News &
Advocacy in Disability Rights
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News &
Advocacy in Disability Rights |
The following reports originate from a variety of sources, including the Associated Press. We're always on the lookout for news of interest. Send us news and if we use it here we'll send you a `Piss on Pity' button. Use the eMail below.
Casey Martin swings to the fore Grocery sued Judge suspended Justice under fire Tech funding Couple abused Minority labels Teacehr's pet Cops charged Special ed squeeze Vermont poor Housing suit ADA in jail Bow wow! Unkind cuts Tapping potential
It did not take the federal judge in Eugene, Oregon long to rule that golfer Casey Martin should be allowed to use a golf cart in tournament play run by the PGA. Martin plays on the Nike Tour, a level below the top PGA Tour. Using a golf cart earlier this year under court order, Martin won a tournament in Florida. He's good.
The PGA fought hard, but its arguments were weak, despite the support from golfing traditionalists and current tour players.
So now Casey Martin can play, using a cart. He can be invited to play in PGA Tour events, and can earn his way on to the big tour by winning two more Nike events this year.
This case continues to spark sharp debate (see also William G. Stothers column). And a lot of people are watching Martin. If he wins on the course, they'll probably say it's because he has an unfair advantage. If he loses, then they'll probably say it's because he has a disability and should not have been allowed to compete. So it goes.
A mentally disabled worker filed a $10 million lawsuit against a regional grocery store chain, alleging co-workers and managers repeatedly called him "monkey boy."
Employees at Smith's Food and Drug Centers made fun of 21-year-old James Wells to his face, over the intercom and on printed work schedules, his lawyer Brad Parker said in Salt Lake City.
"It made me feel bad," Wells said in an interview. "I complained about it a couple times. But one of the guys told me `harassment was mandatory."'
Wells said his 19-year-old sister, Danielle, once went with him to ask that the name-calling stop. She said nothing changed after she confronted one of the managers at the store where her brother worked in suburban Sandy.
"He just said they weren't going to stop," she said.
Wells has an IQ of 64. He took a job as a bagger at Smith's in July 1994 because it was close enough to home that he could ride his bicycle.
Wells left the store last November when he could no longer stand the ridicule, Parker said. He is now unemployed and living with his parents while seeking training for another kind of job.
A state judicial panel suspended Alabama's only blind judge for failing to keep his docket up to date and trying to block testimony he feared would show how poorly he ran his office.
The State Court of the Judiciary also censured Circuit Judge Tony Cothren for sleeping on the bench but did not issue sanctions on that count because of undisputed evidence that he suffers from a sleep disorder.
Cothren, 48, appointed by Gov. Fob James in April 1996 to a new judgeship, was suspended with pay until June 30 and without pay for the remainder of his appointed term, which ends in January 1999.
Cothren had no comment and was expressionless immediately after the ruling. A few minutes later, he could be heard saying softly to two of his staff members: "They didn't believe me."
His attorney, Al Agricola, said he was not yet sure whether Cothren would appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.
Over the years, we have published reports of ADA cases settled by the Department of Justice.
Now DOJ has been accused of failing to enforce the ADA, filing only three ADA lawsuits that have set legal precedent. In a special edition, Mouth magazine details a long investigation of the Disability Rights Section of DOJ. Mouth says that in six years of enforcement, DOJ brought only one ADA case to trial and judgment. Between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 1997, Mouth says DOJ opened 6,339 ADA cases, filing suit in four. And 5,525 cases were still open and unresolved on January 1, 1998.
Worse, Mouth says, the Disability Rights section itself is not accessible and has no non-disabled managers. John Wodatch, chief of the section, represented the federal Health, Education and Welfare department in 1976 in fighting implementation of Section 504 of the Rehab Act. He lost. Now he's in charge of enforcing 504 as well as ADA and other federal disability laws. One anonymous DOJ source is quoted as saying that if the future of the ADA is in Wodatch's hands "it doesn't have a prayer."
