DISABILITY ISSUES
Vol. 21 No. 1

From the Center

Time to Get Back to Work            J. Archer O’Reilly III, Editor

The laws protecting and enhancing the rights of people with disabilities in America have always had their detractors and have always been under subtle or overt attack on both the state and federal level. In recent years we have been fortunate to have a President, Republican or Democrat, who was prepared to use the Executive Office to defend those laws. Having friends in high places can be comforting. However, it can also lead to a little complacency.

When you awake and discover that you no longer have those friends in positions of power, it becomes necessary to realize that you, together with those who share your concerns, must carry the fight for the rights of, and opportunities for, people with disabilities.

Just since the first of the year we have seen the Americans with Disabilities Act under fire from the Supreme Court, the abrupt termination of the effort to protect workers from disabling injuries, and the appointment of officials hostile to reasonable accommodation. Already, in less than three months, this new atmosphere can be seen invading the state courts in an attempt to gut or overturn local protections for people with disabilities who want o work.

The purpose of this article is not to discuss any particular issue. Rather it is to bring your attention to the fact that every one of us needs to get back to work to protect those rights we may have begun to take for granted. You, or your friends, have the right to live as independently as possible, to have the maximum opportunity for work and education, to medical care and rehabilitation services, and to participate fully in community life. While there is always some friction about the specifics, recent national administrations agreed with those principals and recognized the disability community as an important constituency. That is no longer true. The candidate who stated during his campaign that people with disabilities should be cared for by the churches and synagogues, now occupies the executive office. He and his appointees will not be looking out for us until and unless we make them do so. It will take a concerted effort just to maintain the rights we have won from the assault by business interests and conservative ideology.

So much of the effect of law is in the enforcement and interpretation that hostile officials can reverse progress in the dark of a single night without any debate or public vote. We must awaken to the fact that our friends in high places are mostly gone and only we can prevent the overthrow of the progress of a generation.