These three areas of concern, where PWDs experience persistent discrimination based on their disability, are referred to in the Act as

Title 1, Employment,

Title 2, City and State, and

Title 3, Public Accommodations.  

Since the Act was passed much progress has been made in the area of Title 3, public accommodations. That is, more and more stores, hotels, restaurants and theatres are bringing their establishments into compliance with the ADA.  

Persons with severe disabilities are 10 percent of the population. They include those who are blind, paralyzed, or have seizure disorders, spinal disease, as well as cognitive and mental disorders. That is one out of ten Americans. Seventy percent of those PWDs who want to work cannot find employment. Although the original intention of the ADA was to end this discrimination, that has not happened. After an initial good faith effort, things have got worse than ever.  

Progress has lagged in Title 2, and has gone backwards in Title 1, primarily due to a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings beginning in 1999, that make it difficult for PWDs to “prove” they are members of the “protected class.” These rulings support employers who argue that a PWD, whose disability is “controlled” by medication, or “mitigated” by a mechanical device is no longer disabled.

Thus a person with seizure disorder, i.e. epilepsy, may not be able to keep a job due to their disability, because the needed accommodation will not be provided. The court has ruled that they are not really disabled anymore, because their seizures are controlled by medication.

The Veterans Administration refuses service animals for persons with seizure disorders whose seizures are “controlled” by medication, using the same reasoning— breakthrough seizures are not common, so you don’t “need” a service animal.   Disability Employment Month

Here in Cambridge the Disability Commission holds an event in October that is supposed to shine a light on this problem. But I wonder if anyone has even heard about this annual event?

This year it was be held on Oct 17th, 12:00—2:00 pm, in the second floor conference room at City Hall Annex at 344 Broadway. This kind of effort, while nice, is not getting the results. I wonder if discrimination against folks based on color, religion or gender would have been brought to an end by such feeble efforts?  

The increasing concern and outcry of PWDs has been heard in Congress. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) and House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have introduced H.R. 6258, the Americans With Disabilities Act Restoration Act of 2006.Hoyer explained that “people with diabetes, heart conditions and cancer have had their ADA claims kicked out of court because, with improvements in medication, they are considered too functional to be considered disabled.’ This is not what Congress intended when it passed the ADA. We intended the law to be broadly— not narrowly—interpreted."

The main purpose of H.R. 6258,  is to restore the broadest protections intended by Congress when they originally passed the ADA, and which the U.S. Supreme Court has been chipping away at, with narrow interpretations, mainly based on a confusion between the language used in the original Act—“against an individual with a disability”—with the broader language “on the basis of a disability.”   Here in Cambridge we need more than a yearly event to mark October as Disability Employment Month. We need a committee to address the continued discrimination we face every day. We have been rebuffed in our efforts to be included in the City’s affirmative action efforts, and left out of the City’s unity actions. Until the City takes the lead, and includes PWDs in all levels of policy making, there is little hope that the prejudice and unfair exclusion and isolation we face will end any time soon.