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World Rehabilitation Fund, Inc.
New York, N.Y.
The Latin American Family and Public Policy in The United States:
Informal Support and Transition into Adulthood
By
H. Rutherford Turnbull, III
Ann P. Turnbull
The University of Kansas
Department of Special Education
and
Bureau of Child Research
Lawrence, Kansas 66045
February, 1987
1
INTRODUCTION
We received a World Rehabilitation Fund (WRF) grant to study in
Latin America and to report on the following topics: (1) the Latin
American family and its adaptations, coping strategies, and use of
informal support in maintaining within the family a child or adult with
a disability; and (2) the Latin American family and its traditions,
attitudes, and behaviors with respect to the transition of the member
with a dis- ability from adolescence to adulthood.
Throughout this report, the term Latin American(s) will be used
when referring to citizens or residents of the United States whose
ancestry is from Central or South America or Mexico. This is done in an
effort to be sensitive to the cultural and national preferences of the
topic population without the confusion of more than one term.
We conducted our research in Montevideo, Uruguay; Buenos Aires,
Argentina; and Rio de Janiero, Brasil during a three-week period in
August, 1986. By and large, the parents were middle-class to upper-
middle-class and, among them, the mothers were more accessible and
vocal than fathers. Only occasionally did we have an opportunity to
speak to brothers or sisters or to non-relatives who had become part of
an extended family. The parents were from several countries, part-
icularly Uruguay, Argentina, and Brasil but also Equador, Paraguay, and
Costa Rica. Most were of Italian or Spanish origin and none were of
South American Indian origin. They also were fairly diverse with
respect to their children's disabilities, with mild, moderate, and severe
mental retardation most commonly represented. In addition, some
2
have children whose disabilities are multiple, consisting of mental
retardation coupled with physical or emotional disabilities. Finally,
although most of the parents were middle-aged or older, some were in
their late 20s or early 30s and were parents of preschoolers and
elementary-school-aged children. Many of the parents have children
who are in transition from secondary-level special education to adult
services or who already have left public school.
Among the professionals, there were physicians (particularly
pediatricians and neurologists), special educators, psychologists,
physical and occupational therapists, speech therapists, vocational
rehabilitation counselors, administrators of rehabilitation and special
services programs, clergy, and political economists. The greater
number of the porofessionals were from Uruguay, Argentina, and Brasil,
although some were from Equador, Paraguay, and Costa Rica. Most were
upper middle class, of Italian or Spanish ancestry, and not themselves
parents of children with disabilities but of nondisabled children.
We recognize that the people we interviewed represent only a
small slice of Latin American views. It is impossible to homogenize
Latin American family perspectives into a single stereotype. By
following procedures of qualitative analysis in organizing and
synthesizing our interview data, we have identified trends that we will
present in this report.
In this following report we set out the rationale for our study, the
information we learned, and the relevance of this information for
policies in the fields of special education, adult rehabilitation, and
social services in the United States. In reporting interview data, we
have concentrated on the majority themes of our findings, with
minority views stated in some cases.
3
RATIONALE FOR STUDY
Our interests in studying Latin American families and their
responses to the presence of a member with a disability were based on
several factors. These are: (1) the fairly well-documented reliance of
Latin American families on informal support (i.e., family, neighbors,
and friends) to enable them to cope with the presence in the family of a
person with a disability and the Latin American family's strong hold on
its young adult members; and (2) the obvious need to have disability and
family policy in the United States reflect the very pluralistic
population of this country. We will discuss these two rationales and,
together with them, some of the underlying facts about changed
attitudes and population in the United States.
New Ethic of Interpersonal Commitment and New Disability Policies
Early in the 1980s, Yankelovich (1981) reported the results of his
national survey of attitudes in his new book, New Rules: Searching for
Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down. Yankelovich concluded
that citizens of the United States were, indeed, seeking material,
improvement and could fairly be characterized as increasingly
materialistic. But he argued that materialism, although an end and
goal, is not the only end and goal, indeed not the only or ultimate one.
He described people as moving toward relationships, community,
interpersonal commitment, interdependence, and self-satisfaction by
devotion to others. He contended that, although the formal structures
of the national economy will persist and be valued as means for greater
opportunity for personal autonomy and free choice, the informal
structures and supports will take on increasingly important roles as
people seek self-fulfillment through relationships.
4
These seemingly paradoxical trends are relevant to the Latin
American families' ever more important presence in the United States
and, indeed, to the role of "the family" in society and policy. There is
a re-emergence of policy that seeks (or gives lip-service to) the value
of the family. There is more recognition that psychic compensation,
not just financial benefits, are important ingredients of employment
satisfaction. And, particularly relevant to the lives of people with
disabilities and their families, there are insistent, persistent, and
largely successful attempts to structure national, state, and local
policy that emphasizes interpersonal relationships among people with
and without disabilities (Halpern, 1985) and that also assures that
home-based and community- based care, not institutional-based care,
will be the policy of the national and state governments. Moreover,
there also is emphasis, as policy seeks to move away from the
institutional to the home/ community model, on increasing the range of
choice available to families and other caregivers by such means as
vouchers, family- support services, and optional services funded by
social services, Medicaid, or educational agencies.
Thus, as the new ethic of interpersonal commitment seems to take
hold and as policy either reflects or enables that ethic to be operation-
alized, it seems important to understand how the Latin American
family, which is so family-centered, has been so able to do naturally
what federal and state policy seems to encourage Anglo families to
undertake as new behavior, namely, to use informal family-based
supports to maintain the person with a disability at home or in the
community. In short,
5
what do Latin American families do naturally that Anglo families will
have to learn to do (again) as policy moves toward home and
community-based care? And how do Latin American families respond
to federal and state transition policies that reflect Anglo values of
separation from the natural home by the movement of the person with a
disability into a group or other home away from the biological family
and into employment?
Changing Demographics in the United States
The United States again has become a nation of active immigration
and a great number of recent immigrants (1971-1985) have come from
countries in Central and South America. In 1971 to 1980, 1,813,000
people immigrated from Mexico, Central, and South America, and
1,588,200 from Asia. In 1980 through 1985, 1,119,000 immigrated
from Mexico, Central, and South America, but 1,553,700 immigrated
from Asia. The national and regional economies of Mexico and Central
and South American countries, and the internal warfare in some of
them, provide the impetus for immigration from those areas to the
United States; and a new national immigration law, enacted in 1986
(P.L. 99-603), facilitates even more immigration. Moreover, in some of
the nation's states and cities, the Latin American population is the
largest of the majority population. That population is the highest
minority population in 11 cities of over 250,000 population in the
United States, however (Bureau of the Census, 1980). It is fair to say
that there has been a reversal of demographics in those parts of the
United States and that the new or emerging minorities are the former
majority Anglo populations. It is both futile and contraindicated,
therefore, to ignore the traditions and behaviors of the new Latin
American citizens or aliens.
6
Clash Between Pluralism and Conformity
At the same time as the demographics of the United States have
begun to change, there have been neo-conservative forces that have
sought to ignore or defy these demographic data. For example, the
attempts in federal and state educational policy to retreat from
bilingual education arguably reflect a new know-nothing attitude, not
exactly comparable to the know-nothing ideology of earlier times in
this country, but not exactly unlike it either. The rise of neo-conserva-
tism and fundamentalism in religion, morals, and politics also arguably
reflects a reaction to the new data. More than that, anti-bilingualism,
neo-conservatism, and fundamentalism may both reflect and give new
power to a drive toward conformity in life in the United States.
Simultaneously and contrarily, the new demographics, particularly
in certain states and school districts, and the emergence of the Latin
American citizens as political powers, seem to indicate a different
trend, one that reveals the increasing pluralism in the United States.
This is a trend that is also reflected in the emergence of new,
politically influential, and policy-relevant populations, particularly
feminists, gays, and people with disabilities.
Some mediation of these two trends--the one trend that moves
toward conformity and the other that moves toward pluralism--is'
desirable if the cohesiveness of this country is to be maintained and
enhanced.
Complexities of Pluralism in the United States
Finally, there is the compounding fact that pluralism in the United
States does not simply mean that there are Anglo, Latin American, and
Black families. Particularly in the field of disability, there are
7
emerging and well-established models of relationships and care that
are borrowed from and reflect other cultural traditions. For example,
the Camphill movement has taken firm roots in the United States.
Founded on the philosophy of anthroposophy as developed by the
Viennese intellectual Rudolf Steiner and given expression in the field
of special education by schools operated under a model developed by
Karl Konig, the Camphill Villages in New York, Pennsylvania, and
Minnesota reflect a Middle European cultural tradition. By the same
token, the L'Arche communities that flourish in the United States
reflect the highly Roman Catholic views of a French Canadian, Jean
Vanier (1976, 1981).
Camphill and L'Arche thus represent two different cultural tradi-
tions and different philosophical or religious approaches to interper-
sonal relationships. Despite these differences, however, they have a
powerful common characteristic. They are "intentional communities,"
places where people without disabilities have chosen to live as peers
of people who have mental, emotional, or physical disabilities. In
Camphill and L'Arche, one finds the interpersonal commitment that
Yankelovich (1981) described as the emerging theme of the 1980s in
the United States. Also in Camphill and L'Arche, one finds, too, the
strong interpersonal bonds that characterize the Latin American
family. If the tradition of political, religious secular, and cultural
pluralism prevails in the United States, it will be important for the
new and emerging disability policies (with their emphasis on
home-based and community-based care) to be sensitive to and to
imitate, to an extent, the cultural traditions of the intentional
communities and the Latin American families.
8
Thus, the time is ripe for an understanding of the Latin American
family and its natural abilities to fulfill itself by interpersonal com-
mitment and to provide family-based care; and for an understanding of
how transition policies in the field of developmental and physical
disabili3ties can be made sensitive to and perhaps even reflect the
traditions of the Latino family, particularly because of the changing
demographics of the United States.
The Latin American Family: Coping and Informal Support
In this section, we will discuss how the Latin American family
copes with the fact of a family member being disabled and particularly
how it does so by using informal support systems. We begin by defining
the Latin American family and its members' roles. We then discuss the
central importance of the family in Latin America, and, next, the values
that the family cherishes.
Definition of Latin American Family.
It is important to recognize at the very outset, that the Latin
American family is not just a group of people. It is, equally important,
a feeling. Let us consider these two elements in turn.
"Family" from a Latin American perspective consists of people.
Foremost, there are parents, with the father and mother playing
different but equally invaluable roles. There also are grandparents,
especially grandmothers, who have significant roles. And then there
are uncles, aunts, and counsins, even to the fourth degree of
relationship.
More than blood and marriage defines the members of the family,
however. Godparents are integral members of the family; so, too, are
maids, who seemingly are employed in not just upper-income families
but also in middle-income families and who have tremendously
9
important roles within the family. Finally, neighbors and friends
sometimes are members of the family, but they seem to be so usually
among lower-income families.
Parents described family as "an emotional commitment." They
expressed their "felt need" for family and family interdependence,
saying, "We have Latin blood; we think with our hearts" and "We are
romantic, more emotional than you; we don't want to lose our feeling
for our family." Just as important as the words they used is the
passion with which they spoke them, with a deep-seated and obviously
unabashed sincerity.
Family Roles
As was to be expected, various members of the family play
separate roles. Mothers tend to be the primary caregiver to the member
with a disability and, indeed, to all other members of the family. But
grandparents, especially, the grandmother, perform this role, too; and,
if there are no grandparents, then sisters or aunts. Mothers also
typically stay at home with the member who is disabled and with all
other members, too; they usually do not work outside of the home.
(Whether this is by choice or tradition, or because there is not work for
which they may be employed outside of the home because of the
economic conditions of these countries, is not clear, but probably it is
because of choice and tradition.) As one parent said, "The mother takes
on the whole burden" of care. Generally, that seems to be true in the
families we interviewed.
In giving care to their family members, mothers tend to give
primacy to their children over other family members and, among their
children, to the child with a disability. Such a child is "first among
10
equals" and "although the mother has equal love for all her children, she
gives the greatest protection for the one who is disabled."
Typically, fathers "do not do much child rearing." They tend to
"reject and deny" the child with a disability and to reflect a Latin
American attitude of machismo: "I earn the money. I am a man. I don't
have time to take care of the children." Yet, the father seems to be the
one who makes the major decisions about the family; at least, the
father does so formally and titularly, if not actually. Likewise, there
are exceptions to the stereotype that fathers are not caregivers, and
some parents told about families (sometimes their own) in which "all
responsibilities fell to the father" to provide care and to make the
ultimate decisions affecting the family.
What was unexpected was the pivotal role that maids play in the
family. First, it was unexpected that so many Latin American families
employ maids on a full-time or nearly full-time basis; that habit seems
to be one that both upper-income and middle-income families have
adopted and continue to follow. Second, it was unexpected that maids
would play such an important role within the family. They were char-
acterized as being not just members of the family in the sense that
family members emotionally identified them as members; but they also
were regarded as family members in the sense that they often were the
primary or at least co-equal (with mothers) caregivers to members
with disabilities, not just raising the child with the mother but often
providing thereby important respite for the mother. Although this has
obvious benefits for the mother and perhaps other female caregiving
members of the family, some parents and professionals pointed out
that the maids often are the ones within the family who keep the child
11
with a disability the most dependent and provide the least amount of
training in self-care.
Finally, there are characteristics of the family that depend on size
and economic levels. Typically, the larger the family, the more easily
it assimilates the child with a disability and the more its members
share in the care of the child. Likewise, the poorer the family, the
more it creates extended family members from neighbors and friends.
The same is true when the mother works outside the home: extended
family members are recruited and assume the mother's role.
The Centrality of the Family
Time and time again, parents and professionals described Latin
American society and culture as family-centered. Their terms reveal
precisely that fact when they spoke of the family as "the center of
society," "the source of society," "a union and team," and as a culturally
and generationally transmitted "ethic." They gave the strong impres-
sion that all of the institutions and forms of society take into account
and reflect the central role of the family in Latin America--the gov-
ernments, churches, and social and economic systems and traditions.
They admitted that religious (especially Roman Catholic) and regional
traditions (especially the Spanish-Italian and South American Indian
ancestral roots of many Latin Americans) affect the family, the way it
is regarded and treated in Latin America, and particularly how its
members with disabilities are regarded and treated. Similarly, the
economy of a country or region affect the central role of the family
(for example, in Uruguay and Argentina, the largely middle-class family
is still sustained by the residuum of the previously relatively pros-
perous national economy, while in Brasil there are wide disparities of
12
economic class and strata) by enabling it, for example, to hire maids.
Nonetheless, they all consistently emphasized that the family, not
organized religion, national economies, or federal governments, pro-
perly is the strongest influence in Latin America. "We have pride in
family, in belonging to something." Just what is that something? And
why is membership in it so important? What values are expressed by
reason of and through the family?
Family Values
As parents and professionals described the Latin American family,
its functions, and its central role in the culture, they emphasized over
and over again that there are four dominant values held by the family.
These include family unity and permanency, interdependence, pro-
tectiveness, and acceptance of the child or adult with a disability.
Unity and permanency. The value of unity and permanency was
made manifest early in our visit by discussions we had with several of
our hosts. When asked how they would respond to the possibility that
their children, upon attaining the age of majority, would move out of
their parents' home and establish homes of their own while they
continued their education or worked, one said, without hesitation, "It
would be a tragedy. A shame would fall on our family. We cannot
contemplate it."
Another explained that the Latin American tradition is that the
family remains a tight-knit and permanent unit. Its members continue
to live in the parental home even after they became adults. When they
marry, they may still continue to live in the parental home, in part
because the tradition accommodates the two families in a single home.
Many other parents and professionals confirmed these judgments.
It is informative to have their exact words, because direct quotations
13
not only inform but also express the spirit that reveals the tradition of
family unity and permanence.
*"There is a relationship between parents and children
that never breaks."
*"We never separate from our children. We never cut
the cord."
*"Sons and daughters stay in the family although that
limits the mother's life."
*"It is against the family for the children to live alone
as adults."
*"Young married couples live at their parents' home; it
is Latino tradition."
*"Families live in the same house always has been that
way."
When discussing this tradition of unity and permanency in
connection with children who have disabilities or other dependent
members, parents and professionals underscored the traditions'
application to those children.
*"We can't allow the elderly to be put out of the house."
*"We want to keep love within the family to make the
disabled child feel that he is part of the family."
*"I would feel guilty (if I were to send my aged parents
to a nursing home)."
Even after sons and daughters marry, establish their own families,
and move out of the parents' home, there still are activities that give
evidence of the value attached to family unity and permanency.
*"We get together every week we are passionate,
committed to each other."
14
*"There is always much celebration within the family.
We rejoice in being with each other, in being together."
*"We are always together in each other's company."
*"We frequently get together for big dinners and parties."
*"We telephone each other often."
*"We always go to our parents' house for Sunday dinner."
*"We return home on Sundays to eat together."
*"When we have a meal together, we talk together."
*"There are strong physical ties we live close together."
Undoubtedly the most telling evidence of unity and permanency as
a value comes from a story that one parent told. She said that, when a
member of a family dies, the body is buried with the other members'
bodies. "We bury all our family together. And, after a few years, we
rebury the body (in a smaller plot) to make room for the rest of the
family."
More than any other quotation, this one shows that a person is a
family member always and forever and that the tradition is to enlarge
the boundaries of the family, to keep it forever flexible, so that there
always will be room for all members, however large the family
becomes. To borrow from the vulgate, the Latin American family exists
not just from womb to tomb but from womb to beyond the tomb.
Interdependence. The value of unity and permanence is a means to
make another value possible, which is interdependence. Unity and
permanence make it possible for family members to help each other and
to depend on each other for help. Again, the direct quotations express
not only the substance but also the emotion of interdependence.
15
*"We all help each other because we all live together."
*"We all help pay for each other's (habilitation) services."
*"The family does problem-solving together."
*"The family is a service vocation on behalf of the
member with a disability."
*"Family interdependence is the soundest possible
way of support for each member."
*"Children and parents all desire interdependence."
The value of interdependence will become more evident as the
values of protectiveness and acceptance, the use of formal ànd
informal support by families, and expectations concerning transition
are discussed below.
Protectiveness. Again, family unity and permanence and family
interdependence not only are ultimate but also are instrumental values.
They are instrumental--means toward ends--in that they enable and
encourage families to be highly protective of each other and parti-
cularly of members with disabilities. Direct quotations reveal not only
the fact of protectiveness but the intensity with which it is valued.
*"Families are protective, even overprotective; but
they treat the disabled and nondisabled child alike in
that respect."
*"Families take too much care of the child with a
disability and even call adults by the term mia niño
(translated: my new one, my baby)."
*"Children are always children. They do not go
their own ways, as a rule."
*"The adult child is pampered (by his parents)."
17
But--and this is the predominant message that parents and
professionals gave--there is, in the end, acceptance. Abortion of a
fetus that is diagnosed or suspected as having disabilities is almost
never practiced. Not only do Roman Catholic doctrines forbid abortion,
and those doctrines are the prevailing religious ones in Latin America;
but also the cultural centrality of the family, and the sense that a
person is a member of the family from the moment of conception (from
womb) until and beyond death (beyond the tomb), mitigate against
abortion. In addition, nontreatment of newborns with birth defects is
not a deliberate practice among pediatricians, other physicians, and
families. Again, both religious and cultural norms are powerful
barriers against this form of rejection.
As to be expected, there is both a price to be paid and a value to be
acquired when the child is accepted. Parents and professionals pointed
out that the presence of a child with a disability skews the use and
allocation of family resources, particularly caregiving and financial
ones, in favor of the child and in disfavor of other members. In some
instances, the unintended neglect of nondisabled members may mean
that they, and their parents' marriage and even the marriage of the
nondisabled children, can suffer in various ways. And, particularly
with upper-middle income and upper-income families, there can be
stigmatization not just of the child but also the family itself. Against
these disadvantages, typically families still not only accept the child
but also maintain the child within the family structure over the
parents' entire lifetime.
Nor is the child's presence a source of wholly negative results.
Especially parents, but in some cases, too, professionals told about the
18
positive contributions that the child makes to the family, a contribu-
tion that enables acceptance, protectiveness, interdependence, and
unity and permanence to exist.
*"My child gives me and my family big satisfactions;
she is our impulse to go on with life."
*"My child makes us all more sensitive. She carresses
people's hearts."
*"I wouldn't change my child (who has profound and
multiple disabilities) for anything in the world. I
will take him just as he is."
Informal Support for Families
It is not enough for any family that has a child with a disability
that the child gives the family an impulse to go on with life or
caresses the heart. Undoubtedly, these are significant contributions--
the gifts that cement parents and families to those children, the
adhesive that is indispensable for unity and permanency, interdepen-
dence, protectiveness, and acceptance. The fact remains that families
need more than good feelings in order to go forward with life. In Latin
America, families use both "informal" and "formal" support systems to
fulfill that need.
Informal support systems are distinguished from formal support
systems in Latin America by one major characteristic: they are not
organized and provided by governmental or private agencies. That is
not to say that informal support networks are not organized or funded,
only that they do not derive their information and financing from
governments or private sources.
19
In all of the Latin American countries with whose citizens we
spoke, the Associations for Retarded Citizens (not usually called by
that name) are important parts of the informal support network.
Parents reported that the associations provide mutual support for
parents, furnish practical advice about services that are or can become
available, help parents see and demonstrate to others the positive
contributions that children with disabilities make to families and
others, create services such as schools, group homes and workshops,
and provide an "outlet for anger."
Parent associations are not the only informal support groups.
Churches themselves have a role, albeit a very minor one in one respect.
The organized religions, dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, were
characterized as not being involved in any significant way with
families. They were reported to not be advocates for people with
disabilities or their families and to not provide services or even
facilities for other groups to operate programs, and there is no special
ministry to families or people with disabilities. On the other hand,
spiritual support and faith in God were reported as highly important
and useful. Parents told about their belief that God will help them;
that the child with a disability is part of God's plan and design for them
and the world; and that they derive strength from their faith in God.
The family, itself, is a means of informal support for the members
who provide care for the child with a disability. Increasingly, fathers
are involved in caregiving and in helping to organize and operate the
parent associations; they also are forming "fathers only" groups to
provide mutual support: "We can say things to each other that we
cannot say to others." Neighbors become members of the extended
20
family and thereby become caregivers and supporters of the family.
There are exceptions, of course; among higher-income families, the
members of the family are less apt to be involved as caregivers, and
among lower-income families, neighbors are more apt to be involved as
extended family members.
Formal Support for Families
In general, formal support systems--those organized, funded, and
operated by or under the auspices of governmental or private
agencies--tend to be child-centered, not family-centered; they provide,
for example, education, medical services, and psychological services to
the child but, in doing so, tend to pay relatively little attention, or none
at all, to the needs of the family to be supported in its work with the
child. There are some programs, however, that involve parents and
family members caregivers in a variety of ways, largely by teaching
them how to care for the child. This type of formal support for the
child may have benefits for the family, but the focus continues to be on
the child.
Family income tends to shape the type of formal support services
that families use. Higher-income families tend to use private
agencies; lower-income families tend to use public agencies. Higher-
income families will use public agencies only after they exhaust the
private-sector; and lower income families will use the public agencies
only after they exhaust the informal support systems.
When using a private or public agency, families are apt to regard
the professional as "a kind of god," as highly worthy of parental respect
and obedience. It is clear that teachers, physicians, psychologists, and
21
physical and occupational therapists have great standing and, of course,
great power in dealing with families.
The power relationship between families and professionals is a
result not just of the fact that the professional has knowledge. It also
is a result of a cultural ethic in which government itself is relatively
unchallenged. Parents reported a form of paternalism in which the
cultural expectation (to the low extent that there is one) is that
government "will take care of us." This expectation naturally augments
the status of professionals who are employed in governmental agencies.
Formal support for the family begins to evaporate and then seems
to nearly disappear as the child with a disability becomes older and
moves into adolescence and young adulthood. At the secondary school
level, emphasis is placed on the development of strong functional
academics (reading, writing, and math), especially in schools that
serve families from upper-middle to upper-income strata. For youths
with more severe disabilities, this emphasis is relatively inappro-
priate. As a consequence, many students with moderate to severe
mental retardation do not attend high school and, instead, stay at home
during the days. The impact on the family, then, is that the formal
service system cannot be characterized as useful.
To an even greater degree, the adult service system is irrelevant
because it is not useful.
* "Nothing in reality, there is nothing."
* "There is a need to develop schools and workshops,
places where our children can be and not be unhappy."
* "Our dream is a commune, a place where our children
can live, work, and be with friends."
22
* "Transition? Transition to what? There are no
services."
That poignantly expressed plight--transition to what?--brings up
the other subject of this report: the Latino family and transition.
The Latin American Family: Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood
In this section, we discuss the meaning of the definition, central-
ity, and values of the Latin American family to the transition into
adulthood of the child with a disability. We focus on cultural
expectations, issues of residential and vocational placement,
friendships and interpersonal relationships, financial planning, and the
timing of and preparation for transition. The centrality of the family,
and the family values of unity and permanence, interdependence,
protectiveness, and acceptance of the child with a disability present
major problems for Latin American families as they experience their
children's passage into adulthood.
