Disability Law Commons^™

Preface, Journal Of Law Reform

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A preface to a University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform symposium entitled The Americans With Disabilities Act: Directions for Reform.

Constitutional Doctrine As Paring Tool: The Struggle For "Relevant" Evidence In University Of Alabama V. Garrett, Pamela Brandwein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the difficulties involved in translating the social model of disability into the idiom of constitutional law. The immediate focus is University of Alabama v. Garrett. Both parts of this Article consider how disability rights claims collide with a discourse of legitimacy in constitutional law. Part I focuses on the arguments presented in several major Briefs filed in support of Garrett. Constitutional doctrines are conceived as paring tools and it is shown how the Court used these doctrines to easily pare down the body of evidence Garrett's lawyers sought to claim as relevant in justifying the ADA …

The Imperial Sovereign: Sovereign Immunity & The Ada, Judith Olans Brown, Wendy E. Parmet

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professors Brown and Parmet examine the impact of the Supreme Court's resurrection of state sovereign immunity on the rights of individuals protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act in light of the recent decision, Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett. Placing Garrett within the context of the Rehnquist Court's evolving reallocation of state and federal authority, they argue that the Court has relied upon a mythic and dangerous notion of sovereignty that is foreign to the Framers' understanding. Brown and Parmet go on to show that, by determining that federalism compels constraining congressional power to …

The Death Of Section 504, Ruth Colker

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the passage of the ADA had an unexpected consequence, namely the narrowing of the rights that were understood to exist under Section 504. Section 504 covered two broad areas of the law: the law of employment for individuals employed by entities receiving federal financial assistance and the law of education for students attending primary, secondary or higher education. The effect on the law of employment, which I will discuss in Part II, has been immediate and dramatic. The effect on the law of education, discussed in Part III, cannot yet be fully documented. Recent decisions, however, …

Civil War Pension Attorneys And Disability Politics, Peter Blanck, Chen Song

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professor Blanck and Dr. Song provide a detailed examination of the pension disability program established after the Civil War for Union Army Veterans. They use many original sources and perform several statistical analyses as the basis for their summary. They draw parallels between this disability program and the ADA, and they point out that current ADA plaintiffs encounter many of the same social, political and even scientific issues that Union Army veterans dealt with when applying for their disability pensions. The Article demonstrates that history can help predict the trends within, and evolution of the ADA--essentially leading to a better …

"What's Good Is Bad, What's Bad Is Good, You'll Find Out When You Reach The Top, You're On The Bottom": Are The Americans With Disabilities Act (And Olmstead V. L. C.) Anything More Than "Idiot Wind?", Michael L. Perlin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Mental disability law is contaminated by "sanism, " an irrational prejudice similar to such other irrational prejudices as racism and sexism. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-a statute that focused specifically on questions of stereotyping and stigma-appeared at first to offer an opportunity to deal frontally with sanist attitudes and, optimally, to restructure the way that citizens with mental disabilities were dealt with by the remainder of society. However, in its first decade, the ADA did not prove to be a panacea for such persons. The Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. - ruling that …

Reforming Disability Nondiscrimination Laws: A Comparative Perspective, Stanley S. Herr

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Comparing the law and policies of other countries concerning disability rights to ours can help us understand how we may strengthen those rights and heighten compliance with nondiscrimination laws. Since it took effect in 1992, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been a leading example of such comprehensive legislation on behalf of people with disabilities. Along with the United Nations Standard Rules on Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, the ADA has inspired many countries to develop their own disability nondiscrimination laws and remedial agencies. This process must work in both directions, however, and laws and agencies from …

Envisioning A Future For Age And Disability Discrimination Claims, Alison Barnes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers the reasons for reinterpretations of age and disability and examines the fundamental reasons for changes in the implementation of both the ADA and ADEA. Part I presents the basic structure and relevant requirements of the two statutes and comments on the reasons their legislative purposes are not often seen as overlapping. Part II discusses the recent Supreme Court decisions that have undermined the purposes and implementation of both the ADA and ADEA and chilled causes of action based on the ADA and ADEA. Part III projects the current problems with anti-discrimination causes into the future, when older …

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Why Disability Law Claims Are Different, S. Elizabeth Malloy

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Described as one of the century's most significant pieces of civil rights legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990' has been widely hailed as establishing a new foundation for disability policy Senator Harkin, the primary sponsor of the law, called it "the 20th century Emancipation Proclamation for all persons with disabilities." President Bush predicted that the Act would "open up all aspects of American life to individuals with disabilities" and end the "unjustified segregation and exclusion of persons with disabilities from the mainstream of American life."

Congress enacted the ADA to ensure "equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living …

Litigating Age And Disability Claims Against State And Local Government Employers In The New "Federalism" Era, Ivan E. Bodensteiner, Rosalie Levinson

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Re-Interpreting The Effect Of Rights: Career Narratives And The Americans With Disabilities Act, David Engel, Frank W. Munger

Articles & Chapters

This article examines how the employment rights guaranteed by the Americans

with Disabilities Act (ADA) affect the careers of individuals with disabilities. The

article draws on in-depth interviews with sixty adults who provided extended life

story narratives, describing early family and educational experiences and later

experiences with employment. Their detailed accounts offer insights into the

sometimes subtle role rights play in peoples lives and careers. Relatively few

rights violations actually lead to explicit or formal invocations of the law. The

effect of the ADA on careers can be profound but is primarily indirect or

symbolic. Moreover, other factors affect the …

Giving New Meaning To "Handicap": The Americans With Disabilities Act And Its Uneasy Relationship With Professional Sports In Pga Tour, Inc. V. Martin, William E. Spruill

University of Richmond Law Review

Imagine that an all-star batter for the New York Yankees had a circulatory disease that made it difficult and painful for him to run. Would Major League Baseball be forced to permit a designated base runner to run for the disabled batter starting from home plate? Consider Jim Abbott, the successful major league pitcher who was born without a right arm. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act ("ADA"), could Abbott, who pitched well for many years in the American League, which has the designated hitter rule, force the National League, which does not, to exempt him from its batting requirement? …

The Applicability Of The Ada To Private Internet Web Sites, Carrie L. Kiedrowski

Cleveland State Law Review

This article proposes that private commercial web sites are considered places of public accommodation; consequently, private Internet web sites must be accessible to people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Part I introduces the thesis of this article. Part II sets out the historical inception of the legal rights of accessibility for people with disabilities in public and private entities. Additionally, Part II describes recent federal actions mandating accessibility of government related web sites. Part III addresses the question of whether Internet web sites are considered places of public accommodation under the ADA, including an analysis of supporting …

Forward To Fundamental Alteration: Addressing Ada Title Ii Integration Lawsuits After Olmstead V. L. C, Steve Calandrillo, Jefferson D.E. Smith

Articles

In 1999, the Supreme Court reviewed the case of Olmstead v. L.C. by Zimring, which has been called the Brown v. Board of Education for the law of disability discrimination. The Court ultimately agreed with the Department of Justice ("DOJ") and held that the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), along with its supplementary Integration Regulation, requires a State that offers treatment to persons with disabilities to provide such treatment in a community setting where such a placement would not be an unreasonable change or a fundamental alteration in the State's program. Advocates of community care have long argued that such …