Complementing the Mouth report, the Ragged Edge (formerly The Disability Rag) published a series of stories on DOJ, leading with a piece on a wheelchair user who died from injuries received when his power chair tipped over on the threshold of a coffee shop. Under the ADA, the entrance should have had no barriers.
These reports are deeply troubling. We've always believed that the disability community must be vigilant and aggressive in achieving enforcement of disability rights statutes. We've always believed people with disabilities have to take the lead in pushing compliance in our own communities. If we have to push DOJ too, so be it.
At press time, we were unable to contact Liz Savage, the Disability Rights Section's liaison with the disability community, for reaction to these reports.
To get copies of the Mouth, send $5 to 61 Brighton St., Rochester, NY 14607-2656. To get the Ragged Edge, $5 to P.O. Box 145, Louisville, KY 40201.
The Utah Senate Human Services Committee endorsed a bill to put $500,000 in state funds toward financing communication devices for the disabled.
Senate Bill 123, sponsored by Sen. Nathan C. Tanner, R-Ogden, would help fund devices such as Braille computers for the blind and computers that speak for people who cannot communicate. Proponents said it would encourage more independent living for the disabled.
The greatest barrier keeping people from using "assisted technology" is the cost.
Advocates for the disabled testified that many who could benefit from the latest in communications technology depend on Supplemental Security Income and could not afford the expense of, for instance, a Braille laptop computer, which can cost almost $10,000.
A mentally disabled couple was kept alive on cat food in a locked, unheated room, police said.
Dale Allman, 29, and Renee Allman, 24, of Charleston, West Virginia, have been charged with intentionally abusing and neglecting a mentally disabled woman and for beating her husband.
Police were alerted of the abuse after James Null, 55, was taken to Thomas Memorial Hospital in South Charleston with cuts and bruises.
Null told authorities he had been beaten with a belt. Null is being treated for the wounds, hypothermia and malnutrition. Police said the couple's regular diet consisted of cat food that was sometimes mixed with other foods.
The Allmans told police Null and is wife, Marietta, were kept in an unheated room with only a metal bucket to defecate in, a criminal report stated. They also admitted to putting locks on the food pantry to keep the Nulls out.
Marietta Null was removed from the house by the state Department of Health and Human Resources. Police are investigating whether the Allmans also physically abused Marietta Null and if the mentally disabled couple's benefit checks were stolen from them.
Minority students in special education are tagged more readily with labels that usher them into other schools compared to white students in Connecticut, according to a report given to lawmakers in Hartford.
Black and Hispanic females are labeled "mentally retarded," and black and Hispanic boys labeled "socially or emotionally maladjusted" far more often than their white counterparts, said the study presented by Thomas Nerney, a national expert on special education.
"What you do have here is incredible institutional bias," said Nerney, co-director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's "Self-Determination for Persons with Developmental Disabilities" program. Nerney and those who sponsored his report on the 1994-1995 school year are advocates of keeping children in normal classrooms rather than sending them to specialized schools.
The report said minority children receive labels for their disabilities that tend to place them out of their home districts for classes. Opponents of that process said the labels only serve to lower students' self-esteem, provide them with lower expectations, and ultimately cost more.
Lorrie Stillo's first-grade pupils learn more than just reading, writing and arithmetic. They also have a chance to learn how a blind person copes with daily life.
Stillo, who is legally blind, gets about with the help of her pet retriever Axil, who is a favorite among her 18 pupils.
Axil helps guide Stillo, 28, around the hallways of Fairhope Elementary School in Louisville, a community of about 8,000 located five miles east of Canton.
And if Axil can't report on misbehavior in the back of the classroom, how does Stillo keep track of it? She listens closely for voices and motion. "They're also great tattlers," she said.
Ms. Stillo can see about two feet in front of her and can distinguish movement, bright colors and light. She lost most of her vision in a two-month period when she was 19 because of uveitis, an inflammation of the uvea behind the lens of the eye.