Cultural Expectations
On the one hand, the family is cohesive and reluctant to have any
of its members, particularly the child with a disability, separate from
it. It is interdependent and inclined by reason of long cultural tradition
to be self-reliant and to regard itself as the most certain source of
assistance in accommodating the child. It is protective and will con-
tinue to embrace the child, both literally and figuratively, to prevent or
minimize the risks that are inherent in adulthood. And it is accepting,
regarding the out-of-home placement of the child, and indeed of any of
its members, as anathema.
On the other hand, transition is inevitable as the child matures
chronologically and even developmentally, as school-based services
evaporate and disappear, and as adult-service opportunities, however
23
sparse, present themselves. The dilemma is clear: how to retain and
live by the values of unity and permanence, interdependence,
protectiveness, and acceptance, and yet enable the child to develop?
*As one professional remarked, "Transition is a challenge
to the values of the family. It is contrary to our Spanish
and Italian traditions."
*Another professional noted: "There are conflicted goals
in transition. Parents and professionals tend to train the child
to be as independent as possible; certainly that is the goal. But
parents still delay the child's adolescence, adulthood, and
independence. But they do this for all of their children; only
with the disabled child, it is more of a problem."
*And one parent commented: "Our dream? The growth of our child
and family, health, happiness, but all near the family. Work and
recreation, independently. But we want to grow with our
children."
For many families, their expectations for transition and, indeed,
the type of transition depends on the extent of the child's disability.
For children with mild disabilities, work in the community but resi-
dence at the parents' home is the norm. For children with moderate and
severe disabilities, work is not the norm, but residence at the parents'
home is.
The cultural expectations, then, are to maintain the unifying and
permanent, interdependent, protective, and accepting domain and values
of the family. Transition does not mean--and not just for economic
reasons but more for cultural reasons--the establishment of a life
independent of the family.
24
Even when the more Anglo-like, culturally atypical parents con-
template transition out of the family home as a normal rite of passage
for their children, they think of transition to parent-owned and
operated cooperatives--to group homes, farms, and workshops that
parents will operate and that will be family-like but probably not
family-sized. These options, one parent reported, will mean the child,
though an adult, "will still be in the family." And, indeed, when the
child's family is deceased, there will be another "family" created for
the child, as surrogate.
Residential Issues
As noted, the Latin American tradition is for the child to remain at
home as an adult; it is contrary to the tradition--"not normal" for the
child to leave home. The family typically stays together, even after
one of the adult children marries. Accordingly, the adult child with a
disability is accommodated at home across the child's lifespan.
*"Prolonged childhood? Of course! It is crazy for the
child to leave home."
*"It would be a pity just terrible for any of our
children to leave home. We (parents) would just die we
can't bear the thought."
In this cultural context, the child with a disability is expected to
live with the parents or other family always. The ideal is for the child
to live at the home of a relative, preferably a sibling, after the parents
die. Families report that there is "no problem" with the adult with a
disability living at home; and institutionalization "is rare."
Yet there is a small trend toward the development of group homes
that are operated by associations of parents. Other parents plan for
25
communes and communal living arrangements--intentional communi-
ties--that accommodate people with and without disabilities. And
those parents that are part of this trend recognize not only that it is
contrary to tradition but also that it is likely to be consistent with the
future of families, particularly as nondisabled siblings increasingly
leave parental homes and strike out on their own.
Employment Issues
The cultural tradition of maintaining the adult with a disability
within the unifying and permanent, interdependent, protective, and
accepting family discourages the employment of adults with
disabilities. But that tradition is consistent with the harsh economic
realities of South American countries, where unemployment is high,
national economies are precarious, and jobs for people with dis-
abilities accordingly are scarce or non-existent.
Three other factors make transition to employment problemmatic.
One is that an element of Latin American culture regards work "as a
curse." A second is that the secondary-school emphasis on functional
academics--reading, writing, and mathematics--may be irrelevant to
job-skill development for some people with disabilities. And a third is
the fear that some parents have about the physical, social, and psycho-
logical risks that their children may undergo in competitive employ-
ment.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the movement toward
employment of people with disabilities, and particularly their
employment in competitive situations, is delayed. For many Latin
American families, transition into employment is no more appealing or
possible than transition into residential options outside the family
home.
26
Interpersonal Relationships
Because transition in residential and employment domains of a
person's life is unlikely to result in placement outside the family, it
follows that transition into new personal relationships, outside the
family, is not part of the Latin American tradition. In a very real
sense, the boundaries of the social life of the person with a disability
are coextensive with the family's social contacts.
There is a paradox, perhaps, in this fact. On the one hand, Latin
Americans describe themselves as very affectionate.
*"When we feel affection, we show it."
*"It is natural to touch and kiss our friends."
On the other hand, sex education and sexual behavior by children with
disabilities is suppressed.
*"Sex is taboo."
*"Sex is terrible to families."
*"Families cannot face their children's sexuality."
*"Families have a paralyzing fear about sex in their children ."
For the typical family with a child with a disability, then,
transition in interpersonal relations means transition within the
family and certainly not transition to sexual activity. There are, we
assume, exceptions, such as the one mother (a widow) who recruits and
pays prostitutes to be with her son. But this mother was the only
parent identified by any parents or professionals who took deliberate
steps to tolerate, much) less to provide, a sex life for the adult with a
disability.
27
Financial Planning
Transition of the child into adulthood normally elicits a single
response from parents and professionals who consider the implications
of the financial support of the child and the financial burden of the
child on the family during adulthood. That response is that the family,
first, and government, second, will provide financial support respec-
tively through the personal resources and national pension (Social
Security) system.
The personal finances of many Latin Americans--exacerbated by
the stress that the national economies have experienced over the past
several years--underscore this primary dependence on the families'
own resources and the secondary dependence on a national pension
system. So, too, does the civil tradition of paternalism, the
expectation that "governments" will "take care of things." But trust in
government should not be placed too strongly, people told us, because
governments change and national economies are not dependable, either.
For families that have assets to bequeath, there are ways of using
gifts in trust to the child with a disability to supplement the
governmental pension and reduce the risk that the assets will be
dissipated. But fewer and fewer families have assets so sizeable that
they find trusts advantageous. As a result, the financial planning of
families tends to be relatively passive, reflective of the expectations
of cultural paternalism.
1
Timing and Planning
The impression exists that typically families do not seriously plan
for transition--for their children to establish their own residences,
secure jobs, and develop friendships too far outside the family.
28
*"Parents don't think about the future."
*"Families tend to take life a day at a time."
That is not to say, however, that they do not worry about the
future. For many parents, the main concern is: What happens after I
die? Yet that concern is powerfully mitigated by the Latin American
family traditions and values of unity and permanence, interdependence,
protectiveness, and acceptance--traditions and values that enable
parents to assume that the family will care for the child.
*"When I die, my family will take over."
*"The family cares for its own."
Because of these traditions, values, and expectations, and because
there is a strong tendency to maintain the child at home and to treat
the child as a child even when adulthood is reached and fully entered,
transition planning is delayed and transition itself is postponed,
usually until the parents' death. Indeed, the time when families begin
to plan for transition is calculated to be soon enough before the
parents' death (expecting a normal life) that a new residence and new
informal support system can be put into place, but not so soon as to
result in a premature move out of the parents' home.
Relevance of Observations for Policy in United States
For the purposes of discussion only, it may be useful (1) to high-
light-- to give a sharper contrast than perhaps is strictly warranted--
the differences between Anglo and Latin American families and (2) to
assume that the Anglo family tradition is reflected in federal and state
disability policies. By highlighting the Anglo and Latin American
differences and safely assuming that Anglo-based policies have
prevailed in the United States, it will be possible to point out more
clearly the implications for
33
accomplish the demolition of the extrusion policies by providing
long-term care in home and community sites, as an alternative to
institutions, and transition out of public school, into work, residence,
and interpersonal relationships in the community.
Long-term care policy: A challenge to values. With respect to
long-term care, the 98th and 99th Congress have passed up an
opportunity to provide home- and community-based long-term care to
persons with severe disabilities, failing to hold hearings, much less
enact, the Community and Family Living Amendments of 1983 (S. 2053)
and 1985 (S. 873). Yet long-term care remains as one of the most
important of the developmental disabilities issues, with the clear
direction being the provision of that care in home and community
settings. Early in 1987 there seems to be a developing consensus that
the Medicaid funding stream created for public institutions for people
with mental retardation by the 1972 amendments to Title XIX of the
Social Security Act must be reformed in this major respect: The
funding stream must be directed away from supporting long-term care
in institutions and toward supporting in-home and community sites.
It is instructive to consider the background and implications of
this consensus. What began as an attack on the institutions, by the
policy of deinstitutionalization (through reform of the conditions in the
institutions, depopulation, and prevention of new placements), has
become an effort to create home- and community-based care. In short,
the problem of the institutions has become the problem of the family
and community: how may people who have disabilities that render them
dependent on others receive appropriate developmental, habilitative,
34
medical, and educational services not in institutions but in their
natural environments, that is, in families and communities?
On the surface, this policy question appears to be one that involves
only two critical elements: first, the creation of a service system that
facilitates home- and community-based care; and, second, the funding
of that system by a large and steady stream of dollars (viz. those of the
Social Security Act). In fact, however, this policy question is far more
complex. At its core, it involves an attempt to reform the family
traditions and social values that created and supported the institu-
tional model of services.
If it is correct to say that the family values in the United States
are nuclear and not extended; encourage separation and not unity;
emphasize the development and early maturation of the child but not
his/her protection within the family; stress independence instead of
interdependence; rely on formal support in place of informal support;
are extruding instead of accepting; are individualistic instead of
collective and communitarian; are achievement-oriented instead of
happiness-oriented; are future-oriented instead of present-oriented;
are competitive instead of cooperative; and reflect the relative
transitoriness of a family instead of its relative permanency--if all of
that is correct, then it is clear that the policy effort to provide home-
and community-based long-term care for people with disabilities is
nothing short of an effort to change the cultural values relating to the
family and its members with disabilities.
Whereas CFLA and long-term care options once began as anti-
institutional policies, whose techniques stress small, family-like,
family-based, and community-based care, they now clearly must be
35
seen as pro-family policies. These options declare that the family as
a unit of social structure has a peculiar value itself; that family unity
and integrity are valid social values that policy must identify and
advance; and that the strategies for securing these values are two-fold.
First, the strategy is to provide the funding streams and service-
delivery systems that do more than simply enable home- and
community-based care. Second, the strategy is to declare that such
systems and care--such re-emergence of the family as the pivotal
provider to members with disabilities--are the presumptively correct
and valued ones. In short, the attempt to create long-term care
systems based in families and communities is nothing less than an
effort to create the family as the natural habitat of people with
disabilities. Indeed, it may be a reflection of the interpersonal
commitment ethic that Yankelovich (1981) identified early in this
decade.
Anglo and Latin American traditions relevant to long-term care. If
this analysis is correct, then the policy direction of home- and
community- based long-term care for people with disabilities faces
potentially formidable obstacles in the Anglo population and enjoys
potentially hospitable resources in the Latin American population.
With respect to the Anglo population, values, traditions, and policies
have reinforced --or, arguably, caused--the extrusion of people with
disabilities. Without regard to the issue of causation, the implication
is the same: The Anglo population is not as accustomed as the Latin
American population to retaining within the family the person with a
disability. By contrast, the policy of extrusion runs directly contrary
to Latin American values and traditions of unity and permanency,
interdependence, permanence, and acceptance.
36
So, too, the policy of home- and-community-based care is consistent
with the Latin American tradition.
In a sense, the direction of long-term care policy in the United
States toward home- and community-based care might be said to be a
course that is headed for a collision. The strategy of home- and
community-based care arguably is at least inappropriate to and at
worst contrary to the Anglo policies, and thus to the Anglo family
habits, values, and traditions, of the last eight decades. If it is to be
successful, the strategy therefore must become more consistent with
(or at least not more inconsistent with) the values and traditions;
alternatively, the values and traditions must be changed to accommo-
date the strategy. In either event, it is clear that, as the debate about
long-term care has been formulated over the past four years (since the
introduction of S. 2053 in the 98th Congress), the strategy has not yet
been made sufficiently relevant to the underlying values and traditions
of the Anglo family. Yet it is highly consistent with the values and
traditions of the Latin American family, including the Latin Americans
who are now citizens or residents of the United States. It now should
be apparent, if this analysis is correct, that the enactment of a policy
of home- and community-based long-term care for people with
disabilities and, more important, its successful implementation will
depend in part on how the Anglo family can be induced and supported to
adopt Latin American values, traditions, and habits.
At this point, it is apt to emphasize that the following discussion
of strategies for changing disability policy in the United States does
not necessarily carry our complete or uncritical endorsement, anymore
than the foregoing critique of long-term care options (e.g., CFLA) is a
37
rejection of them. We ask the reader to bear in mind these two obser-
vations, which state our values and beliefs, and then to consider our
discussion of strategies. First, Anglo families who want to emphasize
family centrality, cohesion, interdependence, protectiveness, and
accommodation, and who want to provide family-based long-term care,
should be supported in doing so by governmental funding that allows
in-home services to be purchased for the person with a disability and
that also provides for purchase of services for the family itself.
Second, Anglo families who adhere to values of independence, achieve-
ment, separation, and competition should have an opportunity to
analyze the values and practices of cultural groups such as Latin
Americans as an example of an alternative approach. Anglo values of
separation (moving out of parents' home at age 21) should not be
automatically reinforced as "right" for everyone. Families might be
encouraged to explore the benefits of informal family support, not
required through policy to adopt Latin American practices or values.
Strategies responsive to cultural values. Several strategies come
to mind that will support families to adopt Latin American values and
traditions. For example, the original Community and Family Living
Amendments Act (S. 2053) and its more recent version (S. 873)
provided that the services fundable under T. XIX (Medicaid) will include
those that furnish educational, habilitative, or rehabilitative services
to people with disabilities themselves, as well as those that support
families. These included case management, individual and family
support services, and protective services. Case management included
information to the person and the family about, and referral to,
appropriate social, educational, vocational, medical, advocacy, or other
38
services; assists in procuring those services; cooperates with
personnel in school, employment, or treatment settings who are
responsible for the care of the individual; and is available to the
individual or the family for consultation or crisis intervention. Family
support services included in-home and out-of-home services,
non-medical personal care, assistance in ambulating or transferring,
limited domestic services, and assistance with communicative devices
and aids; and services that assist the family in providing services to
the person, including respite care.
Another strategy is one adopted by various states--namely the
transfer of financial aid in the term of a "family subsidy" (Zimmerman,
1984). Already, states have enacted laws and funded programs of
family subsidies, transferring cash to the family so that it may
purchase services that it needs to care for a member with a disability
in the family's home.
Other strategies might include the creative use of the federal
income tax laws to provide deductions (over the now-allowed 5% of
adjusted gross income) for medical, habilitative, rehabilitative, or
special educational expenses incurred by the family that maintains at
home a person with a disability. Similarly, and more beneficial to the
family, income tax laws might allow a credit against taxes due, up to a
certain ceiling, for such expenses. Currently, child-care expenses are
creditable against taxes due, up to a certain ceiling. The extension of
that provision to families that provide home-based care seems
warranted on the same ground that sustains the child-care tax credit.
These are the retention of members in the family and the availability,
through creditable child-care expenses, of employment opportunities
39
for members of the family who otherwise would have to provide care at
home and thereby be taken out of the employment market.
In brief, long-term care policy in the United States that heads in
the direction of home- and community-based care must include induce-
ments to change family behaviors. It must inculcate into Anglo family
values and traditions the values and traditions that are more natural,
because more habitual, among Latin American families.
Simultaneously, policy must attack the attitudes that have
developed concerning the presence of a person with a disability in
society and in the family. Those attitudes have been unwarrantedly
prejudicial to the person with a disability, who has been portrayed as
"suffering from" or "afflicted with" a disability, as someone who has an
undesirable social trait and who consequently experiences deep stigma.
Whether these pejorative attitudes are the result of policy or the
views of caregiving professionals (in medicine, education, psychology,
sociology, or other disciplines) is beside the point. The fact remains
that the person with a disability is perceived by professionals, policy-
makers, and, arguably consequentially, families as burdensome. Such a
view of the person encourages extrusion. Such a view therefore is a
barrier to long-term care policy that seeks home- and community-
based services.
To the extent that policy declares that people with disabilities
have the same basic rights as people who are not disabled and policy
implements and funds those rights, it will go a long way--and already
has travelled a good distance--in dispelling the stigma of burden-
someness.
40
Likewise, to the extent that research, especially as funded by
federal or state policy-making entities or their related research
institutes, enables scholars to demonstrate that there is, indeed, a
positive contribution that people with disabilities make to society,
families, and other people, it too will help dissipate the stigma.
Finally, if policy heads in these directions, it may create a
cognitive adaptation among families, persuading them that extrusion is
unwarranted and presumptively wrong and that they can find benefit in
the presence in the family of the person with a disability and gain a
sense of control, and indeed, real control, over their lives as affected
by that person's presence.
In brief, policy in the United States may begin to change beliefs
and practices that have been characteristic. of the Anglo tradition of
exclusion and it may thereby help all families, not just Anglo ones, to
adopt and practice Latin American values of unity and permanency,
interdepen-
dence, protectiveness, and acceptance.
Family Values, Family Traditions, and Disability Transition Policies in
the United States
The ebb and flow of policy on behalf of people with disabilities
reflects, in large part, how professionals view them and, in turn, how
the general public views them. As noted above, the first several
decades of this century were years in which the policies were to
exclude them and to establish systems of dual citizenship.
The reform era that began in the 1960s and that has continued
unabated through the middle of the 1980s has been a time when policy
has increasingly sought to dismantle the restrictions that law and
society have placed on people with disabilities, to create new
41
affirmative rights on their behalf, and to empower researchers to
understand more fully the cognitive, behavioral, and biomedical basis
for disabilities, in the hopes that cures and amelioration would follow.
These policies reflected in large part the professional view that people
with disabilities are educable to a degree not previously thought
attainable and that they have the capacities for work, social and
personal relationships, and residential living that are very comparable
to the capacities of non-retarded people.
It is little wonder, then, that the Education of the Handicapped Act
(EHA) was amended in 1975 by the Education of All Handicapped
Children Act (P.L. 94-142) in an affirmation of the educability of
children with disabilities, including even profound and severe/multiple
handicaps, and further in an affirmation of their right to be educated,
to the maximum extent appropriate for their education, with non-
disabled students. Likewise, the enactment of legislation that created
job opportunities for them, assured federal funding for housing in the
community, made available for home- and community-based medical
care the Title XIX funds, and otherwise sought the assimilation of such
people into the mainstream of American life reflected a new and very
much more optimistic view of the capacities of people with dis-
abilities to work, live, and have social relationships with nondisabled
people and in the regular circles of those peoples' lives.
Transition policy's characteristics. The current federal initiative
toward securing the transition of people with disabilities from school
to adult services and from status as children to status as adults is but
a piece of the larger reform-era policy. It also is highly consistent
with the values and traditions of Anglo families; by contrast, it is
42
highly incongruent with the values and traditions of the Latin American
families who live in the United States. And herein lies both an oppor-
tunity and a challenge.
Transition, as noted, is a policy that seeks to assure the movement
of people with disabilities from school to adult services and from
status as children to status as adults. It is therefore a policy that may
be limited in the following ways. First, it is time-fixed, in that it
focuses on the several years before a student leaves school and the
several years after the person enters adult service systems. Second, it
is system-fixed, in that it takes into account the school system and,
among adult services, the employment (vocational system) and resi-
dential options (community-living system) that are available or may be
created. Third, it is person-fixed, in that it concentrates on the move-
ment of the person with a disability and tends to disregard the effects
of the planning for and actual movement of that person on the person's
family. Fourth, it is age-fixed, in that it begins a few years before the
person attains the age of majority and usually ends a few years after
that. Fifth, it is process-fixed, in that it assumes that planning by
rational and systematic means, rather than acting on instinct or
instinct coupled with plans, not only is the way in which families plan
but also is the way in which they should plan and that they should do so
in cooperation with a host of professionals.
We believe that transition is more properly conceived as a
whole-life approach, one that applies to every movement of a person
with a disability from one stage in life to another (e.g., from the inten-
sive-care nursery to out-patient pediatric care; from home to
preschool; from preschool to school; from school to work, residence,
43
and social life as an adult; from adulthood to old age; from old age to
death)
We also believe that transition should be conceived as a
whole-family process, one that takes into account the simple fact that
any decision made about a person with a disability probably involves
and most probably affects other members of that person's family.
It follows that the very limitations that have built up around
transition will make it less than a successful policy. Time-fixed
transition should be reformed to be a "transition through life" instead
of a "transition out of school" view. System-fixed transition should
take into account not just schools, vocational, and residential options,
but, more importantly, interpersonal relationships. Person-fixed
transition ignores the effect of a decision about the person with a
disability on the rest of the family. Age-fixed transition disregards
the fact that there are many transitions in a person's life, and
therefore in the family's life, and that each needs to be addressed
according to the families' assessment of priority. And process-fixed
transitions, focusing on deliberate and systematic planning, are not the
only ways--nor even the best ways--for all families, professionals,
and persons with disabilities to make decisions.
Implicit in these views is a notion that the values of transi-
tion--the movement out of school to work, out of home to independent
residential living, out of school-based relationships to other relation-
ships--are not to be accepted absolutely and uncritically. Yes, inde-
pendence is important; but SO too is interdependence. Yes, willingness
to take a risk on the person's and family's future by letting go of the
family ties is important; but so too is finding ways for the natural
44
protective instincts of parenthood and family status to be expressed.
In short, implicit in these divergent views of transition is the recog-
nition that Anglo ways give up a lot and that Latin American ways
preserve a lot that is valuable in any culture, society, and family.
With this definition of transition, critique of its limitations, and
reassessment of its values in mind, it will be useful to see just how
transition is both an opportunity and a challenge to the Latin American
families in the United States and how their family values and
traditions are relevant to and functional for transition policy.
Transition opportunities. It seems that there are three major
opportunities for Latin American families, and especially for Latin
American students in special education, that derive from the transition
initiatives. First, transition initiatives mean that the national policy
is forward-directed; it looks very strongly to the future of people with
a disability as a future that is lived in integrated settings--where
work will be performed in competitive employment, where residence
will be in the community and of the typical size and organization as
other people's homes in the community, and where interpersonal
relationships will be with people who are and are not labelled as
disabled. In short, transition policy means that the nation is not
willing to back-pedal and to retreat to the era of institutions and
low-expectations of the capcities of people with disabilities.
Second, transition policy means that people with disabilites,
whatever their ethnic or cultural origins, will be given opportunities
for real work, not segregated employment; for residences, not just
group houses; for friendships, not just "special populations" programs.
Transition means, among other things, that there may be a chance to
45
recognize and respond to the fact that the community-based programs
of today, which are largely segregated, are in fact the institutions of
tomorrow. Finally, transition means that Latin American students and
their families will have opportunities to escape the ethnic and cultural
discrimination to which they have been subjected in education,
principally through the use of psycho-educational testing and
classification. To the extent that transition means that Latin
American students will be better prepared for movement from schools
to adult systems and from childhood to adulthood, it may mitigate the
discrimination that they experience in school and will, unfortunately,
experience in their adult lives.
Transition challenges. Against these real opportunities for the
nation and its Latin American citizens, there stand some major
challenges in the implementation of transition policies.
First, transition policy, being person-fixed and concentrated on
the family member who has a disability, tends to isolate that person
and his/her disabilities and transition plans and prospects from the
person's family. It is decidedly not a "whole-family" approach, nor is it
a Latin American approach. The Latin American approach to transition
is grounded on the unity and permanence, interdependence,
protectiveness, and acceptance that the family feels towards its
members, particularly its member with a disability. Accordingly, the
Latin American approach is one that regards planning for one person as
planning for all; this is the implicit result of Latin American values.
To the extent that transition policy in the United States will be
successful with Latin American citizens, therefore, it must begin to
take a more whole-family approach, recognizing that a singular focus
on the member with a disability is culturally incongruent for the Latin
46
American family.
Second, transition policy, being time-fixed and concentrated on
the exiting from school or attaining of legal adulthood for the member
with a disability, tends not to take a "whole-life" approach. Transition
seems to be more aptly described as "transition to" adulthood rather
than "transition through" adulthood. Yet the Latin American values are
for the permanence of the family and even the delayed maturation and
independence of its members, especially the person with a disability,
It is difficult to reconcile the "transition to" approach--with its
emphasis on exiting from the school and family and entering
employment and new residential sites--with the Latin American
cultural ethic of having a person be a member of the family from birth
even unto after death.
Third, transition policy is highly future-oriented. It looks to the
next year in terms of individualized educational/transitional plans; it
contemplates goals for the next year and objectives for the next month.
It is based on an expectation that there will be a tomorrow that is
worth planning for today, Yet the Latin American cultural view of the
present and future are somewhat at odds with that view, there being no
fear of the future because of the confidence placed in the family, and
that active family planning is not necessary when one trusts that there
will be inter-personal, intra-family commitment.
Fourth, transition policy seeks the independence of the person
with a disability, especially in work, residence, and interpersonal
relationships. Its dominant motif is separation from the family; its
mosaic is scatteredness. Yet the Latin American tradition and value is
not independence but interdependence. Members of a family are not
expected to move from their parents' homes upon reaching the age of
47
majority or even early in their marriages. The dominant Latin
American motif is cohesion; its mosaic is concentrated togetherness.
