NCD Bulletin
A Monthly Publication of the National Council on Disability (NCD)

Marca Bristo, Chairperson
June 1999

The Bulletin, which is free of charge, and at NCD’s award-winning Web site (http://www.ncd.gov), brings you the latest issues and news affecting people with disabilities. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the NCD listserv, send a blank e-mail to add-bulletin@list.ncd.gov or remove-bulletin@list.ncd.gov. No need to write anything in the subject line or body. Please send your editorial comments to Bulletin editor Mark S. Quigley (mquigley@ncd.gov).

Disability Community Mourns the Passing of Rick Douglas

The disability community mourns the passing of a great American disability rights leader. On June 28, Rick Douglas, former executive director of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, died of cancer. He had an enormous impact on the lives of everyone he met. He was a true leader and visionary. We will all miss him.

Disability Civil Rights Update

On June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on four important cases that profoundly affect people with disabilities. What we received was a mixed bag. In Olmstead v. L. C. (No. 98-536)--a case involving two people with mental disabilities who were housed in a state psychiatric facility and who charged that the state failed to provide them with care in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs, thus violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)--the Court ruled 6-3 that states may have to place people with mental disabilities in homelike settings if they can be appropriately cared for in such settings. In writing the court's opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that "We confront the question whether the proscription of discrimination may require placement of persons with mental disabilities in community settings, rather than institutions. The answer, we hold, is a qualified yes." However, the Court also ruled that this action hinges on whether "the state's treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate, the transfer from the institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the state and needs of others with mental disabilities.... Unjustified isolation, we hold, is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability."

In the other cases--Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc. (No. 97-1943), Albertsons Inc. v. Kirkingburg (No. 98-591), and Murphy v. United Parcel Service, Inc. (No. 97-1992)--the Supreme Court ruled that ADA does not protect people who have conditions or disabilities that are being corrected with medication or assistive devices such as eyeglasses. The three cases involved people with poor uncorrected vision, monocular vision, and hypertension who were challenging discriminatory employer policies that unfairly excluded them based on their impairments. In deciding that these people fall outside the civil rights protections of ADA because their conditions are correctable, the Supreme Court left many people with treatable conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes, and bipolar disorder outside the law's protection as well. Anyone who is functioning well with a disability is now at risk of losing civil rights protections as a result of the Supreme Court's "miserly" construction, to use Justice John Paul Stevens' characterization in his eloquent dissent. Copies of these decisions can be found on the Internet (http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/).

Youth Leadership Conference Update

The 1999 National Leadership Conference for Youth with Disabilities was a huge success. More than 125 young adults convened June 22-26 at the Hilton Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, to participate in a program that was organized under the theme of independence. It was the first time that the conference program was planned and executed entirely by a Youth Leadership Council, made up of a diverse group of previous youth conference participants. Keynote addresses were made by Justin Dart, disability advocate and leader; Tony Coelho, chairperson, Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities, and chairperson, President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities; Judith Heumann, assistant secretary, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, U.S. Department of Education; Jorge Pineda, staff accountant, National Council on Independent Living; Robert Williams, deputy assistant secretary, Office for Disability, Aging, and Long-Term Care, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Susan Daniels, deputy commissioner, Office of Disability and Income Security, Social Security Administration. This year's conference participants also had a unique opportunity to attend a joint function with the National Council on Independent Living and the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems, where Alexis M. Herman, secretary, U.S. Department of Labor, and Kenneth Apfel, commissioner, Social Security Administration, addressed the crowd.

This year's conference was coordinated by NCD and sponsored with five other federal agencies and private sector organizations. Sponsors included the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services; the Social Security Administration, Office of Disability and Income Security Programs; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Developmental Disabilities, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities; and the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. The Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation was the primary private sponsor.

During her remarks, NCD chairperson Marca Bristo announced that next year's youth conference, which will continue the established tradition of creating a large role for youth in planning and executing the conference, will be coordinated by the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.

Work Incentives Update

On June 16, the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 (S. 331) was passed by the U.S. Senate, by a vote of 99-0. The bill would allow states to opt to permit people with disabilities to return to work without losing their Medicare or Medicaid health insurance benefits. The leading House version of this bill (H.R. 1180) awaits action from the Committee on Ways and Means, where members must decide how to pay for the bill's provisions. President Clinton endorses this bill because it will support the creation of critical work opportunities for people with disabilities.