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Evan J. Kemp, Jr., a leading disability rights activist who rolled comfortably through the corridors of power as well as on the picket lines with in-your-face activists, died in Washington, DC, in August at the age of 60.
Appointed by President Reagan in 1987 as an EEOC commissioner, Kemp was promoted to chairman of the agency in 1990 by President Bush. (Kemp was the cover story in MAINSTREAM in November, 1991.)
Before leaving the EEOC in 1993, he worked on proposals giving disabled workers the same protections minorities and women receive under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He also worked on legislation requiring employers to make workplaces accessible.
Earlier, Kemp spent eight years as executive director of the Ralph Nader- sponsored Disability Rights Center.
As a child, Kemp was misdiagnosed with a progressive neuromuscular disease with no known cure and was told he would not live past age 14. He graduated from Washington & Lee University in 1959 and later graduated from the University of Virginia law school.
Evan was a leader in the struggle to destroy negative stereotypes such as those fostered by the MDA Telethon with Jerry Lewis. He was among the earliest and most prominent disability leaders to challenge the smarmy Lewis Labor Day extravaganza. Lewis bitterly attacked Kemp and even tried to get President Bush to fire Evan from the chairmanship of EEOC. Lewis failed.
Since leaving office, Kemp became a tireless advocate, most recently joining the barricades with Not Dead Yet in the struggle against physician-assisted suicide.
After his death, the community gathered in Washington to celebrate his life. We are left with a profound sense of great loss. We will miss him greatly.
He is survived by his wife, Janine Bertram of Washington, his mother and a sister.
We've all seen the flashes of people in wheelchairs in those print ads and a few television commercials that acknowledge the existence of people with disabilities. Levis, Northwest Airlines, Bank of America, Target Stores, to name a few. Such ads are uncommon enough that the advertisers reap a lot of kudos from the community.
Here's a new twist: a manufacturer of products for people with disabilities is advertising in national mainstream media.
New Halls Wheels, which produces wheelchairs and racing chairs, has launched a striking campaign that features full-page ads in magazines such as GQ, Details, and Glamour.
The ads, produced by the ad agency Fallon, McElligott and Berlin and photographed by renowned celebrity photographer Annie Liebowitz, show people with disabilities using New Halls Wheels chairs.
The strategy, says Bob Hall, president of New Halls Wheels, is to market the chairs by celebrating people. The first three ads show David Bailey, an ESPN commentator and designer for No Fear clothing; Christine Griffin, executive director of the Boston Law Center; and Wynn Newhouse, vice president of New Halls Wheels.
Just about everyone knows someone with a disability, Hall says. "So it makes sense to reach them through mainstream magazines like GQ, Details and Glamour."
Boston University used "uninformed stereotypes about the learning disabled" and violated federal laws when it refused to accommodate the academic needs of such students and forced them to undergo further evaluations, a federal judge ruled.
The school must re-examine its learning disabled policies and pay six learning disabled students a total of $30,000 for treating them as "lazy" learners who could handle the normal course load "if they try hard enough," U.S. District Judge Patti Saris said.
Saris ordered BU to stop forcing learning-disabled students to undergo additional tests that certify their disabilities.
The judge also ordered BU to reevaluate its policy of prohibiting exemptions from foreign language requirements for the learning disabled.
"It's a resounding victory for the students," plaintiff attorney Bill Ahern said. He called the decision a "total condemnation" of the university leadership.
Plaintiff attorney Sid Wolinsky called the judge's decision "a ringing denunciation on the reliance of myths and stereotypes of people with disabilities." (See The Litigators)
The decision could have far-reaching implications for universities across the country wrestling with the ADA, officials said.
But Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 colleges and universities nationwide, said, "This is an extraordinarily unique set of circumstances unlikely to be replicated at any other university."
The actions ordered by BU's then-Provost and current President Jon Westling during the 1995-96 school year were designed to curb abuses in the diagnoses of students with learning disabilities.
The judge also took Westling to task for creating a fictional character known as "Somnolent Samantha," a learning-disabled freshman who needed extra help because she fell asleep in class.
"Somnolent Samantha represented Westling's belief þ fueled mostly by popular press and anecdotal accounts þ that students with learning disabilities were often fakers who undercut academic rigor," Saris wrote.
BU Chancellor John Silber has been quoted as saying that some students diagnosed with learning disabilities were really suffering from what "used to be called stupidity."
The judge, however, said there was not a single case in which a BU student was found to have been faking a learning disability.
The county attorney in Magnolia, Arkansas says it may take a year to resolve a dispute over whether to use a lift or a ramp to make the courthouse accessible to people with disabilities.