Fifth and finally, transition policy tolerates and even encourages
the taking of risks, where the risks are incurred in the striking out of
the person with a disability on his/her own. Its dominant strain is that
of a frontiersman; it rings with the frontier mentality--a striking out
into a self-set and self-implemented direction. By contrast, the Latin
American tradition and value is not risk-taking but exactly the
opposite: protectiveness. Children who become adults still remain
children; the child with a disability, even as an adult, is still "mia
niño." The dominant strain of the Latin American tradition is that of
the settled, not the settler; of a person and family enmeshed in
relationships, fixed in time and place, protective of its members,
hesitant about the future.
In short, transition policy in the United States, while promising
much to Latin American citizens (just as it promises much to Anglo
citizens), still poses greater challenges than it presents opportunities
for Latin American. Without doubt, it is a policy that cries out for
cultural tolerance--for a leavening understanding that, although the
policy is sharply reflective of mainstream Anglo values and traditions,
it is but a clouded mirror of Latin American values and traditions.
Indeed, in a very real way, transition and future-planning are irrelevant
to the traditional habits and values of Latin American families for
most of them assume that, whatever happens to them or their family,
there always will be other family to provide for them: Once family,
always family; family above all else, always, unfailingly reliable and
present. That is an assumption that many Anglos and Anglo families do
not and cannot make.
48
Two Lessons: What May We Do with What We Know?
What in general may we do with what we have learned about the
paradox that we have only partially articulated? First, what is the
paradox? The paradox is this: the Latin American tradition and values
accom- modate rather well the policy direction of home- and
community-based care for people with disabilities, yet they are
relatively inhospitable to the policy for transition and future planning.
One would have expected that Latin American tradition and values
would have been either accommo- dating or not to both policies, since
both seem to be headed in the same direction, namely the provision of
opportunities for life in and of a community. Hence the paradox: the
Latin American traditions and values are accommodating of one policy
but not the other. Second, what shall policy do with this knowledge?
It has two options. The first deals with relationships.
Relationships.
In the development of long-term care policy that stresses home-
and community-based services, we need to understand more fully how
the Latin American family comes to unity and permanence,
interdependence, protectiveness, and acceptance, and then we need to
develop policy options that create similar attributes among families
that are formed by blood, marriage, or intention (just as the Camphill
and L'Arche intentional communities are created and sustained).
We also need to recognize that formal supports--provided by
governmental or private agencies with their legions of caregiving
professionals--are necessary but not sufficient. Formal supports are
indispensable to people with disabilities and their families, and their
curtailment is neither politically feasible nor socially warrantable. On
49
the other hand, there is ample evidence that informal support, as from
family members and friends, is highly sustaining to those who have
disabilities and to their families. As long-term care policy is crafted,
provisions must be made, therefore, for the reimbursability of non-
traditional habilitative and rehabilitative services such as respite
care, hospices, and life in intentional communities. Family subsidy
programs are an apt policy strategy. Similarly, exceptions must be
made so that intentional communities, whether as small as a L'Arche
home or as large as a Camphill Village, are encouraged and lightly
regulated, if at all, as a condition of their members' receipt of
disability funds. There may be--and most likely are--other ways to
encourage, through funding streams and regulatory schemes, the
development and enlargement of a system of services that sustains the
"family," whether the natural or a supplanted one.
Along these lines, the emphasis in federal education, transition,
employment, housing, and medical-care policy on the integration of
people with disabilities into the community must acknowledge that,
although policy has headed rightly in the direction of making people
with disabilities members in a community, it has not done enough to
help them become members of a community. Mere presence in the
community--being "in" the community--is important, but only as a
means for the real goal: being a member of a community, a participant
in its bloodstream, not a bystander, segregated in sheltered workshops
and group houses, looking on while the non-disabled community returns
the look and says, self- contentedly: "They are in the community. What
more do they want?"
50
The relationships that make it possible for people with dis-
abilities to be in and of a community are the ingredients for successful
integration. It is precisely those relationships--known. in policy
terminology as "associational rights and benefits"--that respond to the
New Ethic of Interpersonal Commitment. It is precisely those rela-
tionships that are mirrored in the Latin American traditions and values
of family unity and permanence, interdependence, protectiveness, and
acceptance. Funding streams, research initiatives, and regulatory
schemes need to focus more on the relationships that can be built, in
addition to the vocational skills that can be taught, the group houses
that can be zoned, the buses that can be retrofitted, and the recreation
that can be created for people with disabilities. Perhaps emphasis on
the interpersonal relationships at school (from elementary grades
through higher education), work, residence, and community presence
should be the first focus nowadays, since many of the educational,
vocational, residential, and other systems are in place or are being put
into place. In short, one lesson that we may profitably learn and
practice is the lesson of relationships. That is a lesson to which the
Latin American traditions and values, centered on family, point us.
Transition.
The second lesson that we may learn affects transition. In the
development of transition policy and in its implementation, we need to
understand that there is a potential conflict of values: the Anglo
values seem to run contrary to the Latin American values. No more
important contribution could be made to this nation's future,
considering the changing demographics of the country and its history of
51
cultural pluralism, than to temper the Anglo goals of transition with
the realization that Latin American goals, and indeed Latin American
time frames for transition and Latin American techniques of dealing
with the future, are not only not to be tampered with if professionals
truly seek to serve people with disabilities and their families, but also
that those goals, time frames, and techniques are in fact to be valued.
The reason for placing such a value on the Latin American response to
transition is that it is a response inherent in an important and growing
segment of our population.
Pluralism. Moreover, it is a response that, precisely because we
have a national history of cultural pluralism, should be honored and
preserved for culturally pluralistic purposes. We cannot espouse our
history and future as a nation of immigrants and disregard immigrant
traditions. In short, we must be true to our own national heritage, and
we can only do that if we are true to the national heritage of each and
every one of us.
References
Braddock, D. (1987). Federal policy toward mental retardation and
developmental disabilities. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing
Company.
Bureau of the Census (1980). City population by race and Spanish origin.
Washington: U.S. Printing Office.
Elkind, D. (1981). The hurried child: Growing up too fast too soon.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
Halpern, H.S. (1985). Transition: A look at the foundations. Exceptional
Children, 51 (6), 479-486.
Vanier, J. (1978). On the particular therapy of L'Arche. In L'Arche (Ed.),
The International Federation of L'Arche, Richmond Hill: Daybreak
Press.
Vanier, J. (1981). Introduction. In L'Arche (Ed.), The Challenge of L'Arche.
Ottawa: Novalis/Winston.
Yankelovich, D. (1981). New rules: Searching for self-fullfillment in a
world turned upside down. New York: Random House.
Zimmerman, S.L. (1984). The mental retardation family subsidy program:
Its effects on families with a mentally handicapped child. Family
Relations. 33, 105-118.
Lex's
Master Copy
U.S.NEWS
Liberation day
for the disabled
Forty-three million will soon win basic civil-rights
protections. Their growing movement has brushed
aside the opposition and is changing America
he day before the Senate passed
T
proclamation for people with handi-
historic legislation to protect the
caps" that will fundamentally change
civil rights of disabled people,
their lives, getting more of them out of
Mary Jane Owen got another rude
their homes and institutions and into full
reminder of the daily discrimination that
participation in society. Under the new
faces people like her. Owen, a writer who
law, restaurants, stores, hotels and the-
is blind and uses a wheelchair, was lobby-
aters can no longer turn away a person
ing senators for the disability-rights bill.
with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, AIDS or
But when she moved onto Constitution
any other disability. Employers would
Avenue to go home, a taxi driver at
TNE
be prohibited from rejecting qualified
curbside sped away rather than pick up a
workers just because they are disabled,
woman in a wheelchair.
and they would be required to fashion
ATION
It is similar acts, repeated hundreds of
generally inexpensive modifications to
thousands of times a day to the nation's
the workplace to make it accessible to
43 million disabled, that fueled an angry
the disabled, such as putting a desk on
political movement that has brought the
blocks to raise it for a wheelchair user. It
nation to a path-breaking moment. In a
would also require that new buses be
few weeks, President Bush is expected to
equipped with lifts so that wheelchair
sign the Americans with Disabilities Act,
users could get on public transit. New
a broad statement that will extend to the
buildings, or those undergoing major re-
disabled the same protections against
construction, would have to be made
discrimination that were given to blacks
accessible to disabled people, with eleva-
and women in the 1960s and 1970s. The
Countless frustrations. Angry protesters in San
tors installed in shopping malls and new
Senate passed the measure 76 to 8 last
structures higher than two stories. Tele-
written" that it is unclear how far, and to
week, and the House is likely to approve
phone companies would have to hire op-
it next month. The bill is a profound
what expense, a business will have to go to
erators who could take a message typed
avoid being open to a lawsuit. Sponsors of
rethinking of how this country views dis-
by a deaf person on a Telecommunica-
abled people, defined as anyone with a
the bill said estimates that its implementa-
tions Device for the Deaf (TDD) and
tion might cost billions of dollars were
physical or mental impairment that
then relay it orally to a hearing person
"substantially limits" everyday living.
wildly exaggerated. Past experience
on another phone.
shows they may be correct.
For the first time, America is saying the
Cost of access. Businesses, particularly
biggest problem facing disabled people is
When Congress in 1973 protected dis-
small ones, are wary of the changes. John
not their own blindness, deafness or oth-
abled people from discrimination by insti-
Sloan, president of the National Federa-
er physical condition but discrimination.
tutions that receive federal funding,
tion of Independent Business, complained
North Carolina education officials esti-
The bill, says Senate sponsor Tom
that the bill will "impose costly require-
mated it would cost them $15 billion to
Harkin (D-Iowa), is "an emancipation
ments on businesses" and is "so broadly
make state university buildings accessi-
JOHN VAN BEEKUM FOR USN&WR
WIN McNAMEE FOR
Why the rights law
has moved swiftly
Most leaders behind the
Americans with Disabilities
Act have special reasons to
promote it-they are disabled
or have relatives who are.
President Bush, whose son Neil,
left, has dyslexia and son
Marvin, right, has had a
colostomy, guaranteed the bill's
passage with his support.
20
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Sept. 18, 1989
ROBERTA BARNES-SAN ANTONIO LIGHT
a civil-rights bill, particularly one that
was rushing through Congress. More im-
portant, businesses in the last few years
Right
have seen disabled people as a new source
of labor and customers. "If they can get to
the stores, business is going to increase,"
says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's
Nancy Fulco, who nonetheless lobbied to
limit the rights bill's impact on business.
"Hidden army." The mixed feelings of
business groups underscored how disabil-
ity rights is a civil-rights movement dif-
ferent from any other. Unlike the black
and women's movements, disability-
rights groups have never filled the streets
with hundreds of thousands of marchers.
Instead, the disability movement boasts
WE
NEED
"a hidden army," says former Represen-
tative Tony Coelho, who has epilepsy.
ARIDE
Since a fifth of the nation's population
has some form of disability, ranging from
OWORK
mental retardation to severe arthritis,
Coelho argues, "disability impacts prac-
tically every family."
DER
Nowhere was that clearer than in
Congress and the White House, where
ION
key supporters of the rights bill felt a
particular need to win the bill's passage
because they personally know about dis-
abilities. Most important was President
Bush, who has two sons with disabilities.
Bush's strong statements in support of
the bill during the 1988 campaign won
him important support in the usually
Democratic disability community. Nev-
ertheless, the rights bill was in trouble
until mid-June because of business fears
about its cost. Then, on the day he left
Antonio wheel through the streets to protest the lack of accessible public transportation
Congress, Coelho called Bush to ask him
to renew his commitment to the bill.
ble, says architect Ronald Mace of Barri-
conform with the schedule of lift-
Within a few weeks, White House Chief
er Free Environments. Instead, many
equipped buses. Another 30 percent of
of Staff John Sununu convened a strate-
changes were simple and cheap. To ac-
the accommodations were achieved for
gy session with key senators to negotiate
commodate students in wheelchairs,
between $100 and $500. That included
a compromise. That was easy to achieve
classes were moved to ground floors rath-
such changes as giving a telephone head-
once sponsors agreed to the White
er than installing elevators to carry them
set to a quadriplegic telephone operator.
House request they drop the provision
to top floors. The cost so far has totaled
Despite the concerns of business
that would have allowed the disabled to
$15 million, says Mace. Similarly, a 1982
groups, their opposition to a bill that
sue for punitive damages if they were
study for the Labor Department found
would open them up to a new spate of
discriminated against, a provision that
that half the accommodations made in
lawsuits was surprisingly muted and not
was the most opposed by business lob-
the workplace cost little or nothing. For
nearly as vociferous as their fight against
example, it was easy for companies to
bies. From that moment, the compro-
the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For one thing,
mise bill has been on a fast track.
change a wheelchair user's work hours to
no one wanted to look like a bigot fighting
The success of the disability move-
DARRYL HEIKES-USN&WR
Ted Kennedy is one of several
GARY KIEFFER
Senate Republican leader Bob
key lawmakers backing the bill
Dole, left, cares about disability
who know life with the disabled.
issues, in part because his right
His sister Rosemary is retarded
arm was rendered useless by
and his son Teddy, Jr., left, lost
war wounds. Former House
a leg to cancer. Tom Harkin
Democratic leader Tony
(D-Iowa), chief Senate sponsor,
Coelho, who has epilepsy,
has a deaf brother and a.
turned the House fight over to
quadriplegic nephew. Former
Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), whose
Senator Lowell Weicker (R-
wife has epilepsy, too. Atty.
Conn.), who has a son with
Gen. Dick Thornburgh, whose
Down syndrome, first
support was critically helpful,
introduced the rights bill.
has a retarded son.
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Sept. 18, 1989
21
U.S.NEWS
ment is extraordinary because it sprang
once they tried to find jobs. A recent
up with little noise and little notice. One
Census Bureau study concluded that the
essential ingredient has been the growth
gap between the earnings of disabled and
A PERSONAL REFLECTION
of a new class consciousness among the
their nondisabled co-workers is growing.
disabled. Seventy-four percent of them
A disabled worker in 1987 made only 64
feel they share a "common identity"
percent of what his nondisabled col-
The mixed
with other disabled people, and 45 per-
leagues earned. In 1980, it was 77 percent.
cent argue that they are "a minority in
The 1985 Harris survey found that 70
the same sense as are blacks and Hispan-
percent of working-age disabled people
blessings of
ics," according to a 1985 poll by Louis
were unemployed. Of those, two thirds
Harris & Associates. "All disabled peo-
said they wanted to work but were pre-
ple share one common experience-dis-
a movement
vented from doing so because, among
crimination," says Pat Wright of the
other reasons, they faced discrimination
Disability Rights, Education and De-
in hiring or lacked transportation. Those
who do not work now collect federal
T
his summer, a paraplegic park
fense Fund. Often it is crude bigotry. In
ranger named Mark Wellman cap-
January, an airline employe in New
disability and welfare checks, costing
tured national attention by climb-
York who resented hav-
nearly $60 billion a year.
ing a sheer rock cliff in Yosemite Na-
ing to help a 66-year-
"It doesn't make sense to
tional Park. After reaching the top,
old double amputee
THE COST FACTOR
maintain people in a de-
Wellman said his feat showed that phys-
board a plane instead
pendency state when
ical handicaps should not stop people
threw him on a baggage
Businesses are concerned
from achieving their dreams. "I don't
about the costs imposed
those people want to be
dolly. A New Jersey
productive, tax-paying
consider myself disabled," he said.
private-zoo owner a few
by the civil-rights bill:
citizens," argues Jay
Wellman's fame did not please every-
summers ago refused to
Buildings: The cost of
Rochlin of the Presi-
one, especially those fighting to pass the
admit children with
making accessible new
dent's Committee on
Americans with Disabilities Act. Bill
Down syndrome to the
buildings and those
Employment of People
Bolte, a disabled activist, has confessed
monkey house because,
existing structures that
with Disabilities.
to feeling "hate and fury" for people like
he claimed, they upset
are undergoing major
Although no one
Wellman, "whose pursuit of personal
his chimpanzees.
renovations runs between
knows precisely how
fantasies hurts the struggle for equal
It is that kind of out-
0 and 1 percent of
many millions of dollars
rights." Movement members refer to the
rage and countless more
building costs.
could be saved by bring-
disabled such as Wellman as "super-
subtle discriminations
Transit: Changes
ing the disabled fully
crips," and they worry that glorifying
that fueled the move-
required of bus and
into the work force, Syl-
such people inadvertently undermines
ment that now wants to
transit systems to help the
via Piper, an Ankeny,
support for legislation aimed at those
change the image of the
disabled over the next 20
Iowa, mother, says she
less strong or more severely impaired.
disabled. Many now re-
years might cost several
saved taxpayers $4.8
Boyhood pursuits. I happen to admire
ject the traditional atti-
hundred million dollars.
million by ignoring
Wellman's grit and his unwillingness to
tudes of society that sug-
physicians who urged
consider himself disabled. As a kid
gested their lives were
Phones: It will cost
tragic and pitiful. Many
$250 million to $300
her to institutionalize
growing up near St. Louis, I, too, loved
million a year to hire
her retarded son, Dan,
climbing cliffs and trees, anything tall.
now loathe charitable
when he was born. In-
One winter afternoon when I was 14, I
appeals such as the an-
operators to work relay
stead, she kept him at
climbed to the top of what I thought was
nual Jerry Lewis Tele-
systems so deaf people
thon that raised $42 mil-
can communicate with
home and sent him to
an abandoned telephone pole but was an
those who can hear,
public school with non-
electric pole carrying 7,000 volts. My
lion for the Muscular
according to federal and
disabled children, the
next memory is of lying on the ground,
Dystrophy Association
AT&T estimates.
kind of role models who
staring up at a paramedic. The burns I
over Labor Day week-
inspired him to get a job
received cost me one arm and all feeling
end. Such extravaganzas
this summer. Dan, now
and movement in my other hand.
seek funds by emphasiz-
18, saved $800 from his
My injuries have long since healed,
ing the most desperate cases. That kind of
pay as a drugstore stockroom worker.
and, while there are things I can no
approach, activists say, suggests that dis-
His first purchase was a gray bedroom
longer do, such as fishing, I lead a fairly
abled people are to be cared for and
rug, upon which he slept the night it
typical thirtysomething life-Acura,
cannot be contributing members of soci-
arrived. The next morning he was ready
mortgage, attractive wife and a baby on
ety: "We don't want to be dependent any
for work early and announced, "I've got
the way. I, like Wellman, do not consid-
more," says Lex Friedan of the Institute
to work harder and make more money."
er myself disabled.
for Rehabilitation and Research Founda-
Once again, says his delighted mother,
Yet I, too, have a problem with the
tion in Houston, who is a quadriplegic
Dan grew when faced with a challenge.
hoopla surrounding his ascent. The cam-
wheelchair user, the result of an automo-
The nation's changing demographics
eras would not have been at the top of that
bile accident. "We want to be part of
have added to the urgency of meeting the
cliff had Wellman not been paraplegic. He
society in every way."
needs of the disabled. By 1990, there will
does not want to be considered disabled,
Such new attitudes reflect fundamental
be 6.2 million elderly Americans with one
yet there was the nation, gawking at his
changes in the lives of disabled people.
or more basic disabilities, up from almost
dangling legs, transfixed as much by his
Since 1975, when federal law first ensured
5 million in 1984, according to estimates
disabilities as by his achievements.
all disabled children access to schools,
hundreds of thousands of disabled stu-
by the Urban Institute, a research organi-
I don't climb cliffs any more, but as I
dents have gotten a better education
zation. And the explosive growth of the
attempt to scale the journalism profes-
number of those with AIDS and HIV
sion, I am repulsed by the thought of
alongside nondisabled peers. Many grew
infection has already added hundreds of
being viewed as a pretty good journal-
frustrated after college, when they found
thousands more disabled to the popula-
ist-for a crippled guy. I expect, and
there were few such protections to help
tion. That is why AIDS-policy advocates
22
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Sept. 18, 1989
JAY MATHER-SYGMA
mostly receive, judgment
may sound hopelessly sun drenched to
based on the average level of
you, but it doesn't to me. I experience it
performance of my peers.
every day.
Happiness is achieving, as a
Years of neglect. America might not
Zen master might put it, a
want to deal with another disadvantaged
state of unself-consciousness
interest group. But we have only our-
regarding my injuries.
selves to blame. Public buildings, private
I realize that I am some-
companies and transportation facilities
thing of an extremist on this
have been inaccessible to the disabled for
point, but the desire to be
decades, but little has been done. Dis
treated like everyone else is
abled people have been subject to other
among the most common feel-
forms of discrimination, but too often
ings of people with disabil-
we've looked the other way. As a democ-
ities. The same noble idea in-
racy long guided by interest groups, we
forms the disability rights
have left it to the disadvantaged to orga-
movement. Unfortunately,
nize themselves.
the movement does for politi-
The disability movement is still
cal advantage what TV net-
young, and its leaders have justice and
works do for ratings: It draws
common sense on their side. And if they
the nation's attention to dis-
will not tone down their self-conscious-
ability. It "raises the con-
ness, they might at least jettison a few
sciousness" of people about
myths, such as insisting "we don't want
disability and helps forge a
special treatment, just equality.' But
"common identity' among
they are asking for special treatment, in
the disabled. Yet in doing so
the form of regulations and subsidies. It
the movement runs counter to
is O.K. to admit that. Corporations and
a wonderful unself-conscious-
professional groups enjoy similar bene-
ness that is already happen-
fits, many of which are far less beneficial
ing, in big and small ways ev
to the nation.
ery day.
Similarly, disabled activists ask peo-
Take, for instance; tooth-
ple to stop "pitying" the disabled and
paste. Getting the stuff out of
realize how they are "victimized" by
those roll-up tubes used to
discrimination. Yet is it not natural to
drive me crazy. Tube-squeez-
Super crip." Mark Wellman climbing in Yosemite
pity a victim? Or to feel self-pity upon
ing devices are advertised for
LINDA
realizing that you are a victim? It is
sale in catalogs distributed to
dicey for the disability movement to
physical therapists, but I nev-
play the victim game, because it is risky
er bought one, preferring,
to use disabilities for dramatic effect
rightly or wrongly, to struggle
against others who know that fate, not
unaided rather than fill my
society, is usually to blame for the af-
home with and become de-
flictions of the disabled.
pendent on various doodads
Many activists insist that there is
designed for the handicapped.
nothing sad or negative about disability
Then the demographics of the
that cannot be altered by changes in
marketplace came to my res-
attitudes, behavior and public policy.
cue. Eying growing markets
But what is true for blacks, women and
of the arthritic elderly and of
gays is not necessarily so for the dis-
young parents tired of chil-
abled. Stereotypes should be eliminated,
dren wasting toothpaste, man-
Benefits. Curb cuts' are not just for the disabled
but physical afflictions are sad and nega-
ufacturers developed the easy-
tive. Nothing short of medical miracles
to-use pump tube. Today, I can pick one
heels. Curb cuts probably cost far less
will change that Like any misfortune
up at K mart, just as I can saunter into
than society gains in ease and added
a bad marriage, a business failure-it is
voguish housewares stores and, without
productivity. But the greater benefit is
best to move on and not let the misfor-
a trace of self-consciousness, purchase
spiritual. They let people in wheelchairs
tune define one's self or dominate the
fat-handled cutlery and lever-operated
share public streets in a way that does
rest of one's life. That, anyway, is how
faucets.
not advertise "specialness." Other
I've decided to play it. For people with
Movement activists are right in saying
changes called for in the legislation, such
more-severe afflictions or poorer circum-
that crucial aids to the handicapped of
as wheelchair lifts on buses, will also
stances than mine, that is tougher to do.
ten do modestly improve many other
blend in, while helping disabled people
Congress and the White House will
lives. Government-mandated changes
to do the same. We might even achieve a
make it easier by passing and imple-
like "curb cuts;" which make city side-
society in which a wheelchair-bound
menting this legislation. Then perhaps
walks accessible to wheelchairs, are a
person would not be seen, either by oth-
Washington can share some of the tri
good example. Notice how all sorts of
ers or by himself, as disabled, because in
umph that properly belongs to the dis-
people take advantage of them: Delivery
a very real way he would not be. He
ability activists.
people with hand trucks, parents push-
would be earning a living and paying his
ing baby carts and even women in high
taxes just as everybody else does. This
by Paul Glastris
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Sept. 18, 1989
23
U.S.NEWS
teamed up with disability groups to make
sure civil-rights guarantees under the bill
also applied to those with AIDS. People
with AIDS had won federal court rulings
protecting them under existing disability-
rights laws, which apply only to federally
funded programs. The new bill will ex-
DERK FOR USN&WR
pand that protection to the private sector,
so that people with AIDS and HIV infec-
tion cannot be fired from jobs or denied
service in restaurants.
