For Immediate Release: January 12, 2004
Contacts: Jim Ward, ADA Watch/National Coalition
on Disability Rights, 202-661-4722
Statement of Jim Ward, Founder and President
ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights
Access to Justice Press Conference
January 12, 200
Access to justice is a fundamental right of all Americans. Today we call
on the Supreme Court to do its duty to protect that right for people with disabilities
by upholding Title II of the ADA. It’s outrageous that anyone should
be denied their dignity because a state like Tennessee fails to comply with
the ADA. It’s even more outrageous that some states would argue the law
never should have applied to them in the first place. The ADA is one of the
most important civil rights laws in the history of this country, but unless
it’s enforced, it might as well be just another piece of paper.
Recent rulings by the US Supreme Court have recognized the constitutional
rights of women and gay Americans; and upheld the use of affirmative action
to open the doors of opportunity for minorities. The court also rejected the
tired mantra of “States’ Rights” and instead affirmed the
constitutionality of the Family and Medical Leave Act. Despite these positive
rulings, and faced with Tennessee v. Lane before the court, there is great
concern in the disability rights community that Justices will rule to weaken
federal protections for citizens with disabilities.
Supporters of civil rights protections for people with disabilities again
find ourselves fighting battles we thought had been long won. While the passage
of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 promised a new era of
equal access and opportunity for all, recent years have brought a series of
weakening decisions from a divided Supreme Court. Ignoring the facts of these
cases – undeniable acts of discrimination and unfairness – the
conservative majority has instead relied on questionable interpretations of
the 11th Amendment to release states from their obligations under federal law.
In the federal courts, a study by a commission of the American Bar Association
last year found that employers prevailed in more than 94 percent of ADA cases.
The study concluded that the legal standards within the law were being interpreted
by the courts in ways that “still create obstacles for plaintiffs to
overcome.”
As if these legal obstacles were not enough, Tennessee v. Lane demonstrates
that almost 14 years after the passage of the ADA, American citizens with
disabilities are still being denied access to something so fundamentally
American as our courthouses. The humiliating treatment of George Lane, Beverly
Jones, and the other plaintiffs in this case is not being denied. Instead,
Tennessee officials have chosen to fight the law. Tennessee’s Attorney
General Paul Summers argues that the state is shielded from having to pay
damages under the ADA.
In deciding to appeal this case to the US Supreme Court, Summers has ignored
both the needs of Tennesseans with disabilities and the views of the American
people. Last
summer a Harris poll revealed that 88 percent of Americans support the
ADA's goal of making public places more accessible to people with
disabilities.
When President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act
into law, he declared that our nation “will not accept, we will not excuse,
we will not tolerate discrimination in America.” Today those words provide
little comfort as renegade states, and an ideologically-driven majority on
the Supreme Court, undermine the original intent of the President and Congress
that the ADA apply to the states.
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ADA Watch is a project of the National Coalition for Disability Rights,
an alliance of hundreds of disability, civil rights and social justice organizations
united to protect and promote the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). For
more information, please see www.adawatch.org.
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