Copyright 2000 The Hartford Courant Company
THE
HARTFORD COURANT
July 16, 2000 Sunday, 5/6/7 SPORTS FINAL
SECTION: CONNECTICUT; Pg. B1
LENGTH: 580 words
HEADLINE:
DISABILITY RIGHTS LAW MARKS 10 YEARS
BYLINE: AL LARA;
Courant Staff Writer
BODY:
At a party-like rally
Saturday marking the 10th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with
Disabilities Act, Phyllis Zlotnick of Manchester laughed at an old photograph of
herself.
It was taken in January 1975 at the state Capitol, where she
went to attend a Transportation Committee hearing on accessibility for people
with disabilities. Except the hearing room itself was inaccessible to Zlotnick
in her wheelchair.
"It was Room 408, eight steep marble steps and no
railing," she recalled. Police were summoned to carry Zlotnick and her
wheelchair up the steps.
"Oh no," she recalled telling the legislators,
"you're bringing me in." The picture of then-Committee Chairman Thomas Sweeney
of Norwich and three other legislators hauling Zlotnick and her wheelchair hit
the newspapers the next day.
"And the legislature never held a meeting
in an inaccessible room again," said Zlotnick, who has muscular dystrophy and
was on the National Council on Disability when the ADA was first drafted in the
1980s. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990.
About 150 people traded
war stories Saturday in the lobby of the Legislative Office Building. The event
also marked the 25th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA) and the 50th anniversary of the
formation of ARC-US, formerly known as the Association for Retarded Citizens.
Wearing T-shirts reading, "Boldly going where everyone else has gone
before," the crowd cheered the pioneers of disability rights and their dogged
persistence. Cheers often came silently with the raised hands sign language
symbol for applause.
"Most of us have had a long history of
discrimination. My parents were regularly denied employment because they had a
child with a disability," said Michele Duprey, president of the ADA Coalition of
Connecticut. Born with a genetic defect that made her bones brittle and impeded
her growth, she became a lawyer in 1993 to advance the rights of people with
disabilities.
IDEA stemmed the segregation of students with
disabilities.
"Back then it was legal for someone to tell you, 'We don't
want you in our school because you're a fire hazard,"' said Melissa Marshall,
the rally's master of ceremonies.
"It means my son Andy, who has Down
syndrome, can attend the same high school his brothers did," said Catherine
Jortner, president of the ARC of Connecticut.
Zlotnick has been among
the state's most vocal disability rights advocates. While she acknowledges there
has been much progress, "It's not a day-and-night difference yet. It's sort of
early evening," said Zlotnick. "I see changes, but I also see some things
haven't changed beyond the surface."
At this past week's highly
publicized OpSail 2000 event in New London, for example, the tall ships, with
their gangplanks, were inaccessible to wheelchair users. A specially fitted ship
is participating in a similar event in Boston, but did not come to Connecticut.
Most of the ship's crew members have disabilities.
"They sent me an
e-mail telling me I could watch it on TV," said Zlotnick.
Incidents like
that remind advocates that the price of their success is eternal vigilance. On
Saturday they encouraged people to pressure state officials to support a legal
brief filed by the state of Minnesota against the state of Alabama, which in a
Supreme Court case this fall will argue it is unconstitutional to require a
state to comply with the ADA.
"We still have a long way to go," said
Duprey.
LOAD-DATE: July 17, 2000