Galvantzing Issue. Along with being
better educated and more independent,
the new generation of disabled people
has become more politically sophisticat-
ed. Some 200 independent-living centers,
which have sprung up since the 1970s to
provide a mix of counseling and support
services to severely disabled people, be-
came bases of advocacy. One galvanizing
issue came in the early 1980s, when a
Reagan administration antiregulation ef-
fort tried to eliminate key federal protec-
tions that prohibit discrimination by any
Independence. Kevin Ryan is part of a test case against community protests
program or contractor receiving federal
funds. Negotiating sessions over the reg-
Uncle Sam's NIMBY attack
ulation first brought then Vice President
Bush face-to-face with Evan Kemp, who
headed Ralph Nader's Disability Rights
L
ike most parents of mentally re-
ever they want. The antidiscrimina-
Center. The regulation was never
tarded children, Thomas and
tion law is so strong that if the Jus-
changed, in part because of Kemp's ad-
Rosemary Ryan worry about
tice Department wins the Illinois
vocacy and growing friendship with
who will care for their son Kevin
suit, it could actually end NIMBY
Bush. Last week, the President named
after they die. Today, 30-year-old
cases involving group homes for the
Kemp, a member of the Equal Employ-
Kevin lives with them in their Park
mentally retarded.
ment Opportunity Commission since
Forest, Ill., home. He earns money
The NIMBY syndrome had pre-
1987, to chair the civil-rights agency,
assembling boxes for a local depart-
sented a dilemma to communities.
which will handle job-discrimination
ment store, volunteers to help re-
Most states are under pressure, often
cases brought under the new law.
tarded kids and is an usher at St.
from court orders, to close down
The disability-rights movement is dis-
Irenaeus Catholic Church. "Kevin
large mental institutions, but relocat-
tinctive, too, because it has never had a
wants to be part of the world, says
ing the residents thereof is often very.
Martin Luther King or a Betty Friedan
his mother. Ideally, that means he
difficult because of local opposition
to lead it. Part of the reason is that there
would move to a supervised group
to group homes. Paul Marchand, of
are hundreds of different disabilities.
home with 14 other retarded adults
the Association for Retarded Citi-
Nonetheless, disabled people, such as
where he will be more self-reliant.
zens of the United States, says that
student protesters who last year gave
But construction of the ranch-
neighbors will eventually realize that
Gallaudet University its first deaf presi-
style house in the adjacent suburb of
the group home next door will not
dent, I. King Jordan, are now adopting
Chicago Heights, where the Ryans
significantly hurt property values or
on a small scale the protest tactics of the
hoped to place Kevin, is being
increase crime. Several national
civil-rights movement. Thirty members
blocked by neighborhood opposi-
studies have supported his conten-
of American Disabled for Accessible
tion. The board of commissioners,
tion. As a result; Marchand says,
Public Transportation, which uses tac-
responding to pressure from neigh-
resistance to group homes will fade.
tics of civil disobedience, on Labor Day
bors who fear a rise in crime and a
Nonetheless, several other appli-
backed their wheelchairs against buses
drop in their property values, de-
cations of the new law are under
at the Los Angeles Greyhound terminal
nied the zoning-law exemption nec-
way. In July, in the first court test
and disrupted busy holiday traffic in a
essary to build the proposed home.
of the new law, an Erie County, Pa.,
protest for wheelchair lifts on buses.
This is the common American
court struck down a local zoning
As the historic legislation was being
story of NIMBY, or the not-in-my-
ordinance that banned group
debated, there was a curious twist.
back-yard syndrome. But this time
homes. Similarly, in Bucks County,
Watching with interest was a paraplegic
there is a twist. The U.S. Depart-
Pa., Pittsburgh and Swansea, Ill.,
visitor from Moscow, Ilya Zaslavski. He
ment of Justice recently sued Chica-
advocates for the mentally retarded
made history earlier this year when he
go Heights, arguing it has discrimi-
have filed suits against local govern-
won election to the new Soviet national
nated against the disabled. The
ments. Meanwhile, Maryland and
legislature, the first person anywhere in
Justice Department is intervening
cities such as Cambridge, Mass.,
the world to run as a disability candidate.
for the first time in such a case,
have moved voluntarily to comply
Zaslavski watched the work of Congress
using part. of the new fair-housing
with the new law.
and announced plans to introduce
law, which guarantees the right of
SDA-a Soviets with Disabilities Act.
mentally ill, mentally retarded and
by Joseph P. Shapiro with
other disabled people to live wher-
Lynn W. Adkins in Chicago
by Joseph P. Shapiro
24
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Sept. 18, 1989
LIBERTY, EMANCIPATION - THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT
A CALL FOR ACTION
Article for March Edition
of
HORIZONS MAGAZINE
Dorman Cordell, Editor
Work: 739-0239
Home: 692-6231
Prepared by
Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
3409 Faulkner Drive
Rowlett, Texas 75088
(214) 475-9511 - Home
(214) 767-4056 - Work
LIBERTY, EMANCIPATION - THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT
A CALL FOR ACTION
CURRENT STATUS
Today is an exciting time in which to live! Taking note of
the events that have transpired in less than a year's time across
Europe, causing changes in the Soviet Union, and with the most
recent release of Nelson Mandela it is time to recognize the need
to liberate the 43 million people with disabilities here in the
United States.
On September 7, 1989 the Senate passed the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) by an overwhelming vote of 76 to 8. On
November 14, 1989 the House Education and Labor Committee
unanimously reported the bill after several weakening amendments
were defeated. My representative, U. S. Congressman Steve
Bartlett, a member of the House Education and Labor Committee,
provided strong leadership in getting ADA through this House
Committee, a major victory. Congress went back into session on
February 20, 1990 and will continue their consideration of ADA.
The bill still has to work its way through three other House
Committees (Public Works and Transportation Committee, Judiciary
Committee, and Energy and Commerce Committee) before it can be
voted on by the full House. This is a compromise bill, the product
of months of discussions between the White House, the Justice
Department, OMB, other affected federal agencies, Democrats and
Republicans in the Congress, the business community and the
disability community.
Page 2 - Liberty
Almost 200 major national disability, civil rights, religious,
civic and health organizations support the compromise bill, which
meets the basic access needs of the disability community while
addressing the concerns of the business community. The President
of the United States strongly supports this bill, and the Bush
Administration helped work out the compromise bill. Despite all
of this effort at compromise, the business community still has
major concerns with the bill and is actively working to weaken it.
The Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent
Businesses (NFIB), National Association of Theater Owners, Shell
oil, National Association of Retailers and others, as well as
private transit industry and some public transit authorities,
continue to generate erroneous information about the bill to their
memberships in an attempt to weaken it. They have organized letter
writing campaigns to Congress and have outnumbered our letters and
phone calls five to one.
Word on Capitol Hill about ADA is that efforts are currently
underway to make a number of changes to the measure, setting the
stage for a fight between the four committees that have
jurisdiction over the bill, H.R. 2273. A draft substitute of the
bill has been shown to some congressional staff, who say they were
surprised at the extent of the changes proposed. Though the draft
may undergo further modifications before being introduced, some say
the tone of the draft is "disturbing."
Among the changes proposed is a deletion of reference to the
14th amendment as a basis for the measure, in effect denying that
Page 3 - Liberty
the ADA is a civil rights bill, said one congressional staffer.
Instead, the draft proposes to cite the commerce clause of the
Constitution as a basis for the bill. In another major departure
from the current bill, the draft proposes to base the time limits
for compliance not on enactment of the legislation, but on issuance
of regulations. Such a move is widely opposed by the disability
lobby, which fears the removal of incentives for federal agencies
to issue rules in a timely manner. The draft proposal also
includes major changes to the provisions on accessibility of Amtrak
cars and in public accommodations.
If vastly different versions of the ADA come out of the four
House committees, final action on the measure could be delayed even
more while the House leadership decides whether to work out the
differences on the floor or to piece together one bill from the
four. The version passed by the House must then be reconciled with
the bill passed by the Senate last fall, opening the door for even
more changes. The only House committee that has taken formal
action on the ADA is the Education and Labor panel, which approved
its version in November. Action in the other committees has not
yet been scheduled.
WHY THE PARANOIA BY BUSINESS?
As I testified at the House Education and Labor Committee Field
Hearing on ADA in Houston on August 28, 1989 and as I addressed
some 300 owners of intercity buses from throughout the country at
the first ever joint national trade shows of the United Bus Owners
Page 4 - Liberty
of America (UBOA) and the American Bus Association (ABA) in Dallas
at the Loew's Anatole Hotel on January 24, 1990, I explained that
the paranoia and fear being expressed by the business community
about the Americans with Disabilities Act is predictable to those
of us who experienced the days before Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 is a federal civil rights
law that, among other things, required public schools, colleges,
universities and all health and social service programs that
receive federal financial assistance to make their programs
accessible to qualified persons with disabilities. The Americans
with Disabilities Act has been patterned after Section 504 and has
similar definitions, terminology and access requirements. In the
1970's the "Education Lobby" cried to Congress that Section 504 of
the Rehabilitation Act, if enacted, would bankrupt educational
institutions. Facts reflect that the costs have been minimal.
One example of particular note was a college that was
unusually vocal about the costs and the adverse economic impact on
its educational programming that the required accessibility to its
educational programs would cause. Later, a study was done of the
costs incurred in program accessibility at that college. It was
discovered that the college spent more in one year waxing its
floors than it had cost to make its educational programs accessible
to persons with disabilities permanently.
Now the transportation and other business lobbies are singing
that same tune, the "Bankruptcy Blues" about ADA. We have
Page 5 - Liberty
compromised and amended ADA enough. It is now time for swift and
positive action on the part of Congress.
WHAT DOES ADA CALL FOR?
The ADA will protect people with disabilities from
discrimination in employment, transportation, public
accommodations, activities of state and local government, and
telecommunications, giving protection which is comparable to
that afforded other groups on the basis of race, sex, national
origin, age and religion. Most provisions go into effect 2 years
after enactment, other than fixed-route publicly-funded transit
vehicles (see below).
Employment: All places of employment with 25 or more
employees are covered for the first 12 years; after that, employers
with 15 or more are covered. Provisions are similar to Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (application procedures must be
nondiscriminatory, reasonable accommodation is required unless it
would pose an undue hardship, employment criteria must be
substantially related to essential functions of the job, etc.)
Employers may require that an individual with a currently
contagious disease not pose a direct threat to the health and
safety of others, and may prohibit all workplace use of drugs and
alcohol. Religious entities are not restricted from preferential
hiring of people holding to their particular religious tenets.
Transportation (publicly and privately owned) New purchased
and leased bus and rail vehicles must be accessible. For publicly
Page 6 - Liberty
funded systems, this requirement goes into effect 30 days after
passage.
Publicly funded fixed-route operators must provide comparable
paratransit service unless it would pose an undue hardship.
All demand-response service which is provided to the general
public and privately-funded fixed-route service, may purchase only
accessible vehicles unless it can be demonstrated that the service
is accessible when viewed in its entirely. The exception is
privately-funded fixed-route service which uses vehicles carrying
over 16 passengers, in which case new vehicles must be accessible.
Over-the-road coaches (Greyhound-type buses) are exempted for
six years in the case of large providers and seven years for small
providers; after that, newly purchased vehicles must be accessible.
The bill commissions a three-year study to determine the best way
to provide access to over-the-road coaches.
New bus and rail facilities must be accessible. In altered
facilities, the altered area must be accessible to the maximum
extent feasible. In major structural alterations, a path of travel
to altered areas and restrooms serving altered areas must be
accessible. Existing facilities must be accessible when viewed in
their entirety.
Rail: New vehicles must be accessible. One car per train
must be accessible in no more than 5 years. Key rail stations must
be accessible in no more than 3 years, with exemptions available
for up to 20 years. Amtrak stations must be accessible within 20
years.
Page 7 - Liberty
Public Accommodations:
Includes hotels, restaurants,
theaters, halls, stores, offices, transit stations, museums, parks,
schools, social service agencies, gyms.
Eligibility criteria can't discriminate. Auxiliary aids and
services are required unless the public accommodation can
demonstrate undue hardship.
Existing facilities: Must remove barriers when such removal
is readily achievable. If not, must provide alternative methods
of making goods and services available.
Altered facilities: Altered area must be accessible to the
maximum extent feasible. In major structural alterations, a path
of travel to the altered area and restrooms serving the altered
area must be accessible.
New facilities must be accessible unless structurally
impracticable, but elevators need not be provided in buildings
under 3 floors or with less than 3000 square feet per floor, other
than in shopping centers and health care facilities.
Public Services: Activities receiving funding from state and
local government are covered, with requirements as in Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Telecommunications Relay Services: Telephone
carriers
offering services to the general public (interstate and intrastate)
must provide TDD relay services by 2 years after enactment.
Enforcement: Administrative remedies are available. Also,
private remedies comparable to those in Titles II and VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 are available. Attorney's fees are
Page 8 - Liberty
available; punitive damages are not. The Attorney General can
bring pattern or practice suits and seek penalties. States can be
sued.
Federal law (the Civil Rights Act of 1964) prohibits
discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin and
religion, but not disability. Thus, under federal law, a
restaurant cannot refuse to serve a person because he is black,
but they can exclude a person who is mentally retarded, has
cerebral palsy, etc.
Discrimination on the basis of disability is pervasive across
America. It affects not only the persons who have the disabilities
but also their entire families.
The ADA will mean that people with disabilities will be able
to do what all other Americans take for granted in their daily
lives. The ADA is intended to insure that people with disabilities
will be treated with dignity and respect. In a real sense the bill
codifies basic notions of common courtesy (i.e., it doesn't require
that a store braille all its price tags, it only requires that a
sales person read the prices to a blind person).
DATA FROM LOU HARRIS SURVEYS (1986, 1987)
"Not working" is probably the most accurate definition of
being disabled. As a group, disabled people lead isolated and
secluded lives. Specifically, Harris found that:
67% (two-thirds) of people with disabilities do not work
- 74% of the 67% have experienced employment
discrimination.
Page 9 - Liberty
In addition, of the 67% who are not employed, 67% want
to work and 62% say they would give up federal support
payments for a full-time job.
80% of top managers in U. S. firms say disabled
people face job discrimination.
Many disabled people never frequent public accommodations
- nearly 2/3 (64%) of disabled adults hadn't been to a
movie in the past year, compared with only 22% of
nondisabled adults - disabled people are 3 times more
likely than nondisabled people never to eat in
restaurants (major reason given: discrimination,
including lack of physical access and fear of
mistreatment).
Currently the federal government is spending well over $60
billion per year to keep people with disabilities dependent on
federal programs. In addition, State and local governments spend
millions of dollars on dependency programs. As the population
ages, these figures will only increase.
The ADA will save billions of dollars by providing job
opportunities for those individuals with disabilities who want to
work but are facing discrimination. It will enable disabled people
to be taxpayers and consumers, not tax-dependents.
WHAT CAN AND MUST WE DO?
The U. S. House of Representatives is considering the most
important piece of legislation ever proposed for 43 million
Americans with disabilities. We are in the stretch run of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, and we simply must suck it up and
outrun our competition (small business and transportation lobbies)
to the finish line.
Page 10 - Liberty
Thanks to the efforts of my Congressman, Steve Bartlett, the
House Education and Labor Committee voted unanimously to approve
the version of ADA that passed in the Senate 76 to 8 with
clarifications but without weakening amendments. This is an
important first step in the House.
However, three other House committees must vote ADA out of
committee, it must be voted on by the full House as a whole, and
then the House and Senate will have to negotiate any differences
in their two bills before ADA can be signed into law by the
President, who is in support of it.
Our job in the next two months or SO is to work on our own
U. S. Representative and the other Congressmen to convince them
that they should vote to adopt the Senate version of ADA with
clarifications as made by the House Education and Labor Committee
and without any further weakening amendments. Emphasize that our
objective is to have as many as possible of the 43 million
Americans with disabilities working, paying taxes and buying goods
and services rather than in a condition of forced idleness, on
public assistance rolls and denied basic civil rights. Give them
examples of the productive potential of people with disabilities
and examples of basic rights of access and opportunity being
denied. Explain to them that the same scare tactics of the alleged
high cost of accessibility and equal opportunity being spread by
small business and transportation lobbies have been proved untrue
by the 12+ years of experience with compliance with Section 504 by
colleges and universities, public school systems, health and social
Page 11 - Liberty
service agencies and institutions and other recipients of federal
financial assistance.
In 1977 when the HEW Section 504 regulations were published,
colleges and universities and other recipient cried that compliance
with these regulations (which actually are more stringent than ADA)
would bankrupt them. Sound familiar? Facts and studies have shown
just the opposite. Accessibility costs have been minimal and
disabled children and adults for the first time have been able to
become educated and receive some basic services. However, it does
not help to educate a population if they have only limited
opportunities for work, transportation, and public accommodation.
This is where ADA will make the difference.
Explain that the Section 504 compliance experience has shown
that most individuals with disabilities require little or no
reasonable accommodation to perform jobs effectively, and when
they do, the costs are usually minimal. Give examples you know
about. In other words, emphasize the economic common sense of ADA.
The following is a listing of Congressmen who should receive
cards, letters and telephone calls:
John Dingell (D) - Michigan (Chair, Energy and Commerce)
*Glenn Anderson (D) - California (Chair, Transportation)
*Don Edwards (D) - California (Judiciary; Chair, Civil Rights
Subcommittee)
Bud Schuster (R) - Pennsylvania (Transportation; Ranking,
Surface Transportation Subcommittee)
Bill McCollum (R) - Florida (Judiciary)
TEXAS:
Jack Brooks (D) - Galveston, Beaumont (Chair, Judiciary)
Greg Laughlin (D) - Victoria, Round Rock (Transportation)
Pete Geren (D) - Fort Worth (Transportation) - NEW MEMBER
Ralph Hall (D) - Tyler, Sherman (Energy & Commerce)
Page 12 - Liberty
Jack Fields (R) - Houston (Energy & Commerce)
Joe Barton (R) - Fort Worth, College Station (Energy &
Commerce)
*John Bryant (D) - Dallas (Judiciary, Energy & Commerce)
Lamar Smith (R) - San Antonio, Midland (Judiciary)
*Martin Frost (D) - Dallas (Rules)
ADA cosponsors are identified by the asterisk (*) by their
names. Those who are not cosponsors need encouragement to become
cosponsors. All need our encouragement not to allow further
weakening amendments to ADA. All may be written by simply
addressing cards and letters to:
Hon.
U. S. House of Representatives
Washington, D. C. 20515
Two specific initiatives that have been developed and proposed
are the "Western Union ADA Hotline Message" and the "Key Campaign. "
HOW TO SEND HOTLINE MESSAGES
1) Dial Western Union's toll-free Hotline number, 1-800-257-
4900. This service is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a
day.
2) Ask for HOTLINE OPERATOR 9565.
3) Give Hotline Operator 9565 your full name, address, zip code
and telephone number.
4) Hotline Operator 9565 will send the ADA pre-stored messages
to your Representative. It is not necessary for you to know
the name of your Representative as Hotline Operator 9565 has
this information.
TDD #: 1-800-541-1792
5) The $4.95 cost of your Western Union message will usually be
charged to your phone bill and will show up as a "Telegram
Charge. " In some cases you may receive an invoice directly
from Western Union.
6) You can also charge this to your major credit card: Visa,
Master Card or American Express.
Page 13 - Liberty
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE KEY CAMPAIGN
Send old keys to members of Congress in an envelope with a
message that says something like "The KEY to LIBERTY and
EMANCIPATION of 43 million Americans with disabilities and all
people is an immediate passage of the House Education and Labor
reported version of the Americans with Disabilities Act without any
further weakening amendments."
Better yet, come up with innovative ideas of your own,
organize people around them, do them and encourage other people to
do the same. Through such efforts you have the opportunity to make
the difference.
Do not neglect to keep an ongoing dialogue with your
U. S. Representative's local office manager. Call him or her and
say you want your message of swift passage of ADA without further
weakening amendments passed on to your Representative as soon as
possible. Be sure to give your name, address and telephone number
and the name, address and telephone number of others you are
calling in behalf of. Believe me, those messages do get passed on
and often you will get a letter from your Congressman in response.
The potential for severely damaging ADA through weakening
amendments in these House committees continues to exist. Efforts
are particularly under way to weaken the transportation and public
accommodation sections of ADA. We must overcome this resistance
and these scare tactics by good one-on-one common sense discussions
with our Representatives. Also continue to write letters, make
telephone calls and use the ADA mailgram and get family, friends,
Page 14 - Liberty
neighbors, etc. to do the same. If you have done this before,
Great! But it is absolutely necessary to do it again because the
next two months are critical. What better gift can you give to 43
million people with disabilities and to all Americans than "LIBERTY
and EMANCIPATION"? "YOU CAN MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!' "
Page 15 - Liberty
Thank you for your efforts. If I can be of assistance, please
contact me.
Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
3409 Faulkner Drive
Rowlett, Texas 75088
(214) 475-9511 - Home
(214) 767-4056 - Office
Ralph Rouse has over twenty years experience working in the fields
of rehabilitation and civil rights. Mr. Rouse was one of the
founders and served on the original board of directors of the
Dallas Mayor's Committee on Employment of Persons with
Disabilities. He is a life member of the Association of the
Disabled of Dallas, the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities and
the National Rehabilitation Association. In 1982 he was the
recipient of the "National Equal Opportunity Achievement Award"
from the Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human
Services. In 1984 he was presented the "Public Employee of the
Year Award" by the Mayor of Dallas, Texas. In 1989 Mr. Rouse was
given the "Justin W. Dart, Jr. Meritorious Service Award" by the
Coalition of Texans with Disabilities for outstanding contributions
to improving the lives and equal opportunity of persons with
disabilities.
LIBERTY, INDEPENDENCE, PRODUCTIVITY -
THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT,
AN ECONOMIC IMPERATIVE
by
Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
3409 Faulkner Drive
Rowlett, Texas 75088
Home (214) 475-9511
Office (214) 767-4056
Today is an exciting time in which to live! Millions are being
freed in Eastern Eurpoe. It is time to liberate 43 million
people with disabilities here in the United States.
President Bush has estimated that excluding 2/3 of working age
people with disabilities from the work force costs America $300
billion per year.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), strongly endorsed by
President Bush, passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 76
to 8, was unanimously approved by the House Committee on
Education and Labor and recently passed the House Energy and
Commerce Committee. ADA makes good economic sense. By providing
basic access to jobs, transportation and public accommodations,
it will free millions of Americans to become employees,
taxpayers, customers and full participants in our society while
simultaneously breaking the welfare cycle.
Regrettably, an effective ADA is being opposed by transportation
and small business lobbies, which are claiming that it will
impose unaffordable costs on business. That is just not true.
Such fears are proven groundless by seventeen years of experience
in implementing the law from which ADA is copied, Sections 503
and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, that called for public
school systems, colleges and universities, all health and social
service programs that receive federal financial assistance and
federal contractors to be accessible to qualified persons with
disabilities. In the 1970's the "Education Lobby" cried to
Congress that Section 504, if enacted, would bankrupt educational
institutions. Experience has proven that the costs have been
minimal.
One example of particular note was a college that was unusually
vocal about what the costs would be of makaing its educational
programs accessible. Later, a study showed that the college
spent more in one year waxing its floors than it had cost to make
disabilities. its educational programs accessible permanently to persons with
Page 2 - ADA, An Economic Imperative
ADA in its current form is a carefully negotiated compromise with
major concessions to transportation providers and small business.
It provides for a gradual transition to an opportunity society.
For example, ADA totally exempts all employers with fewer than 25
employees for the first two years, and those with fewer than 15
employees are permanently exempted. Employers covered must
simply consider persons with disabilities for employment if such
persons are fully qualified to do the job with "reasonable
accommodation." Experience under Sections 503 and 504 has shown
that most employees with disabilities require little or no
accommodation. No employer is expected to provide accommodation
if to do so would work an "undue hardship" of cost on the
business.
Existing public buildings are required to be accessible only if
makaing them so is "readily achievable" without "significant
difficulty or expense." Newly constructed public accommodations
would have to be accessible; this adds only about 1/2 of 1% to
the costs of the facility and provides better access for everyone
(i.e., pregnant women, people with baby strollers, an aging
population, etc.).
Dependable transportation is a necessity in our society to
working and being productive. Low income and economically
deprived people must depend upon public transportation, and the
disability of many people makes them dependent on public
transportation. ADA requires that only new vehicles bought by
public transit authorities be accessible; no retrofitting of
existing public buses is required. For rural and small
communities that buy used buses, they simply have to make a "good
faith" effort to find accessible used buses. Studies have shown
that buying new buses that are accessible to the disabled adds
only 5% to the cost of the new buses. Most of these requirements
already exist for federally funded public transit systems under
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Opponents say people with
disabilities do not ride accessible buses. The answer to that is
that if a system has enough accessible buses to be a dependable
system, the ridership will come. Denver has proven this. They
have large numbers of disabled people riding their public bus
system daily.
For work and personal reasons people with disabilities also need
access to intercity transportation. ADA does not require
anything of intercity bus operators for six years for large
providers such as Greyhound and for seven years for small
companies. In the interim it calls for a study to determine the
most feasible methods of providing accessible intercity transit.
In any event it requires, after six or seven years, only that
newly purchased buses be accessible; those buses in use are
exempt. Finally, charter bus services will not have to purchase
Page 3 - ADA, An Economic Imperative
accessible new buses if they can provide an accessible bus for
charter upon request.
ADA also calls for all common carriers of telephone services to
provide intrastate and interstate relay services for telephone
calls made between users of telecommunication devices for the
deaf (TDD's) and users of voice telephones. Seventeen (17)
states already have such relay systems and 10 others are
currently scheduled to begin operations. This will allow our
deaf and hearing impaired population to do business by telephone.
All of this emphasizes that ADA makes sense and is an economic
imperative for our society.