Susan and Stephen Keith have appealed a federal judge's order in their favor. They're appealing because the order allows for the installation of a lift when the Keiths say a ramp would be better.
"Basically it puts us on hold from being able to bring the outside of the courthouse into compliance," County Attorney Becky Jones said. "Until we have a judge tell us whether or not to build a lift or a ramp, we can't do anything. It could take as much as a year (to resolve the dispute)."
Stephen Keith said the ramp was necessary for his son and others who are unable to operate lifts. The couple contends a lift could malfunction or be inconvenient if a key were used and a lift operator was in charge of the key.
Chris Pendergast paced outside the Food and Drug Administration building in Washington, DC, holding photographs of compatriots who have Lou Gehrig's disease. Suddenly, his weakened legs collapsed and he rolled into the busy highway.
Shaken, the Long Island, New York man struggled to his feet and promised that his tiny band of protesters, many in wheelchairs, would continue pushing the government to approve an unproven therapy for their disease.
"One day I'm going to be chained to that door," Pendergast threatened, pointing to where FDA scientists debated the drug called Myotrophin. "It's the politics of power, and we have been powerless for too long."
They hope the pressure of desperate people will spur the FDA to approve Myotrophin, a drug that so far lacks clear proof that it helps. Myotrophin is a genetically engineered growth factor thought to help nerve cells survive and thus slow paralysis.
The first neuro-prosthesis approved by the Federal Food & Drug Administration to restore movement to a paralyzed limb is now available.
Testing of 61 quadriplegics found they all performed tasks of daily living significantly better with the implanted device, called Freehand, which was developed in 25 years of testing at Case Western Reserve University.
"I looked at this as a way to add more quality to my life," said Eric Schremp, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, who tested the implant last year. The implant has restored movement to Schremp's paralyzed hand, allowing him to shave, feed himself, even take notes in his college classes.
"Plus, it adds confidence that you're able to pick up a glass in public, do normal things."
The implant by NeuroControl Corp. of Cleveland might possibly help about 54,000 U.S. quadriplegics who retain some upper-body movement but cannot move their hands. The Freehand's implanted electrodes send electric impulses to muscles that cause the hand to move on command.
The FDA says the $50,000 implant promises to be the first in a line of increasingly sophisticated devices to enable paralyzed limbs to work again.
Freehand is designed for quadriplegics who can still move their shoulders, a motion needed to operate the implant.
In clinical testing, 20 percent of the patients required additional surgery to reposition the device, replace broken electrodes or remove electrodes because of infection. Other side effects included swelling and skin irritation at the implant site.
When Doug Blevins was 9, he dreamed like many football-loving youngsters of one day making it to the NFL. There was just one problem -- he had cerebral palsy.
Despite everyone telling him he can't, he shouldn't, he wouldn't, Blevins is in the NFL. Despite never teeing up a football, he is a Miami Dolphins kicking coach, a job he does from a wheelchair.
"I think it works in my benefit that I never was a kicker," Blevins said. "I'm not passing on something simple that worked for me but won't work for anyone else."
Blevins focuses on the mechanics, the science of the kicking game.
Last season, he analyzed film of kickers for the New England Patriots. Miami coach Jimmy Johnson, impressed by Blevins' reports, hired him in hopes of straightening out a hook in place kicker Joe Nedney's field goal attempts.
"I had heard about Doug -- that he was a good kicking coach. What I didn't know was that he was in a wheelchair," Johnson said.
When the Dolphins coach learned Blevins had cerebral palsy he still wanted to give him a chance. Johnson was concerned, though, about Blevins mobility on the practice field.
"I said, `Let's get him down here for a few games and see if he can get around. Let's see if it's a problem.' It wasn't," Johnson said.
Blevins uses a motorized wheelchair and can be seen at many Dolphins' practices, moving around the players, giving instructions.
"He's a good teacher. That's why I hired him. Already I see a big difference," Johnson said.
Two men were indicted in Mexico City for operating a deaf-mute exploitation scheme in New York, and two of their purported victims say they want the pair jailed for life.
The charges in Mexico come one day after a federal grand jury in New York indicted 20 people for allegedly smuggling deaf Mexicans into the United States and forcing them to peddle trinkets on subways.
One deaf man who claims he was corralled into the scheme, 23-year-old Alfonso Juarez, said in the Mexican capital that he hoped Jose "Pepe" Paoletti, one of the alleged ringleaders indicted in Mexico, would never again see the outside of a prison. "Let him stay there for his whole life. Make him give us our money back," the 23-year-old Juarez said using sign language. Paoletti cheated him out of $3,000, he said.
