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A Historical Preface to the Americans with Disabilities Act

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Edward D. Berkowitz
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Extract

On 26 July 1990, President George Bush signed an ambitious new civil rights law at an emotional ceremony held on the South Lawn of the White House. Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, PL 101–336) brought civil rights protections for people with disabilities to a level of parity with civil rights protections already enjoyed by racial minorities and by women. What accounted for a Republican administration enthusiastically endorsing a sweeping civil rights law that might benefit as many as 43 million people? Briefly put, historical traditions within disability policy that in turn reflected broader trends within social welfare policy between 1950 and 1990 allowed the ADA to be portrayed in conservative terms that were congenial to a Republican administration.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 6 , Special Issue 1: Civil Rights , January 1994 , pp. 96 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1994

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References

Notes

1. My interpretation follows from my previous work: Disabled Policy: America's Programs for the Handicapped (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; America's Welfare State: From Roosevelt and Reagan (Baltimore, 1991)Google Scholar; Creating the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Reform, paperback edition (Lawrence, Kans., 1992)Google Scholar[with McQuaid, Kim]; and “Disabled Policy: A Personal Postscript,” Journal of Disability Policy Studies 3 (1992): 1–16.Google Scholar

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9. Hugh Calkins to Elliot Richardson, 21 April 1960, Papers of the President's Commission on National Goals, Box 9, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.

10. No author, Memorandum for the Welfare File, 14 March 1960, Box 9, President's Commission on National Goals.

11. Wilbur Cohen, “The Situation in Social Security,” 15 February 1970, Box 70, Wilbur J. Cohen Papers, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison. The National Rehabilitation Association was the chief lobbying group for the state vocational rehabilitation programs.

12. Altmeyer to Cohen, 8 October 1956, Cohen Papers, Wisconsin State Historical Society. Howard Rusk was a prominent rehabilitation doctor.

13. No author, Memorandum to William Greenberg, 18 August 1958, Record Group 47, Records of the Social Security Administration, Accession 67A-27O, Box 1, Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland.

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23. Disability Rights Mandates: Federal and State Compliance with Employment Protections and Architectural Barrier Removal (Washington, D.C.: Adivsory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, April 1989), Report A-1 11, 28. A useful overview of the various civil rights laws and other disability-related legislation is Summary of Existing Legislation Affecting Persons with Disabilities, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Clearinghouse on the Handicapped, Publication E-88-22014, August 1988.

24. Berkowitz, Disabled Policy, 208; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Accommodating the Spectrum of Individual Abilities, Clearinghouse Publication 81, September 1983, 56.

25. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Accommodating the Spectrum of Individual Abilities, 61.

26. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Accommodating the Spectrum of Individual Abilities, 64, 71, citing Milk v. Board of Education of D.C., 348 F Supp 866 (D.D.C. 1972) (the quote is on page 876).

27. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Accommodating the Spectrum of Individual Abilities, 64, citing Wyatt v. Stickney, 325 F. Supp. 381 (M.D. Ala. 1971).

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31. Stephen Percy makes a similar argument in Disability Rights Mandates, 9.

32. Berkowitz, Edward, “Professionals as Providers: Some Thoughts on Disability and Ideology,” Rehabilitation Psychology 29 (Winter 1984): 211–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. Scotch, Richard K., “Politics and Policy in the History of the Disability Rights Movement,” The Milbank Quarterly 67, supp. 2, pt. 2, (1989): 390CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Berkowitz, Edward, “Domestic Politics and International Expertise in the History of American Disability Policy,” Milbank Memorial Quarterly 67, supplement 2, pt. 1, (1989): 195–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

34. Peter Holmes to HEW Secretary, 20 June 1975, Sarah Massengale Papers, Gerald Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

35. Berkowitz, Disabled Policy, 211–21; Scotch, Richard K., From Goodwill to Civil Rights (Philadelphia, 1984)Google Scholar; Bowe, Frank, Rehabilitating America: Toward Independence for Disabled and Elderly People (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Bowe, Handicapping America: Barriers to Disabled People (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

36. I am indebted to Richard Scotch for teaching me this point, both in his writings (cited elsewhere in this article) and in private conversations.