It does not make economic sense to educate a population if they
have only limited opportunities for work, transportation, and
public accommodation because they merely become welfare
dependents and an economic burden rather than taxpaying
contributors. As we look at the work force of the year 2000 and
beyond, we recognize that the baby boomers are aging and that
fewer and fewer young workers will be available. We also
recognize that automation is changing the face of business. Both
of these phenomena mandate making productive this untapped human
resource, which can now do many more jobs because of advances in
technology. This is where the ADA will make the difference.
To coin a phrase, WE, the citizens with disabilities, given basic
access opportunities, CAN MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE.
ADA: DEFERENCE TO NEEDS OF SMALL BUSINESSES
The ADA has been carefully crafted to make sure that its requirements take
into account the needs and situations of small businesses. Some of the
major ways in which the ADA has been tailored to consider and make
allowance for the needs of the small business operator include the following:
O Exemption for small employers
With respect to employment, the bill totally exempts all employers with fewer
than 25 employees for the first two years, and those with fewer than 15 after
that.
o Undue hardship limitation
For these employers large enough to be covered despite the small employer
exemption, the duty of making reasonable accommodations for employees
with disabilities does not apply when an accommodation would impose an
"undue hardship." Among the factors to be considered in determining
whether an undue hardship exists, the bill specifically lists "the overall size of
a business of a covered entity with respect to the number of employees,
number and type of facilities, and the size of the budget." Thus, the
requirement of making employment accommodations varies in relation to the
size and budget of an employer, with less being required of a smaller, less
prosperous business.
0 Readily achievable limit on barrier removal in existing public
accommodations
Places of public accommodation are required by the bill to remove
architectural and communication barriers in existing facilities only if it is
"readily achievable" to do so. Readily achievable means "easily
accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or
expense." In determining what is readily achievable the ADA again specifies
that the size and budget of a business are to considered. A Mom-and-Pop
store is held to a much lower standard than is a highly financed, big national
concern.
O Undue burden limitation regarding auxiliary aids and services
Public accommodations are not required to provide auxillary aids and
services if doing so would result in an "undue burden." As with "undue
hardship" and "readily achievable," the ADA specifies that the determination
of what is an undue burden must take into account the size and budget of a
business. A struggling small business will be excused from providing an
auxiliary aid or service in circumstances where a larger, more prosperous
business might be required to provide it.
(OVER)
0 The elevator exception for small buildings
The ADA generally requires accessibility in new construction consistent with
overwhelming evidence that the costs of accessibility at the design and
construction stage are minimal. To further protect small businesses,
however, the bill has added an exception to accessibility requirements with
regard to small buildings. For buildings that are less than three stories or
that have less than 3,000 square feet per story, (no matter how many
stories), no elevator is required -- either for new construction or for
renovation projects.
O The readily accessible to and usable by standard
The ADA does not require total or universal accessibility even in regard to
newly constructed facilities. The "readily accessible to and usable by"
standard drawn from previous statutes and regulations imposes accessibility
obligations that are tailored to the type and use of each particular facility. It
does not require that all parking spaces, bathrooms, stalls within bathrooms,
etc. have to be accessible, but only a reasonable number, depending on
such factors as their location and number. A small facility is likely to have
fewer areas and services, and therefore, fewer areas and services to make
accessible. The ADA does not require a business to add accessible drinking
fountains and bathrooms if it does not otherwise provide fountains or
bathrooms. Small businesses with the fewest "frills" will have fewer such
services and conveniences to make accessible.
o Telecommunications relay services
The establishment of telecommunications relay services for individuals with
speech or hearing impairments as provided for in Title IV of the bill was an
accommodation to the needs of small businesses. This system was created
to permit persons using telecommunications devices for the deaf (TDDs) to
contact businesses through a relay system in lieu of requiring all businesses
to have TDDs themselves to permit customer to call to make reservations,
purchase tickets, check on store hours or show times, etc.
o Absence of compensatory and punitive damages for discriminatory public
accommodations
A compromise in the Senate removed from the bill provisions that would have
permitted the awarding of compensatory and punitive damages against
employers or places of public accommodation found to have discriminated.
Some had argued that the prior monetary damages provisions might be too
harsh, and that many small businesses would be unable to afford legal
counsel to advise them and so would risk serious financial liability. The
remedies available now under the bill are highly advantageous to small
businesses. The harshest remedy that will generally be available against a
small public accommodation will be an injunction ordering it to stop its
discriminatory activity. In employment, for those larger business that have
over 15 employees, there is also no ability for plaintiffs to receive
compensatory or punitive damages.
ENT. BY:TDHS CIVIL RIGHTS
: 3-14-90 : 1:12PM :
5124504748-
2147670432:# 2
Texas Department of Human Services
Civil Rights Department
Statewide Adaptive Equipment Fund. Purchases
Location
Disabling
Position
Job Restructuring &/or
Condition
Title
Adaptive Equipment
Reg 01/02
Mobility Impaired
Eligibility Worker I
Form Bins
Reg. 05
Visually-Impaired
Clerk Typist III
Large Print Dictionary
Reg. 05
Visually-Impaired
Social Worker
Visual-Tek
Reg. 05
Visually-Impaired
Eligibility Worker III
Talking Calculator
Reg. 06
Visually-Impaired
Social Worker CCAD
Talking Calculator
Optacon w/typewriter
Perkins Brailler
Braille Embosser
Reg. 06
Back Injury
Investigator
Back support device
Reg. 06
Mobility-Impaired
Social Worker CCAD
Portable Tape recorder
Reg. 06
Mobility-Impaired
Clerk III
Communications Headset
Reg. 06
Mobility-Impaired
Clerk III
Electronic Typing Station
Reg. 06
Visually-Impaired
Word Processor Oper.
IBM-PC
Printer
Votrax Type n Talk
Reg. 08
Visually-Impaired
Medical Eligibility
Visual-Tek
Reg. 10
Visually-Impaired
PBX-Operator
Braille Roledex
Reg. 10
Mobility-Impaired
all employees
Emergency Carry-out
Chair
Reg. 11
Back Injury
Admin. Tech. I
Ergonomic Armchair
Reg. 11
Back Injury
Clerk III
Ergonomic Armchair
Reg. 11
Back Injury
Data Entry Operator
Ergonomic Armchair
State Ofc.
Visually-Impaired
Programmer
Visual-Tek
Computer Terminal
State Ofc.
Visually-Impaired
PBX-Operator
Communications Headset
Mini-microphone
State Ofc.
Back-Injury
Program Specialist I
Ergonomics Chair
State Ofc.
Hearing-Impaired
Program Specialist I
Telephone amplifier
State Ofc.
Visually-Impaired
PBX-Operator
IBM-PC software
Votrax Type N' Talk
State Ofc.
Skin Allergies
Administrator
Specialized Chair
State Ofc.
Visually-Impaired
Programmer
IBM-PC and Visual-Tek
State Ofc.
Visually-Impaired
Programmer
IBM-PC and Visual-Tek
Total employees, Texas Department
of Human Services
12,727
Disabled employees
704
Accommodations with expense
23
Accommodations without expense
150
No accommodation required
531
This information is provided to the Governor's Office
by all state departments
504 DAY
Dallas City Hall Plaza
Dallas, Texas
Friday, April 29, 1988
WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEFORE 504?
Presented By:
Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
Division Director
Office for Civil Rights
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services
1200 Main Tower Building Room 1360
Dallas, Texas 75202
Telephone: (214) 767-4056
WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEFORE 504?
Our society was closed to people with disabilities.
Everywhere you turned there were barriers.
The environment and the attitude of society forced and reinforced dependency.
Effectively for disabled people the law of the land was "out of sight, out of
mind."
You seldom saw a disabled person in public. Where were we? We were in
institutions and in the back rooms of our parents' inaccessible homes. They
(society) were taking care of us.
They had "special schools" for us and when we graduated, "sheltered
workshops". We were separated and segregated from society by well meaning
programs, and everybody knew we were not equal.
Living independently, working and earning a decent wage were not practical for
the "severely disabled."
It was understood that most of us would be tax users (Welfare recipients,
etc.) not tax payers (employees).
Prior to the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 most laws restricted the
involvement of persons with disabilities. There were state and local laws that
denied disabled persons:
-
The right to marry;
- The right to vote;
-
The right to hold public office;
-
The right to obtain a drivers license or a fishing license;
-
Some laws required sterilization of certain disabled persons.
-
There were laws that restricted disabled persons' ability to use public
transportation not to speak to the fact that public transportation was
inaccessible to a large segment of the disabled population. For example,
there were laws that prohibited a blind person from sitting next to a
person of the opposite sex on public transit vehicles.
- Finally, there were even local laws that prohibited persons considered to
be unsightly from being seen on public ways or thoroughfares.
Why did we ever have such laws? Because it is human nature to fear, avoid and
overreact to that which we do not understand. These laws were considered necessary
for the "public good." Meanwhile disabled people languished and vegetated in
institutions and back rooms with no hope and no future.
Then along came the "Baby Boomers with Disabilities," and we began to question and
confront society's attitudes and laws about us. Disability law and policy, and
disability as a social movement underwent profound changes from 1960 to 1980.
Traditional programs, policies and assumptions about disabled people were attacked
in the courts and legislatures in terms of constitutional rights and liberties.
Advocates utilized due process and equal protection challenges to attack
dehumanizing institutions, segregated schools, and inaccessible transportation.
Sympathetic members of Congress pressed to pass legislation to include handicapped
individuals as a class protected by civil rights statutes.
The concepts of the right to integregation and meaningful equality of opportunity,
as well as methods and tactics utilized by other civil rights groups began to be
employed in disability rights work. The 1960's provided the form and the 1970's
provided the substance of the movement that is evolving today.
From these efforts came the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. It is a Federal law, which
supercedes State and local laws. Title V of the Act contains a series of Civil
Rights laws.
Section 501 established the Federal Interagency Coordinating Council for
affirmative action employment of handicapped individuals in the Federal
government. Gouncil responsibilities are to establish procedures for (1)
recruitment, (2) employment and (3) advancement of qualified handicapped
individuals. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the
Federal Agency that receives and investigates complaints of alleged
employment discrimination by the Federal Government.
Section 502 established the Architectural and Transportation Barriers
Compliance Board (ATBCB) to enforce compliance with the Architectural
Barriers Act of 1968, which requires that any building built or altered
with Federal construction funds after September 1969 be built or altered
according to standards that ensure accessibility. The ATBCB receives and
investigates complaints pertaining to alleged violations of the
Architectural Barriers Act of 1968.
Section 503 is a law requiring a Federal contractor to establish
procedures to take affirmative action to employ qualified handicapped
individuals. A Federal contractor is a public or private firm that
contracts with the Federal government to provide goods or services to the
Federal government at fair market value. Procedures for affirmative
action include (1) recruitment, (2) employment and (3) advancement of
qualified handicapped individuals. The Department of Labor, Office of
Federal Contract Compliance Programs receives and investigates complaints
of alleged discrimination against Federal contractors.
Section 504 is the key national mandate for conferring upon disabled
people, as a class, the constitutional right to integration and equality
of opportunity (equal citizenship). It is a law that requires that any
agency or institution that receives, either directly or indirectly,
Federal funds to operate a program may not discriminate in the way it
provides benefits, services, and employment opportunities to qualified
handicapped individuals. Each of 34 Federal agencies that administer
programs of Federal financial assistance is responsible for receiving and
investigating complaints of discrimination alleged against institutions
delivering programs. The regulation implementing this law contains
specific steps that the institution must take to comply with the
regulation. These steps include:
1. Submitting to the Federal agency from which the Federal financial
assistance came an assurance that the program will be operated in
compliance with the regulation (84.5).
2. Conducting, with the assistance of handicapped persons or
organizations representing handicapped persons, a self-evaluation of
the program's current policies and practices and modifying those that
deny equal access to qualified handicapped persons (84.6(c)).
3. Designating an employee responsible for coordinating the institution's
efforts to comply (84.7(a)).
4. Adopting grievance procedures that incorporate appropriate due process
standards and that provide for the prompt and equitable resolution of
complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of handicap (84.7(b)).
5. Providing equal employment opportunities and reasonable accommodations
to otherwise qualified handicapped applicants or employees (84.12).
6. Taking action to ensure that each program or activity, when viewed in
its entirety, is readily accessible to handicapped persons (this does
not require that every facility or every part of a facility be
accessible) (84.22).
7. Making sure that newly constructed and altered facilities are readily
accessible (84.23).
8. Providing appropriate auxiliary aids to persons with impaired sensory,
manual and speaking skills, where necessary to afford an equal
opportunity to benefit from the services being provided. These aids
may include among others brailled and taped materials, and readers for
blind persons, and qualified sign language interpreters and TDD's for
deaf persons. (84.52(d).
Largely as a result of these Federal civil rights laws, preconceived ideas,
sterotypes and negative attitudes about who disabled people are and what they can
do have begun to be altered by getting the American public acquainted with people
with disabilities, their abilities and their alternative techniques for mobility,
communication and work.
However, current Federal civil rights laws for people with disabilities are limited
to that part of the public sector that receives Federal financial assistance.
There is not a comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities that
broadly covers all sectors of our economy. The Americans with Disabilities Act can
be the comprehensive civil rights law that will open our society to people with
disabilities. For this Act to become law it will require that all people with
disabilities band together and speak with a unified voice to Congress and the
President of the need for such broad coverage. Only then will we have the
opportunity to realize our full potential as contributing members of society.
We cannot afford to deny our disabled citizens access to society. It has been
estimated that there are over 35 million disabled persons in the United States. It
costs society $1 million to maintain an unemployed disabled person during his
working years. Almost half of the adult disabled population is on or near the
poverty level. By the year 2000 there will be one chronically-il1-over-65 or
disabled person for every able-bodied person in the country. of the approximately
16 million disabled persons between the ages of 16 and 64, half are either out of
the labor force or unemployed. It has been estimated that it will cost our country
one trillion dollars (or one thousand billion dollars) in lost wages, and in
government and private expenditures to maintain our disabled population by the year
1990. These figures are courtesy of Dr. Frank Bowe from his book "Rehabilitating
America". They are shocking and they represent unutilized human ability, wasted
talent and lost benefits to society. Maximizing the productivity and contributions
of disabled persons is no longer merely an issue of social conscience, it is a
matter of economic imperative.
bad for business?
by Justin Dart
im Crow lives and we can't af-
ADA would force backbreaking
practices would hurt everyone. It
J
ford him
costs and lawsuits on business.
would shout to the world that peo-
These claims are groundless.
pie with disabilities are less than
President Bush estimates at
They reflect the same obsolete at.
fully equal and reinforce negative
$300 billion per year the economic
cost of segregating millions of citi-
titudes, unfounded fears and erro-
attitudes that are the root of dis-
zens with disabilities from the pro-
neous doomsday predictions that
criminatory barriers. It would lead
greeted previous extensions of basic
directly to more unemployment
ductive mainstream of American
civil rights protections.
and increased dependency on mas-
life In addition, there is overwhelm-
ing evidence of a devastating hu-
ADA provides for a gradual, cost
sive, paternalistic welfare systems.
man cost that cannot be expressed
efficient transition to a society with
It would guarantee higher taxes;
in numbers.
opportunity for all. It requires that
higher government, business and
To begin to remedy this intoler-
only new facilities be fully accessi-
family budgets: and larger public
deficits.
able situation, the president has
ble. It specifies that no "significant
endorsed. and the U.S. Senate has
difficulty or expense" be imposed
The eyes of history are upon us.
Like the Declaration of Independ-
passed, the Americans with Disabili-
on business. Most of its provisions
ence and the Bill of Rights, ADA
ties Act. This landmark legislation
have been tested for years under ex-
will affect the lives of hundreds of
provides citizens with disabilities
isting federal, state and local sta-
the same "clear mandate for the
millions in every nation for decades
tutes, which cover specific segments
elimination of discrimination" that
of the business community. There
to come. We have a unique window
other minorities attained more than
have been no excessive costs or liti-
of opportunity to significantly ex-
20 years ago.
gation.
pand the horizons of human poten-
ADA is now being considered by
tial.
As a founder and CEO of small
the House of Representatives. It
and large businesses, I have volun-
We must not perpetuate the trage.
probably will pass.
tarily implemented most of the TO-
dy of segregation. We must summon
Regrettably, however, powerful
quirements of ADA. These require-
the vision of our founding fathers
special interest groups are advocat-
ments are not burdensome, but
to see beyond short-range political
ing amendments that would legal-
rather contribute to profit. Progres-
and economic expediency. We must
ize "separate but equal" facilities
sive business people in every com-
make a courageous, farsighted in-
and other discriminatory barriers,
munity give similar testimony.
vestment in the future of free enter-
which have made 43 million Ameri-
ADA is a business-oriented law. It
prise democracy. Twenty-five mil-
cans with disabilities this nation's
was negotiated and will be admin-
lion voters with disabilities and ev-
most unemployed, impoverished,
istered by a business-oriented fed-
ery citizen who believes in the
welfare dependent and expensive
eral administration. It will be good
American dream will long remem-
minority. Lobbyists are flooding
for business.
ber the patriots who take a clear
congressional offices and the news
An effective ADA will free mil-
stand for justice now.
media with strident claims that
lions of people with disabilities
I urge the members of the House
from the bondage of dependency,
to pass ADA promptly, and with-
Justin Dart a wheel chair user for 41
years is a former businessman who has
enabling them to become employ-
out amendments that would legal-
ees, taxpayers and customers. It
ize current discrimination. Ameri-
received five disability-related appoint-
will save billions for government
ca cannot afford another century of
ments in the Reagan and Bush admin-
istrations He is currently chairman of
and citizens. In the long run,
Jim Crow.
the President's Committee on Employ-
some of the largest savings will
ment of People with Disabilities and
be reaped by businesses, who
the Congressional Task Force on the
pay a major share of the tax
Rights and Empowerment of Ameri-
and private costs of un-
cans with Disabilities He was instru-
solved social problems.
mental in the creation of the Ameri-
An ADA amended
cans with Disabilities ACC
to legalize Jim Crow
February 1990
The Council of State Governments 17
EQUAL
TO
THE
1981 Du Pont Surve
TASK
of Employment
of the Handicappe
-
This booklet is about the men
and women of Du Pont who, with
the company's help, have demon-
strated their ability to become
productive members of the work
force and the community. It is
a tribute to their achievements,
a record of their performance, and
a challenge to ourselves and other
employers to more fully utilize
this valuable human resource.
C
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company 1982
22.
OPEN
DOOR
CLOSE
DOOR
RESERVED FOR
Total Talk
3
HANDICAPPED
CONTENTS
PAGE
VALUABLE RESOURCE:
4
Introduction to the survey
2. TAKING THE COUNT:
5
Increase in Du Pont's handicapped
population
3. FOR THE RECORD:
6
Supervisory evaluation of
performance
4. MEETING THE CHALLENGE:
8
Performance comparisons by type
of impairment
5. EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE:
10
Portraits of Du Pont's handicapped
employees
6. TOOLS FOR THE TASK:
17
Accommodations to meet the
special needs of the handicapped
7. COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP:
19
Working with sheltered workshops
and rehabilitation centers
8. EQUAL TO THE TASK:
22
The challenge of greater
employment opportunity
9. APPENDIX:
23
Who was counted in the survey
1 A VALUABLE RESOURCE
Du Pont studies over a period
The results bear out the conclu-
of 25 years have shown that the
sion that, given the opportunity,
performance of handicapped
handicapped employees are
employees is equivalent to that of
indeed equal to the task. More-
their nonimpaired co-workers. In
over, the 1981 survey went beyond
safety, job duties and attendance,
earlier surveys, documenting
the handicapped hold their own.
both the accommodations the
In 1981-designated the Inter-
company has made to meet the
national Year of Disabled Persons
special needs of the handicapped
by the United Nations-Du Pont
and the company's involvement
again surveyed its employment
with community organizations that
of the handicapped to update
provide work for handicapped
earlier findings, and to provide
individuals.
direction for future hiring and
placement of handicapped
personnel.
4
2
TAKING THE COUNT
e the last survey, in 1973,
The category "Other Impair-
TYPES OF IMPAIRMENT
Pont's handicapped population
ments" is particularly large. Indi-
1973
1981
increased 89 percent, from 1,452
viduals in this category exhibited
to 2,745 employees. By comparison,
Allergies
*
a wide range of medical conditions
149
the total number of Du Pont
for which employment accommo-
Amputees
163
104
employees in the United States
dations were made. A full listing of
Epilepsy
56
62
increased 13 percent in the same
these conditions would be imprac-
Hearing
55
150
period. As a percent of the total
tical, but examples include: cancer,
Heart
380
581
Mental Function
*
roll, handicapped employees
diabetes, Hodgkin's disease, mul-
146
increased from 1.4 to 2.4 percent.
tiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy,
Nonparalytic
This increase is attributable to
hypertension, hernia, and gout.
Orthopedic
415
564
several factors. As the table (right)
Efforts by Du Pont to recruit
Paralysis
106
93
indicates, a substantial portion of
Respiratory
*
qualified handicapped individuals
182
the increase stems from the addi-
resulted in a 60 percent increase
Vision
277
240
in the number of employees hired
Other Impairments
*
tion of four new categories of
474
impairment consistent with the
as handicapped: in 1981, there
1452
2745*
definition of handicapped intro-
were 731 on the roll compared
duced in the Rehabilitation Act of
with 459 in 1973.
*Not included in the 1973 survey.
1973. Du Pont's survey includes
Of the 2,745 employees, 598
Of these, 429 have a second
any individual with a physical
responded to Du Pont's invitation
disabling impairment and 81
or mental handicap for whom
to identify themselves as handi-
have a third.
Du Pont has made an accommo-
capped and to be included in the
dation in some aspect of the
company's affirmative action
loyment process. (Refer to the
program. In most cases, these
endix for elaboration.)
employees had already been iden-
tified as handicapped by the
company.
Conoco employees were not
included since the merger had
not taken place at the time of
the survey.
5
3
FOR THE RECORD
The 1981 survey confirms what
In 1981, as in 1973, supervisors
In performance of job duties,
Du Pont supervisors already knew:
were asked to rate handicapped
'the handicapped improved their
like their nonimpaired co-workers,
employees in safety, performance
rating slightly from 91 to 92 percent
handicapped employees are safe,
of job duties, and attendance. In
average or above, compared with
productive, and dependable.
addition, they were asked to do
91 percent for nonimpaired
a peer comparison using a sample
employees.
of nonimpaired employees. The
A measurable improvement was
results are summarized in the chart
noted in the area of attendance-
to the right.
with those rated average or above
In safety, handicapped employ-
up from 79 to 85 percent in 1981,
ees maintained the high standard
compared with 91 percent for
recorded in 1973, with 96 percent
nonimpaired employees.
rated average or above average,
compared with 92 percent for
nonimpaired employees.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE COMPARISON
Gatety
100
% Average & Above
95
90
85
80
Job Duties
100
erage & Above
95
90
%
80
Attendance
100
% Average & Above
95
90
85
80
Handicapped 1973
Handicapped 1981
Nonimpaired 1981
7
4
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
PERFORMANCE COMPARISONS BY IMPAIRMENT
Du Pont's handie apped employees
Safety
are its diverse a group as the total
employee population-in talent.
in training. in occupation. and
100
in the kinds of constraints they
work under because of their
The diversity of their impair-
ments. however. does not signifi-
cantly alter how well they do their
% Average & Above
95
particular impairments.
90
85
jobs. In the charts to the right. the
performance of handicapped
80
employees in safety, job duties and
attendance has been broken down
Job Duties
by type of impairment. What
stands out in these comparisons is
the uniformity of performance.
100
i. handicapped individuals.
1.
ever the impairment, are well
able to meet the challenges of
% Average & Above
95
their jobs.
90
85
80
Attendance
100
". Average & Above
95
90
85
80
Allergies
Amputees
Epilepsy
Hearing
Heart
Mental
Nonparalytic
Function
Paralvsis
Respiratory
Vision
Orthopedic
Other
Nonimpaired
9
5
EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE
While numerical data are impor-
Bill and Barbara Monaghan:
between 190 and 200 messages a
tant, the essence of any study
Messengers
day-and helps break in new mes-
is people.
Between them, they walk miles
sengers. Barbara particularly likes
Numbers tell only part of the
every day at Du Pont's corporate
the people she meets delivering
story. They do not tell how handi-
headquarters in Wilmington,
mail and assists in training high
capped individuals overcome
Delaware. The distance seems short
school co-op students employed
their impairments to compete on
compared with the long road
as messengers. Between the
an equal basis with nonimpaired
Bill and Barbara Monaghan have
Monaghans, they have almost
workers.
traveled to become self-sufficient.
seven years of perfect attendance.
As the portraits of Du Pont
The Monaghans are messengers
Off the job, the two stacked
employees on the following pages
-Bill in Information Systems' tele-
up one gold, two bronze and two
suggest, men and women with
communications office and Barbara
silver medals in freestyle, back-
varying forms of disability have
in Employee Relations. Both have
stroke and relay swimming events
mastered a broad range of occupa-
been mentally handicapped since
in the 1980 Special Olympics.
tions. Many of them, through
birth.
There have been many mile-
uncommon ingenuity and per-
Bill and Barbara first met at a
stones for Bill and Barbara Mona-
sistence, have overcome serious
school for the handicapped on
ghan since they took their first
ations in order to pursue
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1974.
tentative steps toward self-
professions.
