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History essay on disability rights
Essay on the history of disability
History essay on disability rights
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The path to enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the history of the disability rights movement and its struggle to attain a better chance for equality not unlike other minority groups. The Disability community came to realize that the problem they were fighting was discrimination. The Disability community came face to face with some of the same problems and challenges that every individual who is in the minority faces. However, a disabled individual was not considered to be in a minority therefore could not be afforded the protections under the Civil Rights Act. A growing sense of unrest or change in mood galvanized and empowered the Disability community to fight for its civil rights. Federal laws that were enacted prior to the ADA gave precedent for giving disabled individuals rights as a minority group under the Civil Right Act of 1964 such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Fair Housing Act of 1988. The 60’s, 70’s and 80’s was a period of growth for the Disability movement building its way to comprehensive disability rights legislation in incremental steps.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs to assist the aged and people with disabilities. The thinking concerning programs like SSI and SSDI near the time of enactment of the ADA was that these programs created “disincentives” for the disabled to enter into the workforce (NCD). In fact in administrations beginning with President Nixon’s administration programs were targeted such as these for deregulation. President Nixon vetoed the Rehabilitation Act in 1972 and signed a weaker version of the Rehabilitation Act in 1973. It took until 1978 in the ...
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Gale Document Number: GALE|CX2687400149
“H.R. 2273--101st Congress: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.” www.GovTrack.us. 1989. December 1, 2013 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/hr2273
“S. 933--101st Congress: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.” www.GovTrack.us. 1989. December 1, 2013 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/s933
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and Labor. Legislative History of Public Law 101-336, the Americans With Disabilities Act: Prepared for the Committee On Education And Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, Second Session. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1990.
The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation
By Doris Zames Fleischer, Frieda Zames
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination based upon their disability (Bennett-Alexander, 2001). The protection extends to discrimination in a broad range of activities, including public services, public accommodations and employment. The ADA's ban against disability discrimination applies to both private and public employers in the United States.
Baynton, Douglas. "Disability and Justification of Inequality in American History." The New Disability History. New York: New York University Press, 2001. 285-294. Print.
The movement continues to make great strides towards the empowerment and self determination ("Disability rights movement," 2005, p. 3). On the other hand, it has not completely broken down barriers that continue to create the dynamics of oppression among such individuals. For instance, WIOA can be harmful to individuals with disabilities because there are still societal prejudices and biases associated with the stereotypical portrayal of people with disabilities and WIOA has played a role in it. For example, WIOA networks with employers to hire individual’s with disabilities and place them in conventional settings, where they work with others who have disabilities, for example, Walgreen’s and in fact, these participating organizations have also increased their pay. In my opinion, individual’s with disabilities should be able to work with individuals who are not disabled, as well. Furthermore, pay for those individuals who are still considered to be in “sheltered” work programs have not received an increase in pay. Additionally, according to my studies, in 2012, less than 30 percent of Florida’s civilians with disabilities between age 18-64 living in the community were employed. There is a greater priority focused on young people who are disabled. This is an additional issue in my opinion which can be considered discrimination, because, the focus leaves out middle aged individuals as well as,
“H.R. 1--103rd Congress: Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.” www.GovTrack.us. 1993. February 9, 2014
"The Americans With Disabilities Act is one of the most significant laws in American History. The preamble to the law states that it covers 43,000,000 Americans."(Frierson, p.3) Before the Americans With Disabilities Act(A.D.A.) was passed, employers were able to deny employment to a disabled worker, simply because he or she was disabled. With no other reason other than the persons physical disability were they turned away or released from a job. The Americans With Disabilities Act prevented this type of discrimination by establishing rules and regulations designed to protect persons with physical disabilities. With a workforce made up of 43,000,000 people, it is impossible to ignore the impact of these people. The Americans With Disabilities Act not only opened the door for millions of Americans to get back into the workplace, it is paving the road for new facilities in the workplace, new training programs and creating jobs designed for a disabled society.
The Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 set out to end the discrimination people with disabilities encounter. The Act gave disabled people the right to employment, access to goods, facilities, and services and the right to buy and rent land and property. These rights came into force in December 1996, making treating a disabled person less favorably than an able-bodied person unlawful. Further rights came into force in October 1999, including the idea that service providers should consider making reasonable adjustments to the way they deliver their services so that people with a disability can use them. (The DDA...) However, despite these
The Americans with Disability Act of 1990 (ADA) was put into force to protect employees from discrimination with disabilities in the area of employment. A person with a disability can be defined under the ADA as someone who has a physical or mental impairment which considerably limits one or more of major life activities. “It has been estimated that nearly one in five Americans has one or more physical or mental disabilities”(law book pg115). The ADA federal law requires that employers with 15 or more employees not to discriminate against applicants and current employees with disabilities and, when needed, provide reasonable accommodations to these individuals who are more than qualified to work. These individuals are protected in regard to the application process, hiring, advancement, firing, compensation/benefits, training or other privileges of employment. If an individual is requesting accommodation due to a disability and can be reasonably accommodated without creating an undue hardship or causing a direct threat to workspace safety must be given the same consideration for employment as any other applicant. An employer is not obligated to hire anyone that is not qualifies to what is considered the essential functions of the job according to the ADA. An accommodation under the ADA must allow the employee enjoy equal benefits, given an equal opportunity for the person with the disability to be considered for the job and to perform the essential functions.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, TITLE 42 - THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE U.S.C. § 12101 - 12117 et seq. (Author 1990 ).
Prior to 1975, educational options for a child living with a mental or physical disability were limited. The family of the handicapped child was most likely forced down an path that lead to the institutionalization of the child and distancing the child from the benefits of receiving a free and public education. It was after federal legislation passed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (42 U.S.C. § 1983) that monumental changes began to develop that allowed a better understanding of the needs and capabilities of people with various handicapping conditions. Soon after this legislation, Public Law 94-142, also known as the Education for all Handicapped Children’s Act of 1975 (EHA) would further increase the public awareness by providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for children suffering from disabilities. Following the EHA legislation reformations concerning the education of disabled individuals would soon become numerous and legislative acts were passed enabling accommodations for disabled individuals in the fields of vocations and technology. In 1990, President Gerald Ford signed legislation replacing P.L. 94-142 with the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (IDEA, 20 USC 1400). By definition, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation (US Department of Education, 2011).
U.S. Department of Justice, (2006). Americans with Disabilities Act. Retrieved February 18, 2008, from ADA Homepage Web site: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/q%26aeng02.htm
According to LD Online (2015), Public Law 94-142, also known as Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EHA), was passed in 1975. Since then, the law has taken on many changes in order to improve its effectiveness, and is now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA 04). The original Public Law 94-142 guaranteed a free and appropriate public education to each child with a disability from the age 3 to 21 (LD Online, 2015). It is required to make efforts towards improving how children with disabilities are identified and educated, as well as provide evaluations for the success of those efforts. Furthermore, the law provided due process protections
Department of Education (2002, August). IDEA’97: Individuals with disabilities educational act amendments of 1997. Retrieved March 23, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/IDEA
Scotch, R (1989) From Good Will to Civil Rights: Transforming federal disability policy. Temple University Press: Philadelphia
This act established old age benefits and funding for assistance to blind individuals and disabled children and the extension of existing vocational rehabilitation programmes. In present day society, since the passage of the ADA (American with Disabilities Act of 1990) endless efforts of the disability rights movement have continued on the focus of the rigorous enforcement of the ADA, as well as accessibility for people with disabilities in employment, technology, education, housing, transportation, healthcare, and independent living for the people who are born with a disability and for the people who develop it at some point in their lives. Although rights of the disabled have significantly gotten better globally throughout the years, many of the people who have disabilities and are living in extremely undeveloped countries or supreme poverty do not have access nor rights to any benefits. For example, people who are in wheelchairs as a transportation device have extremely limited access to common places such as grocery stores, schools, employment offices,
Every day in America, a woman loses a job to a man, a homosexual high school student suffers from harassment, and someone with a physical or mental disability is looked down upon. People with disabilities make up the world’s largest and most disadvantaged minority, with about 56.7 million people living with disabilities in the United States today (Barlow). In every region of the country, people with disabilities often live on the margins of society, deprived of some of life’s fundamental experiences. They have little hope of inclusion within education, getting a job, or having their own home (Cox). Everyone deserves a fair chance to succeed in life, but discrimination is limiting opportunities and treating people badly because of their disability.