Jose Paoletti and his son, Renato, were in jail in Mexico City charged with immigrant trafficking and criminal association, and may be handed over to U.S. authorities after they have served any Mexican sentences, the attorney general's office said.
A cab driver in Reno, Nevada was fired for refusing a ride to a blind person because he didn't want a guide dog in his taxi.
Donald L. Drake, president of Baker and Drake Yellow Cab in Reno, said the driver violated federal and state laws requiring public transportation to accommodate people with service animals.
Howard Boteilho of San Francisco, who was in town for a Blinded Veterans Association of America convention at the Sands Regency, was left at the curb along with his wife, Lois, by the driver.
"We offer our apologies to the Boteilhos and all blind persons for this illegal act on the part of our driver," Drake said.
All his cabbies have been told of the requirements of the federal ADA and Nevada state law, he said.
The driver, an independent contractor who leases his car from Baker and Drake, was fired for breaching his lease.
It's going to get easier for visually impaired passengers to complain about New York taxi drivers that take them for a ride.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission said new braille and raised-letter signs explaining the complaint procedure will be posted in more than 12,000 taxis by October 1.
Visually impaired passengers have complained to the commission that drivers took them on winding routes to run up fares or handed them blank pieces of paper instead of receipts.
The new signs will help others who want to complain, and could give unscrupulous drivers second thoughts. The signs will display the taxi's medallion number, the word "complaints" and a customer service hotline number. They will be posted behind the front passenger seat and on the back seat's right armrest.
When she was 10, Amanda Wilson was losing her sight, and tests at the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon labeled her "borderline retarded."
"I told them I wanted to work with children," she remembers. "And they said, `You can't do that."'
Neither she nor her father, Don Wilson, ever accepted the evaluations of experts regarding her potential.
"I'm red-headed and hard-willed and stubborn," Don Wilson said. "And we always said, we don't really care what the experts say. This is what we're going to do."
Recently, Ms. Wilson, 28 and nearly totally blind, was awarded her master's degree in special education from the State University of West Georgia in Carrollton. With honors.
She still plans to work with children.
Indiana Attorney General Jeffrey Modisett asked the Indiana Medical Licensing Board to discipline a former state prison physician who denied treatment to an inmate who later died.
Modisett said Dr. Keith Ivens' failure to treat Robert Dugger II, a retarded inmate who died hours after Ivens refused him emergency dialysis in October 1996, shows that he is unfit to practice medicine.
"We have charged Dr. Keith Ivens with failing to exercise reasonable care and diligence in the treatment of a patient and continuing to practice medicine although he is unfit due to professional incompetence and failure to keep abreast of professional theory and practice," Modisett said in a statement.
His complaint asks the board to impose appropriate discipline against Ivens, who was a physician at the Plainfield Correctional Facility from August 1995 until May 1997, when he resigned.
Dugger, 37, suffered from hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease, and had a history of refusing treatment.
Ivens ignored a nurse's pleas that Dugger receive emergency dialysis at Wishard Memorial Hospital in Indianapolis and told her to "send the inmate to the hospital when he passes out," Modisett's complaint says.
In a setback for advocates of disability rights, a federal appeals court has reversed a Texas judge's landmark application of a federal law to state voting rights.
The 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals struck down a class action lawsuit by five visually impaired and one mobility-impaired El Paso County residents against Texas Secretary of State Tony Garza.
U.S. District Judge David Briones' 1995 ruling that blind and disabled voters have the right to access voting booths and vote in privacy had made Texas the first to apply the Americans with Disabilities Act to voting rights, advocates said.
But the appeals court ruled that Garza had no duty under either state law or the 1990 ADA to ensure that local election officials comply with the act. The court also said the class-action certification was improper.
Jim Harrington of Austin, legal director of the Texas Civil Rights Project and an attorney in the case, said the disability standards still apply to local election officials in El Paso and to the state's 253 other counties.
Eight employees who have disabilities sued US Airways in Pittsburgh, claiming the company discriminated against them in part by allowing signs marking their work area as "USAir's crip shop."
USAir is the former corporate name of US Airways.
The eight employees asked that the lawsuit be declared a class-action, claiming that US Airways has a policy of segregating workers with mental and physical disabilities from other workers.
The eight claim they were forced to work easy jobs such as separating nuts from bolts in an area called the "rubber room" by management.
The employees also say that because of their disabilities, they were not allowed to work overtime.
Associated Press reports were used compiling this column.