After graduation they went sepa-
sufficiency at school on Cape
1 neir achievements lend per-
rate ways. Bill returned to his
Cod. Because their talents are
spective to the quantitative data
home in Wilmington and joined
being used, the journey will con-
of the survey.
the Opportunity Center, Inc., a
tinue to be a productive one for
training facility for the handi-
them-and for Du Pont.
capped, where he worked for two
and a half years before joining
Du Pont in 1977. During this time,
Barbara lived with her parents,
returning to school on Cape Cod
for one additional year of voca-
tional training.
Bill and Barbara never lost track
of each other. They were married
in 1979 and Barbara joined Du Pont
the same year.
They agree that their jobs
weren't easy at first, with deliveries
to widespread office locations, and
many names and faces to learn.
Now Bill delivers teletype mes-
sages from around the world—
10
.rd Culberson: Mechanic
Discharged from the Navy in
In 1945, Howard Culberson's left
1946, Howard attended business
leg was amputated just below the
school in Chattanooga, left after
knee. He was injured while helping
eight months, then tried a variety
to refuel a destroyer during a
of jobs in Cleveland, Tennessee.
typhoon off the coast of Honshu,
He applied at the Chattanooga
Japan.
plant in April 1951 and was hired
Now an area maintenance
eight days later to work in the
mechanic at Textile Fibers' plant
tool crib and keep records. At first,
in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
he was not permitted in the manu-
Howard recalls the rehabilitation
facturing area, but he soon demon-
program at the Philadelphia Naval
strated he could do just about
Hospital: the fitting of an artificial
anything except heavy lifting,
leg, marching in drills "like re-
squatting or climbing. In fact,
cruits," riding bicycles, and taking
Howard admits he was trying to
Arthur Murray dance courses.
do the work of five or six men.
Today, Howard builds separator
and traverse rolls, and keeps
maintenance and repair records.
According to his supervisor,
"Howard is good at what he does,
and he's dependable." In 30 years,
Howard says he has missed less
than a week of work because of
his leg.
A football fan, Howard roots
for the University of Tennessee-
even when they're not doing well.
But then, he knows what it is to
come from behind and win.
11
Stewart Wiggins:
To help him overcome his dis-
Computer Programmer
ability, the company acquired an
Stewart (Stu) Wiggins was an
electro-mechanical device
experienced FORTRAN computer
(Optacon) that converts printed
programmer for engineering and
letters and numbers to vibrating
science at the Experimental Station,
images that can be sensed by the
Du Pont's research facility outside
index finger. While the device
Wilmington, Delaware, when
enables Stu to read anything, it
a benign tumor on the optic nerve
requires enormous concentration.
cost him his sight. That was in
More recently, Du Pont acquired a
December of 1972.
full-speech computer terminal
With the help of the Delaware
that says words and spells aloud
Bureau for the Visually Impaired
by individual characters.
and the encouragement of co-
To compensate for his disability,
workers and family, Stu began his
Stu devised ways of writing his
rehabilitation. He learned to read
programs that make them easier
Braille, type and use a cane. When
for him to memorize. In the words
to
urned to work in March
of his supervisor, "Stu's programs
1:
.ne admits, "I wasn't sure
are dreams for others to read
I could make a go of it."
because of the orderliness of their
structure."
Today, Stu continues to be
employed as a computer pro-
grammer and is fully productive.
His initiative and resourcefulness
earned him a promotion in 1977.
When not spending time with
his family-he and his wife have
two sons and a daughter-Stu
speaks at civic clubs, talks per-
sonally with others who have
experienced the same trauma, and
explains the operation of the
Optacon and talking terminal.
His philosophy: "Even sighted
people have different capabilities.
You just have to know what.you
can do and do it well."
12
A.
_:a Godwin: Stenographer
A relative newcomer to Du Pont
A physical impairment need not
-she has just completed her
be an obstacle to doing a full
second year-Andrea is a stenog-
day's work in the office or to living
rapher in Chemicals and Pigments'
a normal life off the job. Andrea
Wilmington, Delaware, office. She
Godwin proves this.
works in the steno pool and has
Suffering from multiple birth
been trained on word processing
defects, Andrea underwent 32
equipment. The part of the job
major operations, which culmi-
that she likes best, however, is
nated in surgery to fuse her spine
substituting for secretaries because,
at age 14. She now walks with
as she says, "I never know what I'll
the aid of crutches, needing a
be doing next. I don't mind asking
wheelchair only when her artificial
questions, and I learn a lot." Since
leg pains her. Automatic doors,
she began her present assignment
recently installed by Du Pont, have
in March of 1981, Andrea hasn't
made it much easier for her to get
missed a single day of work. As her
from place to place.
supervisor notes, "I can always
count on Andrea. She's the first
one in when it snows."
Andrea attended a school for
the handicapped in Philadelphia
before moving to Delaware. She
completed her education at a
public high school where she met
her husband. They both attended
business school for two years
and were married in 1975. Before
joining Du Pont, Andrea worked
as a legal secretary and as a
secretary in an accounting office.
The key to Andrea's success is
her attitude, which she expresses
this way: "People respond to you
based on how you feel about
yourself. I don't feel handicapped."
13
Raymond Kellogg: Machinist
What is remarkable about Ray's
In his free time, Ray practices his
Raymond (Ray) Kellogg knows
achievement is that he is a deaf-
skill in cabinetry and builds remote-
what he is doing, and that's what
mute; he hears only loud, sharp
controlled model airplanes that
it takes to be set-up man on the
sounds. To communicate, he
delight his two children. On and
shift. Ray operates a computer-
reads lips and uses sign language.
off the job, Ray Kellogg is a man
assisted machining center at
He received his initial training at
who knows what he is doing.
Du Pont's Photo Products plant
the Mystic School for the Deaf in
in Newtown, Connecticut. As
Connecticut, where he met his
set-up man, he teaches others how
wife who is also hearing impaired.
to use the machining center, which
Ray has learned his job so well
bores, mills and drills delicate
that he was recently promoted to
instruments.
the top level-just eight years after
joining the company. According
to his supervisor, "Ray is more
knowledgeable than average. I'm
learning more from him than he is
from me."
Before joining Du Pont in 1973,
Ray worked as a carpenter and
cabinetmaker for 18 years. Stair-
cases he made are the focal point
of many homes. He learned of the
job at the Newtown plant from
a deaf-mute friend who worked
there.
Ray has overcome his disability
so successfully that he requires
little in the way of accommoda-
tion. Du Pont has provided him
with a teletypewriter (TTY) which
allows him to keyboard telephone
conversations instead of speaking
into the receiver. In addition,
for special communications, like
the recent two-day seminar on
employee benefits, the company
may bring in an interpreter.
14
Sa. a Fischbach:
Besides being a computer office
Computer Office Assistant
assistant in data processing at
Stricken with polio at 15 months
Petrochemicals' plant in Corpus
and paralyzed from the waist
Christi, Texas, Sandra also man-
down, Sandra Fischbach has fought
ages a home, and a young daughter
back. Although she was told she
and son.
would never walk without
She didn't attend any special
crutches, she now gets around
schools for the handicapped. Her
with the help of a leg brace, some-
mother spent hours working with
times leaning on corridor walls.
her and encouraged her to do
The crutches are reserved for navi-
things for herself. She studied
gating stairs and unfamiliar places.
key-punching in high school,
attended college for a year, and
worked for a data processing
company in San Antonio, Texas,
her hometown.
After joining Du Pont in Febru-
ary 1980, Sandra learned her job
quickly. In her next assignment,
she will work with process com-
puters in a production area.
Sandra parks next to the building
where she works, but expects no
other special treatment. "We are
regular people," she says.
She likes horseback riding and
playing pool, and enjoys baking
bread, sewing, and taking care
of her home and children.
Outgoing, confident, and self-
reliant, Sandra Fischbach regards
her disability as an inconvenience,
not a handicap.
15
James Prettyman: Mechanic
Jimmy's supervisor encouraged
James (Jimmy) Prettyman, a spin
him to tackle more complicated
pump mechanic at Textile Fibers'
pumps, and he now handles them
plant in Seaford, Delaware, relies
with ease. Of Jimmy's perfor-
on touch to service and maintain
mance, his supervisor says, "Jimmy
dozens of pumps every day.
knows what's expected of him
Jimmy has been blind since he
and he does it-sometimes better
was about seven, as a result of
than a sighted person could. He
measles. After his graduation from
can feel imperfections on the
a school for the blind in Philadel-
pumps that I can't even see."
phia, a friend suggested he apply
The only special treatment on
for a job at the Du Pont plant, and
the plant for Jimmy was the instal-
he did, though he says, "I didn't
lation of a cover over the grinder
think I'd be hired."
at his bench, and having someone
Now a 36-year Du Pont veteran,
meet him at the gate in the morn-
Jimmy remembers well his first
ing and leave 15 minutes early with
ic'
the plant: loading spin
him at night.
is into boxes and making
Jimmy is so skillful that many
up boxes for the conveyor belt.
people coming to the shop for
When a new, larger conveyor was
the first time do not realize that
installed, his supervisor didn't have
he is blind.
any doubts about his ability to
handle the increased work load.
In 1975, Jimmy moved to the
pump room to become a me-
chanic. He learned to work pri-
marily on pumps which supply
polymer to staple nylon machines.
On a routine day, he works on as
many as 50 pumps-in a jam,
more than 80. He cleans, oils, and
tests them so they are ready to
go back to machines on the
manufacturing floor.
16
6
TOOLS FOR THE TASK
What conditions within the
Supervisors have learned inno-
hand tools and furniture, and
Du Pont environment have con-
vative communication methods in
has provided special equipment
tributed to the successful perfor-
training blind, deaf and mentally
to enable handicapped individuals
mance of handicapped employees?
impaired employees. At one
to perform their jobs. For emer-
Five key elements have been
location, special safety meetings
gency situations, Du Pont sites
identified:
with an interpreter are held for
provide evacuation assistance,
1. Management's concern for the
deaf employees. For other handi-
such as wheelchairs and air packs,
safety and well-being of all
capped workers, training cycles.
for employees with mobility
employees-a fundamental
have been lengthened. One super-
problems.
Du Pont tradition.
visor even blindfolded himself
Overall, because of accommo-
2. Careful placement of handi-
to find out what problems a blind
dations Du Pont is making, the
capped employees to maximize
employee might encounter chang-
handicapped have greater access
their abilities.
ing valves in reusable cylinders.
to the workplace, more ease in
3. An effective safety program.
Accommodations have also
communicating with co-workers,
4. Cooperation of nonimpaired
been made to relieve handicapped
and a wider range of job oppor-
employees.
individuals of job duties which
tunities. The cost of most accom-
5. Reasonable accommodations to
might aggravate their impairments.
modations is nominal.
address the special needs of
They include reassigning duties,
Examples of each type of
handicapped employees.
eliminating some parts of the job,
accommodation appear on the
While the first four elements
and not requiring handicapped
following page.
cannot readily be measured, the
employees to rotate through all
1001 survey did record the com-
the assignments within a particular
S efforts to make accommo-
job title. In addition, they are
Gamons that would enable handi-
excused from working overtime
capped employees to realize their
or are moved from rotating shifts
potential. In all, more than 3,000
to day work when necessary to
different accommodations have
protect them from added stress.
been made in training, job pro-
If the impairment is such that
gression, job duties, facilities and
a reasonable accommodation can-
equipment to meet the needs of
not be made to enable the indi-
impaired workers.
vidual to do the job, a position
&
is sought that lies within the
individual's capabilities. In some
cases, jobs are designated specif-
ically for handicapped individu-
als. Many of the mentally retarded
employees the company has hired
have been placed in such jobs.
Du Pont has made many accom-
modations to facilities, machines,
17
ACCOMMODATIONS
Job Duties*
Equipment
Training
Heavy lifting: back problem
Teletypewriter: hearing
Longer training cycles
High noise areas: hearing
Amplified phone: hearing
Exposure to dust and chemicals:
Talking clock: vision
Handwritten communications for
deaf-mutes
allergies
Talking computer terminal: vision
Verbal communication of written
Manual dexterity: stroke
Optical reader (Optacon): vision
material for mentally retarded
High mobility: heart
(pictured below)
Sign language for deaf (pictured
Climbing: amputee
Telephone headset: nonparalytic
below)
orthopedic
Moving equipment: epilepsy
Light touch typewriter: arthritis
Job Progression
High temperature areas: diabetes
Wheelchair: paralysis
Reassignment to a different job
Wearing a respirator: respiratory
category
Confined spaces: claustrophobia
D
nation of a job specifically for
Traveling: vision
a
licapped individual
Protection from involuntary job
*Accommodations in this area include examples of
displacement
tasks that an employee with a particular impairment
would not be required to do.
Facilities
Braille elevator floor designations
Modified parking spaces
Modified restrooms
Modified cafeterias
Ramps
Raised desks
Handrails in showers
Elevator chairs
Automatic doors
18
7
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
Du ont's efforts to expand job
Many community organizations
opportunities for handicapped
which work with the handicapped
people reach outside the company
are heavily dependent upon
as well. Du Pont sites are actively
Federal funds for staffing and
involved with some 60 organi-
program needs. As government
zations that provide work for hand-
cutbacks in spending reduce
icapped individuals in the com-
grants to these organizations, the
munity. People employed in these
private sector will be challenged
organizations perform tasks
to do more. Du Pont's experience
roughly equivalent to the work
indicates that a community part-
of 350 full-time Du Pont employ-
nership works well-for the handi-
ees, but the number of handi-
capped and for the company. It
capped people trained on these
creates jobs for many handi-
tasks is many times that number.
capped people, helps the organi-
Organizations involved in this
zations become self-sufficient,
work are of two types: sheltered
and provides a necessary service
workshops that provide work for
to Du Pont.
severely handicapped individuals
Several examples of sheltered
who require special supervision
workshops and vocational rehabili-
and may never get jobs in industry;
tation centers illustrate Du Pont's
and vocational rehabilitation
commitment to community
centers that train handicapped
involvement.
F
? to enter or re-enter the
W
force.
Du Pont operates on a contract
basis with most of these organi-
zations for work that is not nor-
mally performed at a plant site.
Jobs performed by community
organizations for Du Pont include:
engraving, assembly and clerical
work, sorting and packing mate-
rials, sewing and labelling, clean-
ing equipment, fabricating tools,
and recovering scrap materials.
In some cases, Du Pont buys
products for which a sheltered
workshop is the primary manu-
facturer, such as brooms from
Industry for the Blind.
19
Opportunity Center, Inc.
Kent-Sussex Industries, Inc.
Opportunity Center, Inc., em-
Kent-Sussex Industries, Inc., lo-
ploys 105 handicapped people
cated in Dover, Delaware, trained
and trains 20 other handicapped
and employed 360 handicapped
individuals for competitive place-
individuals in 1980. With a 90
ment in industry. Communications
percent placement rate, Client
Director Linda Dedman says, "OCI
Services Coordinator M. L.
is 85 percent self-sufficient, with
Andrews says, "We try to help
the United Way and Delaware's
people go from living on social
Vocational Rehabilitation Program
services to returning something to
providing the balance."
the community."
Located near Du Pont's corpo-
Depending largely on two-and
rate headquarters in Wilmington,
three-month contracts, KSI offers
Delaware, the Center includes a
general sewing, packaging and
print shop, a wood shop, an infor-
assembly, and collating and mailing
mation processing department,
services. The biggest Du Pont
a
packaging and assembly
contract is the recovery of waste
tment. Du Pont has several
nylon. The nylon is cut off wind-up
contracts with OCI for machining,
tubes, the tubes are cleaned, and
product inspection and finishing,
both the nylon and the tubes are
and the assembly of car care kits.
sold. Andrews is especially mindful
of Du Pont's concern for worker
safety. Any worker who cannot
perform a given job safely is moved
to another assignment.
20
An
$
Center of DATAHR, Inc.
In response to the changing
The Ability Center of DATAHR,
needs of the community, the
Inc., is a sheltered workshop and
Ability Center has recently devel-
vocational rehabilitation center
oped a transitional employment
serving about 110 handicapped
program that operates as follows:
clients in and around Danbury,
a staff member goes to a company,
Connecticut. The Center provides
learns a particular job and then
clerical, assembly, packaging,
trains a handicapped individual to
labelling and mailing services, and
perform that job. At the end of an
is a primary producer of handi-
eight- to ten-week period of
capped parking signs. Du Pont jobs
employment, the sponsoring
include the assembly and pack-
employer has the option to retain
aging of bottles, plugs, tubes,
the employee full-time, hold the
and adapters.
job as a training position for
The sheltered workshop pays
another handicapped person to
piece-work rates as an incentive
learn the skill, or discontinue the
to motivate handicapped clients
program entirely.
to improve themselves, as well
as to assure customers a fair deal.
Supervisor Laura Castagna explains,
"There is a fine line between
productivity and rehabilitation. We
an obligation to rehabilitate,
e also have an obligation
to the companies that buy our
services."
21
8
EQUAL TO THE TASK
The significance of the 1981 survey
The International Year of the
-and earlier surveys as well-is
Disabled has generated a height-
the picture that emerges of the
ened awareness and sensitivity
handicapped as an important
among the public concerning
human resource. Once again,
the needs and capabilities of hand-
Du Pont employees with diverse
icapped people. Concerned
impairments have demonstrated
groups throughout the country
that they are eager and able
will be watching to see whether
to meet the challenges of
initiatives taken in 1981 will serve
employment.
as the foundation of programs for
In spite of the demonstrated
the future. The challenge for all of
ability of handicapped individuals
us as employers is to prove that
to do the job as well as nonim-
we too are equal to the task.
paired workers, their employment
needs across the country are not
being met. Only about 37 percent
ndicapped people ages 17-64
nployed, compared with 69
percent of the total population in
that age group.* Many of these
people could make a valuable
contribution to the work force
and society as a whole if given the
opportunity.
The 1981 Du Pont survey offers
some new insights on employ-
ment of the handicapped in terms
of the definition of "handicapped"
that was used, types of accommo-
dations the company has made,
and initiatives taken with com-
munity organizations. By sharing
its experience with others, Du Pont
hopes to expand employment
opportunities for qualified handi-
capped individuals.
"From a statistical analysis by the President's
Committee on Employment of the Handicapped
using data compiled by the National Center for
Health Statistics.
22
PENDIX
The central problem in any effort
The Du Pont survey includes any
With reference to the third
to measure employment of the
individual who meets one of the
criteria, the deciding factor in
handicapped is determining who
following criteria:
determining if an individual is to
should be counted. Experts have
1. The employee was hired as a
be counted as handicapped is
wrestled with this question for a
handicapped individual.
whether Du Pont made an accom-
long time, and the answer varies
2. The employee has identified
modation in the employment
considerably. The Rehabilitation
himself/herself to management
process. For example, an employee
Act of 1973 has adopted the broad-
as handicapped and would like
missing three fingers whose job
est possible definition, covering
to be included in Du Pont's
has been restructured to eliminate
individuals who are limited in any
affirmative action program.
activities requiring manual dex-
life activity. The definition used in
3. The employee is likely to
terity would be counted in the
the Du Pont survey is drawn from
experience difficulty in securing,
survey. Another employee with
applicable sections of the Act.
retaining, or advancing in em-
the same disability whose job
Compounding the question of
ployment because of a physical
requires no manual dexterity and
definition is the difficulty of
or mental impairment that
for whom the company has made
trying to identify handicapped
might:
no accommodation would not be
members of the work force. Many
Prevent the employee from
counted as handicapped, even
of them, once employed, become
handling such jobs as the aver-
though he or she might well be
so much a part of the mainstream
age nonimpaired worker could
considered handicapped in seek-
that their disabilities are no longer
handle, or
ing employment elsewhere.
apparent.
Limit the employee from
Individuals whose disability is
competing in his/her job pro-
temporary and who are not
gression system, or
expected to have any residual
Require the modification of
impairment after recovery are
training programs, job duties,
not considered handicapped.
equipment, facilities, or work
schedules, or
Require more than normal
effort to communicate with the
employee, or
Require that more than
normal consideration be given
to the employee's mobility
in case of emergency or disaster.
23
SUPOND
MEDICAL
DIVISION
1
I'm pleased with the findings of the
1981 survey. They confirm what we
already knew from direct, personal
experience-that the handicapped
are an important human resource.
In my judgement, all employers
would serve society and themselves
by providing increased opportunities
for handicapped individuals to
achieve their potential as self-
sufficient, contributing members
of the workplace and the community. "
Edward G. John
Edward G. Jefferson
Chairman
Anyone visually impaired may obtain a free cassette
recording of this study by writing to:
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (Inc J
Public Affairs Department
8084 DuPont Building
Wilmington, DE 19898
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (Inc.)
Wilmington, DE 19898
OUPONT
REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION-
THE EMPLOYMENT STORY
U.S. GOVERNME. T PHOTO
For mòre information contact:
Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
Division Director
Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
1200 Main Tower, Room 1360
Dallas, Texas 75202
(214) 767-4056
(214) 767-8940 TDD
Developed under contract to the Region VI Technical Assistance Staff,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, by:
Kemp & Young, Inc.
6405 Metcalf, Suite 514
Overland Park, KS 66202
(913) 677-1800 (Voice and TTY)
This videotape is about the "reasonable accomodation" provisions of the
employment requirements of the Regulation for Section 504 of the Rehabil-
itation Act of 1973. It is entitled "Reasonable Accommodation - the
Employment Story," and was produced by Kemp & Young, Inc., a human resources
consulting firm, under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, for the Regional Technical Assistance Staff, Region VI, Dallas,
Texas. This presentation is approximately 20 minutes long.
The purpose of the tape is to suggest methods for making "reasonable accom-
modations" for disabled persons in the employment setting. It shows indivi-
duals who have had accommodations made for them to facilitate employment
in the hospital setting; however, the videotape will also be helpful for
U.S. GOVERNME T PHOTO
other employers.
Examples are shown of five main types of accommodations:
(1) modification of the worksite and commonly-used areas;
(2) use of assistive aids and devices;
(3) provision of readers for persons with impaired vision, and
interpreters or other forms of communication for hearing-
impaired persons;
(4) adoption of flexible personnel policies which allow flexi-
time, part-time employment or extended rest periods, etc;
and
(5) job restructuring, reassignment of nonessential tasks, and
work task trading.
-i-
INTRODUCTION
In 1973, Congress added Title V to the Rehabilitation Act. That section
of the law provides civil rights protection for handicapped individuals in
four main parts:
Section 501 - requires the Federal government to take affirmative
action to hire and advance qualified handicapped persons.
Section 502 - creates the Architectural and Transportation
Barriers Compliance Board to enforce the Architectural Barriers
CLOHA 'S'N
Act of 1968. That Act requires buildings that are constructed,
GOVERNME.
altered, leased, etc. with Federal funds to comply with "barrier
free" design standards.
Section 503 - requires Federal contractors or sub-contractors
with contracts of $2500 or more to take affirmative action to
hire and advance qualified handicapped persons.
Section 504 - prohibits discrimination against qualified handi-
capped persons in employment and the provision of services by
Federal grantees.
It is important to distinguish the difference between "affirmative action"
as required by Sections 501 and 503 and "non-discrimination" as required by
Section 504. The term "affirmative action" is used exclusively with refer-
ence to employment. Both Sections 501 and 503 require an employer to recruit
disabled persons for employment within the organization. And, under Section
503, if the employer has more than 50 employees and more than $50,000 in fed-
eral contracts in the current year, the employer is required to have a written
affirmative action plan for the hiring and promotion of disabled persons.
"Non-discrimination," on the other hand, under Section 504, can be applied to
the provision of services as well as to employment and only requires that poli-
cies and practices not have the effect of discriminating against handicapped
persons.
-ii-
SECTION 504 EMPLOYMENT PROVISIONS - SUBPART B
The employment provisions of the Section 504 Regulation are covered by Subpart
B. Recipients of Federal financial assistance (grants) from the Department
of Health and Human Services must comply with these provisions in developing
and implementing employment practices.
Section 84.11 (a) states:
"No qualified handicapped person shall, on the basis of handicap,
1 'S'N
be subjected to discrimination in employment.
This requirement applies to all employment situations, including part-time
GOVERNME.
employment. The most common employment-related activities covered by Sub-
part B include:
Recruitment, advertising, and the processing of applications for
employment;
Hiring, upgrading, promotion, award of tenure, demotion, transfer,
lay-off, termination, right of return from lay-off, and rehiring;
Rates of pay or any other form of compensation and changes in
compensation;
Job assignments, job classification, organizational structures,
position descriptions, lines of progression, and seniority lists;
Leaves of absence, sick leave, or any other leave;
Selection and financial support for training, including apprentice-
ship, professional meetings, conferences, and other related acti-
vities, and selection for leaves of absence to pursue training;
Any other term, condition, or privilege of employment; and
Fringe benefits available by virtue of employment, whether or
not administered by the employer.
In addition, employers covered by Section 504 may not participate in a
contractual or other relationship that has the effect of subjecting quali-
fied handicapped applicants or employees to discrimination. This includes
relationships with employment and referral agencies, labor unions, organi-
zations providing or administering fringe benefits, and organizations pro-
viding training and apprenticeship programs.
Several definitions are necessary for a better understanding of the Subpart
B requirements.