Stillo was rejected by more than 25 school districts before landing a part-time job in Louisville last year. When a full-time job became available in October, she applied and was accepted.
"I told them over the phone" about the limited vision, Stillo said. "They said, `That's fine.' I didn't expect much."
"She came extremely well-recommended," said Michele Shaffer, principal of Fairhope. "The fact that she had a guide dog never entered my mind." Stillo held an assembly for the entire school to familiarize youngsters with Axil and talk about understanding blindness. One session involved wearing sunglasses with the lights out.
A federal civil rights lawsuit involving the arrest and beating of a retarded teen-ager has been amended to include five St. Louis police officers.
The original lawsuit, filed in June, sought unspecified actual and punitive damages against the St. Louis Police Board and Sgt. Thomas Moran. Plaintiffs filed an amended petition recently that also names officers Richard Booker Jr., Michael Scego, Terrence Dupree, Thomas Whyte and Barry Greene.
The lawsuit was filed by the family of Gregory Bell, 19, who suffered head cuts, facial bruises and a fractured ankle after officers arrived at his home last April and mistook him for a burglar.
Police said Bell began fighting with them when they tried to handcuff him. Officers said Bell, who has the mental abilities of a 7-year-old, had difficulty communicating to them that he lived there.
The civil lawsuit alleges that Moran, Booker and Scego used unnecessary force by beating Bell after he had already been subdued. It also alleges that Dupree, Whyte and Greene stood by and did nothing to prevent the unnecessary beating.
The proposed federal education budget for 1999 would give less than a 1 percent increase to special education programs for millions of disabled children despite an overall spending increase of more than 10 percent and new programs to hire teachers and build schools.
The tiny increase in grants and other aid to carry out the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act prompted complaints from Republican members of Congress and advocacy groups.
Republican lawmakers say IDEA typifies federal laws that require billions of dollars of state and local spending. Federal taxpayers pay about 9 percent of the cost of the law despite legislative authority to pay 40 percent. GOP lawmakers have already proposed a $9.3 billion increase in IDEA spending over six years, and Congress last year voted to spend more than the administration had proposed.
Clinton's budget seeks just $23 million more, an increase of 0.5 percent, for a 1999 total of $4.6 billion.
"We know that it will remain a huge unfunded mandate to the states and local school districts until we boost funding for it," said Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Pa., chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Advocates say a 1997 rewrite of the law created additional requirements that will make carrying out IDEA even more expensive.
"In essence, the Clinton administration has sacrificed special education to promote its new education initiatives," said Joseph Ballard, director of public policy at the Council for Exceptional Children, an advocacy group.
Some small towns around Vermont are finding it difficult to comply with the ADA. Many find that renovating their municipal office buildings or public libraries is expensive. And some also worry that any construction work will ruin their historic appearance.
It is an issue that West Rutland voters will face on Town Meeting Day, when they will be asked to approve spending $7,000 to study how to renovate Town Hall and the West Rutland Free Library. Organizers of a petition drive that placed the question on the ballot acknowledge that the amount of money would not be enough to cover the cost of an architect.
But the real question, they say, is whether residents are committed to working toward making government buildings accessible. Communities need activists to continue raising the issue before they are likely to set aside money to comply with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, according to those involved in it.
"If there is an awareness, those issues get dealt with. How hard people push determines how fast things get done," said David Sagi, ADA coordinator for the state Aging and Disabilities Department.
The owner of an apartment complex in Jemison, Alabama and a Montgomery builder agreed to a $110,000 settlement of a housing discrimination suit filed by a disabled woman whose landlord refused to move her into a wheelchair-accessible unit.
The settlement calls for $50,000 to be paid to the woman, who was not identified, and an estimated $60,000 to be spent to remodel more units in the apartment complex to make them accessible to wheelchair residents.
