lehiyot goals.
Disability Rights and Jewish Values
Historically Jews have reached out to help facilitate the full participation of individuals with disabilities in religious and public life. Judaism teaches, "You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind," (Leviticus 19:14). The Reform Movement has taken considerable steps to ensure that Jewish learning and worship are accessible to individuals with special needs, that disability awareness is included in religious school curriculums and that the structure of synagogues accommodates those members with special needs.