-1-
HANDICAPPED PERSON - any person who:
(i)
has a physical or mental impairment which substantially
limits one or more major life activities,
(ii)
has a record of such an impairment, or
(iii)
is regarded as having such an impairment.
a. Physical or mental impairment - any physiological disorder
or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss
affecting one or more body systems; or any mental or
psychological disorder and specific learning disabilities.
b. Major life activities - functions such as caring for one's
self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing,
U.S. GOVERNME, T PHOTO
speaking, breathing, learning, and working.
Section 504 only protects qualified handicapped persons. For the purposes
of employment, a qualified handicapped person is defined in the Regulation
as:
A handicapped person - who, with reasonable accomodation,
can perform the essential functions of the job in question.
The Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services Amendment of 1978, P.L. 95-602,
added the following sentence to the definition of "handicapped individual":
For purposes of Section 504, as such sections relate to
employment, such term does not include any individual who
is an alcoholic or drug abuser whose current use of alco-
hol or drugs prevents such individual from performing the
duties of the job in question and whose employment, by
reason of such current alcohol or drug abuse, would consti-
tute a direct threat to property or the safety of others.
(Emphasis added.)
The key issues concerning whether a handicapped person is qualified to
perform a particular job are:
What are the essential functions of the job; i.e., what
basic qualifications are necessary to perform the job?
Are there reasonable accomodations available that would
enable the handicapped person to perform the essential
job functions?
Because of the unlimited variety of circumstances under which an individual
may be expected to perform a particular job, the determination as to whether
a particular job function is "essential" must be made on a case-by-case basis.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Health and Human
-2-
Services is responsible for ensuring compliance with the Regulation for
recipients of Federal financial assistance from that Department. When a
question arises concerning the essential nature of a job function, OCR has
determined that the burden is on the employer to demonstrate that the job
function is "essential."
Section 84. 12 of the Regulation states that an employer "shall make reason-
able accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of an other-
wise qualified handicapped applicant or employee unless the recipient can
demonstrate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the
operation of its program." (Emphasis added.) If the handicapped person does
not explain the nature of his/her handicap and does not request an accommoda-
tion, there is no violation of the Regulation. For example, if an employee,
who has a learning disability and has difficulty with timed tests, does not
U.S. GOVERNME. T PHOTO
inform the employer that he/she needs an accomodation when taking a promo-
tional examination, the employer is under no obligation to provide one.
Reasonable accomodation must be applied to all employment decisions made
by an employer, not simply hiring and promotion decisions. For example,
an employer may be required to make a reasonable accommodation with respect
to policies, such as job assignments, transfers, leaves of absence and sick
leave. When additional time off, leaves of absence and additional sick
leave are provided, the employer is not required to offer these with pay
to the disabled person unless the employer has paid nondisabled persons
for these additional benefits.
REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
Reasonable accomodation is not defined in the Regulation; however, a list
of possible accomodations is provided. Section 84. 12 (b) states:
"Reasonable accomodation may include:
(1) making facilities used by employees readily accessible to
and usable by handicapped persons, and
(2) job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules,
acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, the
provision of readers or interpreters, and other similar
actions."
Examples of specific forms of reasonable accommodation include:
Modification of work sites and commonly-used areas, such
as parking lots, telephone and dining facilities, bath-
rooms and work benches;
Provision of assistive aids and devices;
-3-
Provision of readers for persons with impaired vision; or
interpreters or other methods of effective communication
for deaf or hearing-impaired persons;
Adoption of flexible personnel policies which allow flexi-
time, part-time employment or rest periods;
Job restructuring, reassignment of non-essential tasks, and
work task trading.
U.S. GOVERNME.
Clearly, this is not an exhaustive listing. Because the accomodation is
geared to the limitations of the otherwise qualified applicant or employee,
reasonable accommodation may take a variety of forms. It is important,
therefore, to attempt to arrive at a functional definition of the term in
order to determine what is an "accommodation" and whether a particular accom-
modation is "reasonable" under each fact situation.
DETERMINATION OF "REASONABLE"
In determining the reasonableness of an accomodation, one must look at it
from two perspectives. First, from the point of view of the handicapped per-
son, the accommodation must be sufficiently effective in overcoming the mental
or physical limitations SO as to enable the person to perform the essential
functions of a particular job. For example, providing a machine that enlarges
print instead of hiring a reader for a person who is totally blind would not
be reasonable because it is ineffective.
Second, from the point of view of the employer, the accomodation must enable
a handicapped person to perform essential job functions, not supplant the
need for the handicapped person. It is unreasonable to deem a handicapped
person "qualified" if it is necessary that a second person be hired to perform
the essential functions of the job. It is not the fact that a second person
is required that determines whether an accomodation is reasonable, since a
reasonable accomodation may include the provision of a reader or interpreter.
Rather, the key factor is whether the person hired enables the handicapped
person to perform the essential functions of the job or whether the second
person effectively replaces the handicapped person by performing those essen-
tial job functions. For example, a man with a low back disability applies for-
a job in a storeroom. The job requires lifting boxes weighing over 40 pounds
at least 50 percent of the time. He requests that this task be given to
another worker. However, the second worker in this situation would be replac-
ing a need for the applicant who is unable to perform the "essential" job
tasks.
PROVIDING THE ACCOMMODATION
The first person the employer should consult about the need for an accommo-
dation or the type of accomodation needed is the handicapped employee. For
-4-
example, a hearing impaired person was hired to work in a busy office. The
first day on the job the supervisor proudly showed him the TTY that had been
purchased to provide reasonable accomodation in making telephone calls. (A
TTY is a teletypewriter that can be used by deaf and hearing impaired persons
to communicate via telephone.) The hearing impaired person was dismayed
because he could not use the type of TTY which was purchased as a result of a
vision impairment, and an amplified telephone available from the telephone
company for a minimal charge would have been sufficient to enable him to per-
form essential job tasks.
However, the employer is not required to provide the accommodation proposed
U.S. GOVERNME.
by the handicapped person if an alternative accomodation is as effective.
For example:
A mobility impaired person indicates that he needs a special
type of chair costing $400. The employer locates another chair
costing $100 that meets the needs of the handicapped person.
A blind person requests a reader as a reasonable accomodation.
The employer determines that the necessary accommodation can be
provided by restructuring the job.
A social worker who becomes disabled requests, as an accomo-
dation, another person to accompany her on home visits. The
employer offers the employee an alternative job that does not
require home visits. The alternative job constitutes a reason-
able accommodation since it is comparable to the employee's
existing job. For purposes of determining whether an alter-
native job placement is comparable, the following factors,
among others, should be considered.
- salary scale (including fringe benefits);
- nature and scope of responsibilities;
- potential for promotion;
- seniority;
- proximity to the existing worksite.
A worker with a history of mental illness requests one week's
additional paid time off because job stress is causing the
disability to recur. The employer offers the worker flexitime
to reduce stress.
The State Office or Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and agencies that
provide services to handicapped persons will be a good resource if the employer
and employee are unable to solve the problems on their own.
UNDUE HARDSHIP
It is the employer's responsibility to provide the accommodation unless it
-5-
would impose an "undue hardship." In-house resources can be used in a
variety of ways. For example, staff can modify existing equipment and
facilities and/or act as aids/interpreters or share work tasks.
Community resources such as the State Department of Vocational Rehabili-
tation, private non-profit agencies which serve handicapped persons and
service organizations may be able to assist in providing the necessary
accomodation.
If an "undue hardship" can be shown, the employer is excused from making
the reasonable accomodation. In determining whether an accommodation
would impose an undue hardship on the operation of a program, factors to
be considered include:
U.S. GOVERNME. PHOTO
The overall size of the program with respect to number of
employees, number and type of facilities, and size of
budget;
The type of operation, including the composition and
structure of the workforce; and
The nature and cost of the accomodation needed.
For example, an RN with kidney disease requests every Saturday off for hemo-
dialysis treatment. She works in a small outpatient clinic which employs
four registered nurses and requires each to work one Saturday per month.
Providing her with every Saturday free would result in under-staffing or
unfair additional weekend work for the other three RN's. Taking into con-
sideration the composition and structure of the workforce, the provision of
this accommodation would impose an "undue hardship" on the hospital.
It is important to note that the undue hardship provision only applies to
the employment setting. If adjustments or aids are needed to provide ser-
vices to handicapped persons, the undue hardship provisions cannot be used.
A RECIPIENT MUST PROVIDE AN EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY EVEN WHEN EXCUSED FROM
PROVIDING THE ACCOMMODATION
If an employer can demonstrate that the provision of an accommodation would
impose an undue hardship, he/she is excused from providing the necessary
accommodation without violating the regulation. However, "undue hardship"
cannot be used as an excuse to deny employment.
The handicapped individual must be given the opportunity to arrange for his/
her own accommodation in order to take advantage of the employment opportunity.
Such arrangements may include the provision of the accomodation by a public
or private non-profit agency. However, it is the recipient's responsibility
to investigate this alternative first.
For example, assume that a small research organization receiving a grant
from HHS advertises an opening for a position as a computer programmer.
A physically disabled person applies for the job. The recipient is able
to demonstrate that it would impose an undue hardship on the operation of
its program if it were to acquire or modify equipment to enable the person
to operate the computer. Assume that the handicapped individual expressed
a willingness to pay for the necessary modification or purchase the special
equipment necessary to enable him/her to operate the computer. Although
the employer need not provide the accommodation, it would be a violation of
Section 84.12 (d) if the employer were to deny a job to a qualified handi-
capped person who is willing to provide his/her own accommodation.
U.S. GOVERNME. T
OTHER REQUIREMENTS OF SUBPART B
Employers should be aware of the other two sections of Subpart B. Section
84.13 covers employment criteria and requires employers to use tests that
measure job-related skills only. Section 84.13 (b) states that an employer:
shall select and administer tests concerning employment SO as
best to ensure that, when administered to an applicant or employee
who has a handicap that impairs sensory, manual, or speaking skills,
the test results accurately reflect the applicant's or employee's
job skills, aptitude, or whatever other factor the test purports
to measure, rather than reflecting the applicant's or employee's
impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills (except where those
skills are factors that the test purports to measure)."
Section 84.14 contains the requirements with respect to pre-employment inquir-
ies. Employers may not inquire as to whether an applicant has a handicap or
ask questions about the nature or severity of a handicap. However, inquiries
are permitted about an applicant's ability to perform job-related functions.
If an employer is taking remedial or voluntary action to correct the effect
of past discrimination or is covered by Section 503 and is taking affirmative
handicapped and to what extent, provided that:
action, applicants for employment may be invited to indicate whether they are
"(1) the [employer] states clearly on any written questionnaire
used for this purpose, or makes clear orally if no written ques-
tionnaire is used, that the information requested is intended for
use solely in connection with its remedial action obligations
or its voluntary or affirmative action efforts; and
(2) the [employer] states clearly that the information is being
requested on a voluntary basis, that it will be kept confidential
and that refusal to provide it will not subject the applicant or
employee to any adverse treatment."
An offer of employment may be conditioned on the results of a medical exami-
nation provided that (1) the examination is required only after an offer of
-7-
employment has been made; and (2) all entering employees are subjected to
such an examination.
Information collected as described above must be given confidentiality as
medical records. The following types of people may be told about this
information:
(1) Supervisors and managers may be informed regarding restric-
tions on the work or duties of handicapped persons and
regarding necessary accommodations;
(2) First aid and safety personnel may be informed, where
appropriate, if the condition might require emergency
U.S. GOVERNME. T PHOTO
treatment; and
(3) Government officials investigating compliance with the Act
shall be provided relevant information upon request.
-8-
U.S. GOVERNME. T PHOTO DY
NARRATIVE
SCRIPT
Reasonable Accommodation - The Employment Story
Ralph Rouse, Director,
Technical Assistance
"Reasonable accomodation" is a term used in
Staff, Dallas, Texas
Federal regulations to describe adjustments in
the work environment which allow a disabled
person to perform the functions of a job. We
have sought out creative examples of accommoda-
tions and attempted to provide guidance on the
methods by which accomodations may be identified.
U.S. GOVERNME. T
Analyzing the essential job tasks with the
disabled applicant or employee is important.
Remember, accommodations are made to each indi-
vidual's handicapping condition, and they may be
different for individuals who appear to have the
same disability. The Technical Assistance Staffs
in regional offices of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services throughout the country
are available to assist you in solving critical
problems associated with the employment of dis-
abled persons. I am Ralph Rouse, Director of
the Technical Assistance Office in Dallas, Texas.
Any employer, whether in a hospital setting
or not, can benefit from this tape and can apply
the principles demonstrated.
John Kemp, President
Kemp & Young, Inc.
Hi. I am John Kemp and this is Robert Young.
We are the principals of Kemp & Young, Inc., a
human resources consulting firm.
In 1973 Congress passed the Rehabilitation
Act, specifically Section 504 of Title V of the
Act, which prohibits discrimination against handi-
capped people.
A big step in eliminating discrimination in
employment is the removal of physical and proce-
dural barriers that have been unintentionally
established by institutions.
TO provide equal employment opportunity,
health care institutions can and should make
reasonable accommodations to physical and mental
limitations of handicapped applicants and em-
ployees.
Page 2
Robert W. Young,
We have chosen three metropolitan hospitals:
Chief Operating Officer
Menorah Medical Center, St. Joseph Hospital, and
Kemp & Young, Inc.
this hospital, St. Luke's, to illustrate some
types of reasonable accomodations which are crea-
tive, cost-effective, and safe, and, in fact, have
been made right here.
You will see examples of 5 main types: (1)
modification of worksite and commonly-used areas;
U.S.
(2) use of assistive devices; (3) provision of
readers for persons with impaired vision and inter-
preters or other forms of communication for hearing-
impaired persons; (4) adoption of flexible personnel
policies which allow flextime, part-time, or ex-
tended rest periods; etc.; (5) job restructuring,
GOVERNME.
reassignment of nonessential tasks, and work task
trading.
Accommodations may be negotiated in a vari-
ety of ways. You may be able to anticipate some,
but more often, disabled persons will come to you
with a request or an idea which will enable them to
function better in their jobs.
John D. Kemp
Be creative. Utilize your hospital and com-
munity's resources to solve accomodation problems.
While same requested accommodations cannot be made,
most cost little or no money, or won't disrupt the
provision of health care services. Persons with
disabilities are easier to employ than you may think
and right here are some employees we want you to
meet.
Sharon Royality
Accommodations:
Elevator Operator
Disability - cerebral
1. Flexible personnel policies: given extra
palsy
15 minutes for lunch, unable to carry tray.
2. Modification of worksite: (a) could not
handle princess phone due to lack of hand
coordination-substituted regular receiver;
(b) handicapped parking lot permit)
3. Purchase of adaptive aids: (2nd elevator
uses tourniquet to adapt princess phone)
4. Job Restructuring: (can't dial SO calls
operator for connecting outgoing calls)
Page 5
Karl Hirsch
Accommodations:
Hemodialysis Equipment Manager
1. Purchase of assistive devices: screwdriver
Disability - visual impairment
now used by all persons working on mach-
ines, large magnifying glass with fluores-
cent light.
2. Provision of aids: use of dictating
equipment and secretaries to type, although
position would not normally warrant secre-
tarial support, fellow employees drive him
to patient homes when called for.
U.S.
Janice Kelly
Accommodations:
Employment Specialist
Disablility - Mobility
1. Modification of commonly used areas: put in
impaired, post polio,
sliding doors, moved and lowered the time
scoliosis
clock and retimed the elevators.
GOVERNME,
Frank Estrada
Accommodations:
Accounting Clerk
1. Flexible Personnel Policies: provided extende
Disability - quadraplegic
rest periods 1 - 2 hours per day. Does 8 hour
work in 10 hours.
2. Purchase of adaptive aids: arranged for a
writing splint and universal cuff through
vocational rehabilitation.
3. Provision of an aid: fellow worker helps him
out of his chair SO he can rest.
Marion Japins
Accommodations:
Computer Programmer
1. Provision of interpreter: qualified inter-
Disability - profound
preter is hired for in-service training
deafness
programs; a co-worker signs at work.
2. Purchase of assistive device: provided her
with a telecommunications device.
Robert Young
You have seen examples of modification of
worksite; use of assistive devices; provision
of readers and interpreters; adoption of flexible
personnel policies; and job restructuring.
All the accomodations demonstrated here
cost the hospitals collectively less than
$3000.00. TO maintain each of the same employees
on welfare or unemployment during a nonproductive
lifetime would cost us $1,000,000.00. Reasonable
accommodations have made these disabled persons
taxpayers, not tax users.
John Kemp
Thanks to the farsightedness of Menorah,
St. Joseph and St. Luke's, we are able to show
you real accommodations working for the hospi-
tals and their employees.
We hope this will be helpful to you when
you are making your employment decisions.
Page 4
Sister Elizabeth Deutsch
Accommodations:
Pastoral Care
Disability - chronic spinal
1. Flexible personnel policies: works
cord disorder
when she is able, guard parks her car
in bad weather.
Sandra Price
Accommodations:
Computer Programmer
Disability - visual impair-
1. Provision of reader: -fellow employees
ment, diabetes
read printed matter to her on request.
U.S. T PHOTO
2. Assistive devices: specially-designed
GOVERNME,
card reader, brought to job by Sandra
and designed by Washington University
in training program.
Charles Brownrigg
Accommodations:
Printer
Disability - epilepsy
1. Purchase of assistive devices: electric
paper cutter with pressure on two buttons
necessary for operation insures safety
of worker. (This was not specifically
bought for him, but his disability was
taken into consideration.)
2. Provision of aids: Supervisor and fellow
worker are trained in steps to take should
Charles have a seizure.
Shelley McQueeny
Accommodations:
Supervisor, Cardiovascular
Non-invasive Laboratory
1. Flexible personnel policies: works on an
Disability - respiratory
"as can" basis, takes work home, is paid
disease
for full-time status.
2. Job restructuring: will become Assistant
Coordinator of Cardiovascular Laboratory,
resulting in a promotion as well as less
physical duties, which benefits both
parties.
Page 3
Sam Runyon
Accommodations:
Director, In-service
Training, Respiratory
1. Job restructuring: no longer does student
and Biomedical Engineering
inhalation therapist evaluations on the
Disability - heart disease
floor due to physical exertion required.
2. Flexible personnel policy: 2 hours off on
M,W,F to attend Hearth Institute Rehab
classes; 1 hour is vacation time; 1 hour,
lunch and breaks.
Jeanne Hylton
Accommodations:
Radiology Technology Student
Disability - cerebral palsy
1. Flexible personnel policy: scored low on
U.S. GOVERNME. T PHOTO
entrance test because of lack of coordina-
tion in writing skills accepted into pro-
gram based on academic record and high
motivation.
2. Job restructuring: given more time for
class work and lab tests, placement in non-
essential areas. May need some accommodation
when working at real job.
Eva Sprague
Accommodations:
Medicare Audit and Billing
Clerk
1. Modification of worksite: she is given
Disability - congenital hip
middle level file space SO she won't have
defect
to reach low or high; handicapped parking
space.
Melvin Harkins
Accommodations:
Electron Microscopist
Disability - mobility-
1. Modification of commonly-used area: parking
impaired
space next to worksite not with regular
handicapped parking area.
Denny Eppright
Accommodations:
Housekeeping Department
Disability - hearing
1. Alternative means of communication: all
impairment
instructions are written. Please note that
not all deaf persons can understand written
English.
This material is reprinted from the Handicapped
640:1
Requirements Handbook, copyright Federal Programs
Advisory Service, 2120 L Street, N.W., Washington,
D.C. It is reprinted with permission of the publisher.
1640
What Is "Reasonable Accommodation"?
Recipients are required to make reasonable accommodation to the known physical and mental limi-
tations of otherwise qualified handicapped applicants and employees "unless the recipient can demon-
strate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of its program." A
"reasonable accommodation" is an adaptation of the work place, the equipment, or the job itself which
enables a handicapped employee to do a particular job for which she or he is qualified in training and
abilities. Employers should note that individuals with handicapping conditions are qualified, if, with rea-
sonable accommodations to the handicap, they are able to perform the essential functions of the job (see
1630). Employers should make certain that essential and nonessential functions of jobs are well defined
before any individual job is posted or advertised.
In order to implement the "reasonable accommodation" standard effectively, recipients may wish
to analyze job descriptions to determine essential and nonessential functions. Without such a definition,
it will be difficult to determine whether a particular handicapped person is "qualified" or whether an
accommodation is successful in allowing an individual to perform essential job functions. For example,
in the case of a person who cannot lift heavy boxes, he or she may not be qualified for a position that
requires regular heavy lifting (where heavy lifting is an "essential job function"), but may be qualified
for a position that requires heavy lifting occasionally (where the heavy lifting function is not "essen-
tial" and may be transfered to another employee through reasonable accommodation). An accom-
modation need not be made if it requires the employer to modify essential job requirements; in such an
instance it would not be discriminatory to deny employment or advancement in employment to a handi-
capped person who, despite accommodation, cannot perform the essential job functions (i.e., is not
"qualified").
Although the government-wide regulations do not contain examples of reasonable accommodations,
the interpretation preceeding the guidelines suggests that individual federal funding agencies include
such examples in their section 504 rules. It also invites agencies to pattern examples after those appear-
ing in the May 4, 1977, regulations for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Depart-
ment of Education (ED) recipients (Appendix III:C). Most agencies, in issuing their agency-specific
section 504 rules, have followed the HHS, ED regulations which include the following examples:
(1) making facilities used by employers readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons.
(This includes, but is not limited to, making common areas accessible, such as entrances, hall-
ways, restrooms, cafeterias and lounges.)
(2) job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, acquisition or modification of equip-
ment or devices, the provision of readers or interpreters, and other similar actions.
In addition, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has suggested a range of accommodations
in the job environment that may be made for handicapped persons, including:
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:2
Blind and visually impaired-rearranging fixtures and supplies, labeling shelves in braille,
avoiding clutter in corridors and passageways; providing opportunities to hear and touch as a
means of supervisory instruction, use of writing and drawing aids, optical aids such as magni-
fiers, etc.
Deaf and hard of hearing-shifting of phone answering responsibilities to other employees. use
of amplification devices, use of a co-worker for receiving and transmitting communications that
require use of the telephone or during office conferences.
Mentally retarded-breaking down other jobs into smaller, simple components and reassigning
simple tasks; or reassigning lesser duties from higher level employees to lower level ranks. The
object of such changes should be to identify tasks that reduce the need for learning many details,
exercising judgment, or finding new solutions to problems.
Physically less mobile-architectural and other physical accommodations are described in Hand-
book Chapter 400 on ''Architectural Accessibility."
It should be noted that the above suggestions emanate from the Office of Personnel Management
and do not necessarily reflect what may be required by other federal funding agencies in their section
504 regulations.
As recipients plan accommodations for qualified handicapped employees and applicants, they
should, of course, consult with the disabled individual involved. Also, state vocational rehabilitation
agencies, and private service organizations, may be able to provide the necessary assistance at little or
no cost to the federal fund recipient. (See also the "response chart" included at Appendix VII.)
Changing an employee's duties or work environment because of a job related injury and restructur-
ing a job in order to hire a handicapped applicant are both examples of reasonable accommodation. A
recipient who makes reasonable accommodation for a qualified handicapped employee should document
such action. Further examples of reasonable accommodation might include making facilities used by
employees readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons, instituting part-time or modified
work schedules, acquiring or modifying equipment or devices, and providing readers or interpreters for
employees with sensory disabilities. The key thing to remember is that employment opportunities may
not be denied to a qualified handicapped employee or applicant if the basis for the denial is the need to
make reasonable accommodation to that person's physical or mental limitations.
"Reasonable accommodation" will in many cases simply mean having an open mind towards em-
ployees who use techniques not common to the general population, but are perfectly effective in per-
forming job functions. Employers are cautioned against assuming that using different techniques to get
the job done means inferior performance.
It is clear that employment opportunities may not be denied to qualified handicapped persons on
account of the need to make accommodations that are reasonable. However, it is also clear that no
handicapped person need be hired or promoted if he or she is not "qualified" to perform the essential
functions of the job, if a reasonable accommodation does not overcome the effects of the person's
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:3
handicap and permit him or her to perform essential job functions, or if an accommodation would im-
pose an undue hardship on the program.
When does an accommodation impose an "undue hardship"?
An accommodation need not be made on behalf of a qualified handicapped person if the accommo-
dation would impose an "undue hardship" on the operation of the program. Determining whether an
accommodation is "reasonable" or would impose an "undue hardship" requires some subjective judg-
ment, since these terms are not defined or illustrated in the government-wide regulations. However, the
government-wide interpretation again suggests that individual agencies include examples in their rules in
order to clarify the general requirements. For Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and
Education Department (ED) recipients, factors to be considered in determining whether an accommoda-
tion would impose an undue hardship (Appendix III:C) include:
the overall size of the recipient's program with respect to number of employees, number and
type of facilities, and size of budget;
the type of the recipient's operation, including the composition and structure of the work force;
and
the nature and cost of the accommodation needed.
Three examples of these concepts were also provided in the analysis appended to the HHS, ED
rules: a small day care center may be required to spend only a nominal amount to accommodate handi-
capped persons, such as that ocurred in the installation of a telephone amplified for a hearing-impaired
secretary; a large school system may be required to assign a full-time paraprofessional to assist a blind
teacher; or a state welfare office may be required to hire an interpreter to work with a deaf employee,
while the same requirement would be considered an undue hardship for a small provider of home-care
services.
