New York State is being required to change its Protection and Advocacy system, but the Governor and Syracuse University want control instead of allowing it to be disability-led. We can’t let that happen.

Any organization can sign on by sending an email to [email protected]. Please indicate if the organization is based in New York, is a national organization, or is another state or local organization.

Background: The New York Times reported on the fact that the Protection and Advocacy (P&A) system in New York has functioned as a part of state government, and we have had wild abuses in our state’s institutions. The federal government has made it clear that this cannot continue and has told New York that it needs to designate an independent Protection and Advocacy entity.

The disability community supported a proposal by Disability Advocates, Inc. (DAI). They have a strong track record and are recognized for suing New York State over the institutionalization of people with mental health disabilities in adult homes. DAI has agreed to change their organizational structure and work with the disability community.

Syracuse University has also applied for these funds. Their proposal has some serious problems. [Read more…]

On October 17, the NCIL Mental Health Task Force wrote the Chief Officers of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We asked for an accounting of federal funds used for involuntary electroshock. Just like the resolution approved by the NCIL membership, our letter noted “the inherent danger in involuntary treatment in and of itself, as well as the many serious risks specific to electroshock.” Our CMS letter was acknowledged by Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator. We are waiting for a more complete response from both agencies.

Charlie Lakin, Administrator of the National Institutes for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) responded to NCIL’s concerns related to consumer input on its projects. Our work with NIDRR began with a fact sheet for Centers for Independent Living that was insulting to the values of our movement. The NIDRR project heavily edited the document to produce a better resource. In the process, we challenged NIDRR to do a better job with consumer input on its projects.  [Read more…]

People with disabilities have the right to vote!

Everyone needs to vote this year, including voters with mental disabilities. If you are a voter with a disability, you should know your rights. Knowing your rights will help make sure you can vote. Take this piece of paper with you when you go to vote so that you know what your rights are.

You can also show this to others if you run into any problems. This flyer tells lawyers and poll workers where to find the laws that protect your right to vote!

You do have the right to vote! If you are a person with a disability and understand what it means to vote, Federal law guarantees your right to vote.  [Read more…]

The purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) / Civil Rights Subcommittee is to educate and inform the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) membership of legislative and judicial developments that impact the rights of people with disabilities, and to develop appropriate and effective steps for the NCIL membership to implement in response.

The Subcommittee also develops and presents testimony regarding federal rulemaking efforts, and works in concert with the NCIL membership regarding changes to federal laws and regulations governing accessibility. The Subcommittee provides information on relevant issues to the NCIL membership through newsletter articles and action alerts. Ad hoc Working Groups, established by and working at the will of the NCIL President within the ADA / CR Subcommittee, focus on issues specifically brought forth by the NCIL membership, and follow Statements of Purpose of their own.  [Read more…]

by Mark Derry, Co-Chair, NCIL ADA / Civil Rights Subcommittee

A new goal of the NCIL ADA / Civil Rights Subcommittee is to have every Subcommittee member take an ADA Basics course. We think everyone should, but especially people working at a Center or SILC, or serving on the Subcommittee. I started the course myself last weekend and have re-learned (or I’d rather say, remembered) several things already that I can use regularly in my work. I have been working with the ADA for twenty years, but through this course I am getting a great refresher on the parts of the ADA I may not work with every day.

Those of us who have a particular interest in the ADA and work on ADA-related issues on a regular basis tend to gravitate to our favorite piece of the law. Some folks know a great deal about the employment provisions in Title I, while others (like this writer) get into the accessibility standards and the built environment. [Read more…]

By Janine Bertram Kemp, Independence Today

When Roland Sykes, DIMENET Internet guru and organizer par excellence, passed away in March 2008, his sister threw out all his papers and sold “The Big White Cloud,” the accessible bus that was his home.

The late Evan Kemp — who introduced President George H.W. Bush at the signing of the ADA, succeeded Deborah Kaplan at the Disability Rights Center and was the first person with a disability to chair the EEOC — had his papers thrown into a trash bin on the street.

The newly created ADA Legacy Project hopes to prevent scenes like those from occurring again. The project’s goal is to ensure that the tangible history of the disability rights movement is collected and remembered.

From Aug. 2nd to Aug. 4th, a diverse group of people with disabilities gathered at Shepherd Center in Atlanta to plan the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ADA, which was enacted in 1990. The mission evolved into the ADA Legacy Project. [Read more at Independence Today…]

On Thursday, September 27, the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency, released “Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children” — a groundbreaking policy study, infused with real life stories of parents with disabilities, to provide a comprehensive overview of factors that support and obstruct Americans with all kinds of disabilities from exercising their fundamental right to begin and maintain families.

“Twenty-two years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act with an increasing number of people with disabilities taking advantage of increased protections to receive an education and go to work, parents with disabilities continue to be the only distinct community that have to fight to retains – and sometimes gain – custody of their own children without cause,” said NCD Council Member, Ari Ne’eman.  [Read more…]

Patriots! Comrades! Fighters for freedom from oppression and the chains of perceived normalcy! This week we celebrate the signing of our civil rights law, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. We hold July 26th as the day in our disability rights history when change was celebrated, and progress toward empowerment of people with disabilities continued to increase through the recognition that we all have an intrinsic right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, hand-in-hand with all other Americans.

As members of the disability community, we have a unique ability, and therefore a unique responsibility, to lead the world toward a culture that empowers every individual to achieve his or her best possible quality of life. We have the responsibility to create a society based on the value that every human life is equally sacred and equally worthy of optimal personalized empowerment. An America for all. A world for all.

However, there are powerful politics of retreat at work that have increased measures of control in the Congress, the public media, and the public consciousness.  [Read more…]

Watch the live webcast (link may not become functional until the hearing begins).

On Wednesday, June 27, 2012, at 1:30 p.m., the House Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution will hold a hearing on H.R. 3356, the “ACCESS (ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Services) Act”. The hearing will take place in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

ACCESS (ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Services) Act of 2011:

Amends the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to prohibit an aggrieved person from commencing a civil action for discrimination based on the failure to remove a structural barrier to entry into an existing public accommodation unless the owner or operator of such accommodation: (1) is provided a written notice specific enough to identify such barrier; and (2) has, within specified time periods, either failed to provide the aggrieved person with a written description outlining improvements that will be made to remove such barrier or provided such description and failed to remove such barrier.  [Read more…]