The settlement was reached with apartment owner Caton Properties, Inc., of Jemison and the builder, Parker, Prescott & Payton Builders, Inc., of Montgomery.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the woman was told in April 1995 when she moved into the apartment that a ramp would be built for her and she would be transferred to one of the two units in the 24-unit complex that were wheelchair-accessible.
The woman complained to the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center in Montgomery in August 1996 that no ramp was ever built and she was denied a transfer when wheelchair-accessible units became available, with able-bodied people moving into them instead of her.
She said she was unable to enter the only bathroom in her apartment, making her dependent on her two teenage daughters to help her meet personal hygiene needs outside the bathroom.
She also said the lack of a ramp required her to roll her wheelchair over a dirt and grass incline to reach the parking lot, with her wheelchair tipping over on several occasions and in some instances she had to wait for someone to find and help her.
The Fair Housing Act bars discrimination on account of disability, race, color, religion, sex, family status and national origin. Most apartment complexes and condominiums built after March 13, 1991 þ as the Jemison complex was þ are required to be built so that all apartments on the ground floor are wheelchair-accessible, along with apartments on upper floors where there are elevators, the agency said.
In a case closely watched by Arizona and other states, Pennsylvania is preparing to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that the ADA does not apply to state prisons.
Paul Tufano, general counsel to Gov. Tom Ridge, is expected to appear before the high court sometime in April.
Twenty-six states and Guam had petitioned the court urging that Pennsylvania's case be heard, said Tufano. He believes even more states will file "friend of the court" briefs in support of the administration's position.
"It's an important case for state correctional management folks around the country," Tufano said. "It's federal intrusion into what is probably the most core function of state government and that's running its prisons."
The case before the U.S. Supreme Court stems from a 1994 lawsuit filed against Pennsylvania and its Department of Corrections by an inmate at Camp Hill State Prison. Ronald R. Yeskey claimed prison officials illegally refused to admit him into the Quehanna Motivational Boot Camp in remote north-central Pennsylvania because of his hypertension. He said his disability qualified him for the program under ADA.
Yeskey had been sentenced to 18 to 36 months after pleading guilty to a charge of driving while under the influence of alcohol and other misdemeanors.
The Justice Department began informing the states nearly four years ago through policy memorandums that ADA applies to operations and programs in state prisons, Smith said.
Several courts, including ones covering California, Arizona, Idaho, Delaware and Alaska, have ruled the ADA does apply to state prisons, and only one, in Virginia, has said the law does not, he said.
The Heska Corp., a veterinary pharmaceutical company in Colorado, announced a new program, Partners Care, to help maintain the partnership between people with disabilities and their guide, hearing and service dogs. Heska committed to the pilot program at the urging of the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners. Heska will work with vets to help low-income members of IAADP members take care of their dogs' health.
A federal jury in San Antonio, Texas awarded $100,000 to a man who testified his employer made him relieve himself on the floor rather than provide a bathroom with wheelchair access.
"I have been fighting this for three years, and today is the day," said Joe Villarreal, 38, who had sued his former employer, Rios Golden Cuts, Inc.
Rios Golden Cuts officials said Villarreal never asked to work at a salon with a wheelchair-accessible bathroom. But Villarreal testified that when he went to work for the hair salon chain as a receptionist in March 1995, he requested that he be placed in a store with a bathroom accessible to people in wheelchairs.
Though many of the company's nearly 50 salons had accessible bathrooms, he said, he was placed at a store without one. Villarreal testified he had to go to a break and supply room, throw himself forward out of his wheelchair, disrobe and relieve himself on a diaper on the floor. Several times employees walked in on him and laughed at him, he said.
"Tapping worker potential through technology" is the theme of this year's conference of the President's Committee on Employment of Persons with Disabilities in New Orleans on May 6-7. In addition to technology, the meeting will focus on telecommunications, the ADA, and workers' compensation. A job fair for persons with disabilities will follow the conference.
Associated Press reports were used compiling this column.
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