The government-wide guidelines identify cost and business necessity as two factors relevant to de-
fining what constitutes an "undue hardship" sufficient to relieve the employer of the obligation to ac-
commodate a handicapped individual. Thus. if a particular accommodation is expensive and an
employer's financial resources are limited, the cost of the accommodation may constitute an "undue
hardship." In addition, if a compelling business interest justifies the way a program is operated, an
accommodation that would require changes in the program's operation might be viewed as imposing an
undue hardship on the employer.
The following is one example of an accommodation which imposes an undue hardship on the oper-
ations of an employer, even though it presents no financial burden on the employer. Assume the police
forces of two adjacent towns decide in order to more efficiently respond to a major emergency, to
combine their dispatch and communications facilities at one location. After considering several sites,
police officials decided to locate the facilitiy in a vacant bomb shelter in one of two town halls. The
bomb shelter was chosen primarily because it could remain operational in almost any major disaster.
The shelter has no windows and only one entrance at the bottom of a long flight of stairs.
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:4
One of the town's dispatchers is confined to a wheelchair and is a "qualified handicapped individ-
ual" under section 504. Given the dispatcher's history of successful performance in the job, it is clear
the only accommodation necessary is one that would give her access to the new facility. The town hall
in question already has an elevator that runs from the ground floor to the upper stories of the building.
The town's engineer estimates that it would cost approximately $15,000 to extend the elevator down
one floor into the basement.
The combined budgets of the two towns certainly would permit an expenditure of the size in ques-
tion, so the accommodation is "reasonable" from a financial viewpoint. If the sole consideration is
financial, it might be difficult to argue that the cost of the elevator extension alone would constitute an
undue hardship. However, whether the nature of the proposed accommodation would impose an undue
hardship on the operation of the dispatch office is another question. As the police might argue, the
breach in the security of the dispatch office that would result from the elevator extension might com-
promise severely the very reason the particular bomb shelter site was chosen. If the physical security of
the office is jeopardized. the achievement of the police department's objectives may be impossible. In
such a case, the elevator extension, by its very nature, would appear to present an example of an undue
hardship (and, therefore, not be a "reasonable" accommodation). even though it is not unreasonable on
its face. The employer could legally refuse to provide the accommodation.
Recipients are reminded that in determining the "reasonableness" of an accommodation, employers
must focus carefully on whether the accommodation will assist the handicapped worker or applicant in
his or her effective completion of "essential" job functions. If the accommodation satisfies this crite-
rion, and does not impose an undue hardship, it would have to be provided by the employer. However,
handicapped persons cannot be denied employment or advancement in employment when an accommo-
dation related to a "nonessential" job function would impose an undue hardship on the employer's
operations, since they are "qualified" for employment merely when capable of performing "essential"
functions. If a costly accommodation is not related to an "essential" job function, and a handicapped
person would therefore, be "qualified" to perform essential functions without accommodation, less
costly alternatives (e.g., shifting job duties or making minor modifications in job positions) should be
considered for performing nonessential job functions.
It should be noted that the amount of federal financial assistance received is not taken into account
in determining "undue hardship." Consequently, a recipient with a large program that receives a small
amount of federal assistance might be required to make accommodations that are costly relative to the
assistance being received.
It should also be emphasized that, as with all other aspects of section 504, no accommodations
need be made unless they are necessary to achieve equal opportunity. The need for any accommodation
should be based on the individual circumstances related to a particular handicapped employee or appli-
cant. Individuals with similar handicaps will not necessarily require similar accommodations.
Depending on the size of the recipient's operations, and the degreee of decentralized authority with
regard to hiring and promotion, it may be advisable to set specific standards for reasonable accommo-
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:5
dation and undue hardship. It may be necessary to have decisions regarding reasonable accommodation
or undue hardship made centrally (or recommended by the personnel office). These concepts require an
understanding of the principles involved, a knowledge of what factors would constitute an undue hard-
ship at any given point in time, and experience in applying the standards fairly and consistently
throughout the various programs and offices of the recipient. Even the most autonomous units witin a
recipient's organization (in terms of hiring and promotion authority) should be held to rigid standards
and/or subject to the recommendations of a central personnel authority. If they are not, these complex
concepts may be applied with a lack of uniformity, with a disregard for the recipient's resources, or in
a manner that is prohibited by section 504.
Clarification of what is a reasonable accommodation
In Southeastern Community College V. Davis (Appendix IV:22), the U.S. Supreme Court held that
a recipient of federal financial assistance need not make substantial or major adjustments and modifica-
tions to its programs so as to allow a handicapped person to participate if the person could not reasona-
bly be expected to perform the tasks that a typical graduate of its program would be required to
perform. The case involved a deaf woman seeking entrance to a nursing program. In reaching its con-
clusion, the Court held that an "otherwise qualified" handicapped person is one who is able to meet all
program requirements including physical qualifications, despite one's handicap.
While the Supreme Court in Jennings V. Choate (abstracted at Appendix IV:130 as Jennings V.
Alexander), made clear that "meaningful access" to programs for handicapped persons must be pro-
vided, it reiterated that substantial changes or modifications in a program. or changes which would
constitute a fundamental alteration in the nature of the program were not required.
Since the Davis decision, lower courts and administrative law judges, in following the guidance of
the Supreme Court, have consistently held that such fundamental alterations are not required. The cases
address the issue in the context of what is a "reasonable accommodation" or whether the handicapped
person is found to be a "qualified handicapped individual."
In Gardner V. Morris (Appendix IV:286), an employer who was unable to guarantee that proper
medical treatment could be provided at a remote workplace was found not to be in violation of the
Rehabilitation Act because of a refusal to transfer the handicapped employee to that station.
There are many cases involving the U.S. Postal Service which give some clarification to this issue,
particularly when the job involves physical and mechanical functions. In Jasany v. United States (Ap-
pendix IV:302), the Postal Service was not required to eliminate an essential job function to accommo-
date a handicapped person. The individual had eye problems which precluded him from operating a
particular piece of equipment which was an essential part of his job. The court held that reasonable
accommodation does not require eliminating an essential job function. Similarly, a court held that a
plaintiff with knee problems would not be considered otherwise qualified for the position of mail carrier
because he was unable to perform the standing, walking, and carrying required in the job. (See Alder-
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:6
son V. Postmaster General, Appendix IV:297. For other decisions based on Jasany. see Appendix
IV:339, 341 and 343.)
Cases under section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act relating to affirmative action in employment re-
quirements for federal contractors sound a similar theme. See, for example, administrative law judges
opinions at Appendix IV:1019, 1020 and 1021.
In Nelson v. Thornburgh (Appendix IV:210), the court made clear that where the handicapped per-
son with the accommodation could do the job, such person would be considered qualified. In that case,
blind persons with the assistance of readers could perform all the requirements of their position as well
as their sighted colleagues. The state agency which employed them was held to be responsible for pro-
viding the necessary accommodation, readers.
From the case law, the necessity for employers to have documented knowledge of the job require-
ments as well as the nature of the individual's handicapping condition is underscored.
In Mantolete V. Bolger (Appendix IV:322), a case involving a person with a seizure disorder and
his ability to operate particular Postal Service equipment, the court made clear that an employer must
have objective evidence of what is required to do the job, as well as the consequences of hiring the
handicapped individual in question. A prospective employee could not be rejected on the basis of mere
speculation or subjective evidence as to his ability to perform the job, even if "good faith" was under-
lying the rejection.
Simon V. St. Louis County (Appendix IV:88) gives excellent guidance to employers in complying
with the section 504 employment requirements. The case involves a police officer seeking to be rehired
after suffering a paralyzing injury. The protracted case lasted several years and produced four separate
opinions which discuss the various functions of a police officer. Ultimately the Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals found no violation of the Rehabilitation Act as it determined that the employer's job require-
ments, here forcible arrest and job transfer (ability to crossover and do different functions), which are
imposed on active, commissioned officers were reasonable, legitimate and necessary for all officers.
The results of the Simon ruling serve to reiterate the requirements that recipients of federal funds
must follow in compliance with the employment provisions of section 504 regulations:
1. Are the job requirements reasonable, legitimate, and necessary for the position?
2. Are the requirements uniformly applied to all employees and applicants for employment?
3. Which functions of the position can the disabled person perform?
4. What accommodations, if any, are necessary to enable the handicapped person to perform the
essential functions of the job?
5. Are the necessary accommodations "reasonable"?
Channels should exist for requesting and reviewing accommodations
An employer may wish to develop and implement a method of soliciting voluntary indications of
handicapped status and requests for accommodations. Since employers are obligated under section 504
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:9
Sample Reasonable Accommodations Policy
This is a sample reasonable accommodations policy. Readers are advised to become familiar with
existing federal and state or local law and regulations regarding the provision of reasonable accommo-
dation. as well as the organization's current practice, if any, before adapting this policy to their specific
organization.
I. Statement of Purpose
It is the policy of (name of organization) to provide reasonable accommodations for qualified hand-
icapped individuals who are employees or applicants for employment. This organization will adhere to
all applicable federal, state and local laws, regulations, and guidelines with respect to providing reason-
able accommodations as required to afford equal employment opportunity to qualified handicapped indi-
viduals. Reasonable accommodations shall be provided in a timely and cost-effective manner.
II. Definitions
Handicapped individual. Any person who has, or who has acquired a physical or mental impair-
ment, has a record of such impairment, or who is regarded as having an impairment, which limits one
or more major life activities, as such as self care, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, speaking,
breathing, and working on a temporary or permanent basis.
Physical or mental impairment. Any physiological disorder, disfigurement, or anatomical loss or
limitation, or any mental or psychological disorder acquired as a result or illness, accident or birth.
Qualified handicapped individual. A handicapped individual whose experience, education and/or
training enable the person with reasonable accommodation to perform the essential functions of the job.
Reasonable accommodation. The effort made to make adjustments for the impairment of an em-
ployee or applicant by structuring the job or the work environment in a manner that will enable the
handicapped individual to perform the essential functions of the job. Reasonable accommodation in-
cludes, but is not limited to, modifying written examinations, making facilities accessible. adjusting
work schedules, restructuring jobs, providing assistive devices or equipment, providing readers or inter-
preters, and modifying work sites.
Reasonable accommodations committee. Although not specifically called for in the regulations, es-
tablishing a committee to review and monitor provision of reasonable accommodations to employees or
applicants is an effective and equitable way of responding to the reasonable accommodation require-
ment. The reasonable accommodation committee shall be composed of representatives from the institu-
tion's personnel department, equal employment opportunity department, and management division.
Medical advisory and facility management personnel could also participate in an advisory capacity.
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:10
III. Practices
1. Managers and supervisors shall prepare an analysis of jobs within their units which include de-
fining the essential functional elements or tasks as well as the environment in which such activi-
ties occur. Such documentation shall be developed with the assistance of the personnel director
and shall be reviewed periodically. Documents prepared or utilized for this purpose may be
used for other personnel actions.
2. In considering a handicapped individual for employment or for promotion or in any other per-
sonnel action, the existence of their handicapping condition should not adversely affect a per-
sonnel decision. Employment opportunities shall not be denied to anyone because of the need to
make reasonable accommodation to the individual's handicap.
3. In considering a handicapped persons, it is appropriate to determine the ability of the person to
perform the essential functions of the job with reasonable accommodation. A request for medi-
cal verification of the disability of the person requesting the accommodation may be appropri-
ate.
4. Immediate supervisors shall have the authority to make reasonable accommodations for appli-
cants or employees which do not exceed ($ amount) or are totally within the work station or
work site of the handicapped individual.
5. The committee shall meet periodically, at least quarterly, to review all reasonable accommoda-
tion decisions made by immediate supervisors. It shall meet as needed to review other proposed
or requested accommodations which cannot be handled by immediate supervisors. The commit-
tee shall consult with the disabled individual and immediate supervisor involved where neces-
sary. It shall act in a timely manner that will enable personnel actions to proceed in their
regular course.
6. If the employee wishes to challenge a decision of the committee, he or she should have access
to some existing employee grievance procedure.
7. An employee and his or her supervisor should periodically monitor the effectiveness of the ac-
commodation.
8. Handicapped individuals shall be afforded the opportunity to provide reasonable accommoda-
tions for themselves because it would impose undue hardship on the operation of the business.
The handicapped individual shall not be afforded the opportunity to make accommodations
which affect a temporary or permanent change to the facilities of the institution or which in-
volve restructuring of the job in question without the written consent of the individuals and
departments involved.
IV. Implementation
This policy shall be implemented as part of the personnel policy of the institution and shall be
reviewed regularly as part of the administration of such practices.
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
640:7
(and 503, see 1740) to take steps to accommodate a worker's or applicant for employment's handicap,
channels must exist for a handicapped person to bring his or her handicap to the attention of the em-
ployer. If an individual does not ask to be accommodated, the employer should not force accommoda-
tions on the individual. However, in the case of a handicapped employee whose job performance
problems appear to be related to a handicap, an employer should consult with the employee at which
time it would be appropriate for the employee to suggest a job accommodation to improve performance.
Once an accommodation has been made for an employee, the employer and the worker should
periodically monitor the effectiveness of the accommodation. If at some point the accommodation ceases
to be effective in enabling the person to perform the job, if would be appropriate for either the em-
ployer or the employee to suggest an alternative accommodation which would be more effective. It
should be noted that an employer is required to provide the reasonable accommodation unless it pre-
sents an undue hardship (see discussion above).
Federal Programs Advisory Service May 1986
Handicapped Requirements Handbook
houston
personnel
association
news
April 1990
Houston Personnel Association P.O. Box 35641 Houston, TX 77235 (713) 437-5153 Pat Pittman, Administrator Hours: 9 a.m. 3 p.m.
EEO Commissioner
Phone Reservations
Evan Kemp, Jr.
For April Luncheon
To Speak
Luncheon reservations may be made
The HPA proudly welcomes Com-
by calling 437-5153. The deadline for
missioner Evan Kemp, Jr. to the April
all reservations and cancellations is
lunch meeting. He will speak on the
12:00 noon on Monday, April 9. THE
"Americans With Disabilities Act of
FULL AMOUNT ($20.00) OF UNCAN-
1989" currently in legislation.
CELLED RESERVATIONS WILL BE
BILLED TO THE MEMBER.
Evan J. Kemp, Jr. came to the U.S.
Equal Employment Opportunity Com-
All activities will be held Wednesday,
mission as one of the nation's leading
April 11 at The Houstonian Hotel and
advocates for physically and mentally
Conference Centêr, 111 North Post Oak
Lane.
disabled people. He was nominated to
EEOC by President Reagan on March
PROGRAM
EVAN KEMP, JR.
10, 1987, and unanimously confirmed
11:30-12:00
sophisticated lobbying efforts ever seen
Social Hour
by the Senate on June 19, 1987, for a
against an executive branch action." In
12:00-1:30
Lunch and Speaker
term expiring July 1, 1992.
his efforts to educate national policy
2:00-4:00
INTEREST GROUP:
Commissioner Kemp earned his bach-
makers to the importance of integration
elor of arts degree from Washington
Legislative Update
and self-determination for disabled
and Lee University in 1959 and his law
2:00-4:00
MINI-SEMINAR:
people, Commissioner Kemp has worked
degree from the University of Virginia in
Panel Discussion -
to build coalitions with groups repre-
1964. Because he was near the top of
"Americans With
senting racial and ethnic minorities,
his graduating class, he was interviewed
Disabilities Act"
women and older persons working
by 39 of the top law firms in the country.
toward similar goals.
Limited valet parking will be available.
With blunt candor, 39 firms told him that
Recognizing that manufacturers of
Self parking is available in the parking
they would not hire him because he
products for disabled people, including
garage under the hotel. Cash or check
was handicapped. He finally secured a
wheelchair makers, often ignored the
will be accepted by HPA only for the
job with the Office of Chief Counsel,
actual needs of disabled users, Com-
per-person dinner charge of $15.00 for
Internal Revenue Service. In 1967 he
missioner Kemp spearheaded a group
members or $20.00 for non-members.
joined the Securities and Exchange
of investors who purchased a small
The Social Hour bar will be a cash bar;
Commission and became an authority
wheelchair company with sales of $19
HPA cannot accept payment for drinks,
on equity funded insurance products.
million. Seven years later the firm
or cash checks for drink purchases.
In 1980, Commissioner Kemp was
became the largest wheelchair company
selected to head the Ralph Nader
in the United States with sales of $130
sponsored Disability Rights Center where
MEMORIAL
million. The Commissioner attributes
he was a tireless spokesperson for
the company's success to its involve-
independent living by disabled people
ment of wheelchair users in the design
N
and for an end to paternalism that too
and marketing of their products.
often keeps disabled people dependent.
For the last seven years Commis-
In 1982 he led the successful fight
sioner Kemp has taught a course in
"Disability and the Law" at Catholic
implementing Section 504 of the Reha-
111 NORTH POST OAK LANE
LOOP 610
against proposed changes to regulations
bilitation Act of 1973. The respected
University Law School in Washington,
D.C. He has written numerous articles
National Journal called the two year
and spoken extensively about the
campaign "one of the most effective and
WOODWAY
issues that concern disabled people.
MINI-SEMINAR:
ing SHRM, she spent three years as
Deputy Under Secretary for the Employ-
Distinguished Panel to
ment Standards Administration, the
Design Award
Discuss Disabilities Act
largest agency in the U.S. Department
In conjunction with the pending
of Labor. As head of the agency, Ms.
name change, we will be accepting
Following the luncheon, the EEOC is
Meisinger was responsible for over 4000
ideas for the lettering and design
sponsoring a workshop from 2-4 p.m.
employees and the administration of
to be used on all Association infor-
designed to introduce our membership
more than 90 Federal laws and regula-
mation. A cash prize of $150 will
to the opportunities that exist for hiring
tory initiatives affecting workers' com-
be awarded for the chosen design.
persons with disabilities. Harriet Ehrlich,
pensation, workplace standards and
We invite entries from HPA
District Director of the EEOC Office in
equal employment opportunitity. She
members and all others who may
Houston, will moderate the panel which
was named one of the Top Forty federal
be interested. Those interested in
includes Ralph Rouse, Office of Civil
managers by Management Magazine
participating should contact Mike
Rights, Department of Health and Human
for her work at the Department of Labor.
Kahn at 531-1100.
Services in Dallas; Virginia Roberts,
Ms. Meisinger received her B.A. from
Executive Director of the Governor's
Mary Washington College and her law
Committee for Disabled Persons in
degree from the National Law Center of
Austin; and Tony Randall, Chief Admin-
George Washington University. She is
1990-91 HPA Officer
istrative Judge at the EEOC Houston
a member of the District of Columbia
District Office, who will talk about his
Bar Association and the American Bar
Nominations
experience with federal sector com-
Association. She served as special legal
The Nominating Committee has placed
plaints of discrimination because of dis-
counsel for the Associated Builders and
the following members (listed alpha-
abilities. Also Larry Johnson of South-
Contractors in Washington, D.C. prior to
betically) in nomination for the Associa-
western Bell, San Antonio, a manager
her Department of Labor appointment.
tion's elected offices:
and member of Southwestern Bell's
Some of the topics for discussion
President-Elect
Advisory Committee on Employment of
include: child care, increases in the
MIKE KAHN
Persons with Disabilities will speak. Lex
federal unemployment insurance tax,
Syntron, Inc.
Frieden, Executive Director of the T.I.R.R.
mandated health insurance, mandated
BOB ROY
Foundation and Assistant Professor,
joint trusteeship of single employer
Columbia Gas Development Corp.
Department of Rehabilitation, Baylor
pension plans, pension reversions,
Treasurer
College of Medicine, will introduce the
whistleblower protections, and federal
PAUL HOWELL
subject with a short legislative history
drug testing legislation.
Methodist Retirement Services, Inc.
and overview of the subject and plenty
PAT KAPCIA
of time will be available for questions
Conference Talk
HMSS, Inc.
and answers. There will also be a short
"Human Resources - A World of
Secretary
film "First Encounters" which treats the
Opportunity" is the theme of this year's
LORRIE BLOCK
subject with sensitivity and humor.
State of Texas SHRM Conference slated
Coca-Cola Bottling Company
The objective of this workshop is to
for October 10-11 at the Infomart.
RUTH SEILER
give you an idea of the impact of the
The revolutionary changes occurring
Houston Lighting & Power Company
Americans with Disabilities Act and to
in Europe, the consolidation of the
Parliamentarian
demonstrate some constructive responses
European Common Market in 1992,
JUDY MURPHY
to the new challenges facing us as
and the aging of the baby boom gener-
Enron Liquia Fuels
human resources professionals.
ation are among the events which will
DIANE YOUNG
INTEREST GROUP:
have a dramatic impact on American
Daniel Industries
business in the '90s. For human re-
As provided by our By-laws, the elec-
SHRM Lobbyist To Speak
sources professionals, new challenges
tions are held this month. Ballots and
and opportunities will emerge in an era
candidate biographies will be mailed in
We are bery pleased to welcome
of intense competition, technological
the near future to all members in good
Susan R. Meisinger, SPHR, Vice Presi-
change and continuing turbulence and
standing. Members must retun their
dent for Government Affairs with the
uncertainty.
completed ballots to the President within
Society for Human Resource Manage-
The goal of the Conference is to pro-
ten days of the mailing date to be valid.
ment to speak to us concerning some
vide you with the tools and knowledge
The Nominating Committee appre-
of the major pieces of HR-related legis-
to "gain the edge" as the twentieth cen-
ciates the candidates' commitment and
lation pending before the Congress. Ms.
tury draws to a close.
dedication to the Association's future as
Meisinger directs the Society's govern-
In the midst of imparting this wealth
demonstrated by their willingness and
mental affairs activities, keeps members
of knowledge to you, however, there will
interest to serve as officers. Please
informed of legislative and regulatory
be great fun. The Conference directors
show your appreciation for their dedica-
issues impacting them, and presents
are cooking up some creative ideas to
tion by voting your ballots this month!
the Society's views to the Congress and
carry out a theme with an international
CARY WILKINS
Executive Branch agencies. Before join-
flavor. Stay tuned!
ANN SULLIVAN
Chair. Nominating Committee
BOUAL
MENT
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
General information
HOUSTON DISTRICT OFFICE
653-3320
1919 SMITH STREET 7TH FLOOR
Executive Offices
Company
HOUSTON, TX 77002
653-3374
Legal
653-3401
March 12, 1990
Mr. Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
Division Director
Office of Civil Rights
Department of Health and
Human Services
1200 Main Tower, Room 1360
Dallas, Texas 75202
Dear Mr. Rouse:
I understand that you have spoken with Lex Frieden, and I am
delighted that you have agreed to participate in our April 11
workshop at The Houstonian, sponsored by the Houston Personnel
Association.
Chairman Evan Kemp, the new Chairman of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, will be in town that day to address the
Houston Personnel Association as its keynote luncheon speaker at
11:30 a.m. In conjunction with that luncheon, the EEOC is
pulling together a workshop to be held at The Houstonian Hotel &
Conference Center, 111 N. Post Oak Lane, between 2 p.m. and
4 p.m., designed to sensitize personnel and human resource
professionals to the opportunities that exist for hiring persons
with disabilities.
Our panel will include Virginia Roberts of the Governor's
Committee for Disabled Persons in Austin; Larry Johnson, a
manager with Southwestern Bell in San Antonio and member of an
advisory group dealing with the needs of disabled employees; and
Tony Randall, Chief Administrative Judge at the EEOC Houston
District Office, who will talk about his experience with federal
sector complaints of discrimination because of disabilities. Lex
will kick it off with an overview and history of the legislation
in this field.
We would like you to talk about your experience in enforcing the
various statutes that prohibit discrimination against persons
with disabilities and also discuss the issue of reasonable
accommodation. Your remarks should not exceed 10 or 15 minutes.
We want to leave plenty of time for questions and answers.
The whole point of the workshop is to give working professionals
in the human resources field some idea of what to expect with the
passage of the new Americans With Disabilities Act. We want to
let them know that businesses can constructively and positively
respond to these new challenges and that reasonable
Mr. Ralph D. Rouse, Jr.
Page 2
accommodations are possible which allow them to take advantage of
this vast new resource of talent.
to
I have made reservations for you for the luncheon, and a
complimentary ticket will be waiting for you near the
registration table with Pat Pittman, the Executive Director of
the organization. Should you wish to bring someone with you,
that person may make a reservation for the luncheon by calling
713/437-5153 and may pay at the door. I believe the luncheon is
$15.00. HPA membership is 800, and I expect a sizeable turnout.
Please call me at 713/653-3373 if I can assist you in any way.
I look forward to meeting you then. In the meantime, please send
me a bio or resume as soon as possible so I can properly
introduce you. I'm trying to work out a press conference for
Chairman Kemp prior to the 11:30 luncheon. You may be interested
in attending that as well.
Sincerely,
Harriet Joan Ehrlich
to
District Director
10 P.S. I would really appreciate your faxing your bio to me as I
have a March 15 deadline for the newsletter. My fax number
is
713/653-3381.
to
CC:
Evan J. Kemp, Chairman, EEOC
+1
Robert Funk, Chief of Staff, EEOC
Lex Frieden, Executive Director, TIRR Foundation of
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