In 1990, President George Bush signed the American with Disabilities Act into law, a measure that has since been called the Emancipation Proclamation for disabled persons because it gave 43 million Americans the civil right of access to public places, employment and other boosts into mainstream society.
Ten years after the law was signed, however, disabled people are still fighting battles for their rights.
A number of well-known businesses -- including Chevron, Disneyland, Safeway, Macy’s, United Artists movie theaters -- and public agencies, school districts and government offices across the U.S. are being sued for not providing required access for people with disabilities. Even actor Clint Eastwood’s Inn at Carmel is facing a similar lawsuit, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
"There is no excuse, 10 years after the ADA, for a major business establishment like Macy's, for example, continuing to have architectural barriers," Sid Wolinsky, director for Disability Rights Advocates in Oakland, Calif., told the Chronicle.
Business owners say the law is too complex and vague, but insist they want to comply. For instance, by not clearly defining if "disabled" covers such areas as employees who are depressed or have back pain, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has seen 125,946 ADA cases filed since the law was implemented, the newspaper reports.
While business leaders say these are examples of the extremes to which the law can be stretched -- and the financial liabilities corporations now face -- disability rights advocates say the ADA does cover ailments like depression and back injuries, along with allergies, manic-depressive disorders, cancer, learning disabilities and other conditions.
They argue that the law specifically cites a figure of 43 million disabled Americans -- about one in five people, which is far more than the total number of sight-, hearing-, and mobility-impaired people in the U.S., the Chronicle reports.
Whatever the arguments, both sides agree the ADA is failing to increase employment for disabled Americans, one of its primary goals.
Richard Burkhauser, an economist at Cornell University, says data show those employment levels have actually dropped since 1993 -- "a very disturbing trend."
Other economists say the law has contributed to the decline by making it more expensive to hire disabled workers. Burkhauser's response is that by expanding Social Security benefits and providing more and better health insurance, the trend can be reversed, the newspaper reports.
Alan Reich, head of the National Organization on Disability, says the law is experiencing something akin to growing pains, much like other civil rights laws before it.
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