37. On the influence of economists in the 1970s, see Berkowtiz, America's Welfare State.

38. Derthick, Martha, Agency Under Stress: The Social Security Administration in American Government (Washington, D.C., 1990)Google Scholar; Graham, Hugh Davis, “The Origins of Affirmative Action: Civil Rights and the Regulatory State,” Annais 523 (September 1992): 50–62Google Scholar. Derthick and others have noted the enormous number of subcommittees involved in oversight activities in disability policy, an increase that took place largely during the 1970s. 39. I have drawn this paragraph almost directly from Disabled Policy, 223.

40. Reed's statement in the Congressional Record quoted in Berkowitz, “Disabled Policy: A Personal Postscript,” 4.

41. On the numbers question, see Gerben Dejong, Andrew I. Batavia, and Griss, Robert, “America's Neglected Health Minority: Working–age Persons with Disabilities,” The Milbank Quarterly 67, supp. 2, pt. 2 (1989): 316Google Scholar; U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), “People with Disabilities in Basic Life Activities in the United States,” Disability Statistics Abstract, no. 3, April 1992.

42. Quoted in Berkowitz, Disabled Policy, 186. I base my characterizations of the Republican disability-rights leaders on personal observation.

43. On Frieden, see Berkowitz, Disabled Policy, 195–96.

44. National Council on the Handicapped, Toward Independence (Washington, D.C., 1986), 18.Google Scholar

45. The National Council, “The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1988: Fact Sheet,” privately obtained. The Act was introduced as S. 2345 and HR 4498.

46. Kemp, Evan J. Jr., “Where Was George?” Mainstream: Magazine of the Able-Disabled 13 (September 1988): 13–14.Google Scholar

47. Edward M. Kennedy to Edward Berkowitz, 2 May 1989, privately held.

48. Nancy Lee Jones, “The Americans with Disabilities Act: An Overview of Major Provisions,” 31 July 1990, Congressional Research Service Report, 90-366-A; West, Jane, ed., The Americans with Disabilities Act: From Policy to Practice (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

49. “Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,” House of Representatives, Report 101-485-Part 2, 15 May 1990, 29; Berkowitz, Disabled Policy, 196–99. President Clinton thought enough of Heumann to appoint her to the assistant secretary of education job that Madeleine Will had held in the Reagan administration.

50. Berkowitz, Edward and Scotch, Richard, “One Comprehensive System? A Historical Perspective on Federal Disability Policy,” Journal of Disability Policy Studies 1 (Fall 1990): 10–13.Google Scholar

51. Zola, Irving Kenneth, “Toward the Necessary Universalizing of a Disability Policy,” Uilbank Memorial Quarterly 67, supp. 2, pt. 2 (1989): 404.Google ScholarPubMed

52. Quoted in Berkowitz, Edward, “The Cost-Benefit Tradition in Vocational Rehabilitation,”in Berkowitz, Monroe, ed., Measuring the Efficiency of Public Programs: Costs and Benefits in Vocational Rehabilitation (Philadelphia, 1988), 23.Google Scholar

53. All quotations from House Report 101-485, pt. 2, 44–45.

54. I know this from my personal experience preparing testimony in favor of the bill. See testimony prepared for the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare in consideration of the Americans with Disabilities Act, May 1989, reprinted in Congressional Digest 68 (December 1989): 304–12 [with David Dean].

55. Department of Health and Human Services, “The Social Security Disability Insurance Program: An Analysis,” December 1992, mimeo.

56. Holmes, Steven A., “Sweeping U.S. Law to Help Disabled Goes into Effect,” New York Times, 27 January 1992, A1, A12.Google Scholar

57. Section 2, Findings and Purposes, Public Law 101-336, 104 Stat. 327.