1980
Congress
passes the Social Security Amendments, with Section 1619 designed to address
work disincentives within the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental
Security Income programs. Other provisions mandate
a review of Social Security recipients, leading to the termination of benefits
of hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities.
Congress passes the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act,
authorizing the U.S. Justice Department to file civil suits on behalf of residents
of institutions whose rights are being violated.
The first issue of the Disability Rag & Resource is published in
Louisville, Kentucky.
Disabled Peoples' International is founded in Singapore, with the participation
of advocates from Canada and the United States.
The Womyn's Braille Press is founded in Minneapolis to make women's
and feminist literature available in braille and on tape.
1981
The
International Year of Disabled Persons begins with speeches before the United
Nations General Assembly. During the year, governments
are encouraged to sponsor programs bringing people with disabilities into
the mainstream of their societies.
In an editorial in the New York Timer, Evan Kemp Jr. attacks the Jerry
Lewis National Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, writing that "the
very human desire for cures can never justify a television show that reinforces
a stigma against disabled people."
Publication of Images of Ourselves: Women
with Disabilities Talking by Jo Campling and Ad Things Are Possible by Yvonne
Duffy highlights the concerns of women with disabilities.
1981-1983
The newly elected Reagan Administration threatens to amend or revoke
regulations implementing Section 504 1983 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975.
Disability rights advocates, led by Patrisha Wright at the Disability
Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) and Evan Kemp, Jr. at the Disability
Rights Center, respond with an intensive lobbying effort and a grassroots
campaign that generates more than 40,000 cards and letters.
After three years, the Reagan Administration abandons its attempts
to revoke or amend the regulations.
1981-1984
The Reagan Administration terminates the Social Security benefits
of hundreds of thousands of disabled recipients. Advocates
charge that these terminations are an effort to reduce the federal budget
and often do not reflect any improvement in the condition of those being terminated.
A variety of groups, including the Alliance of Social Security Disability
Recipients and the Ad Hoc Committee on Social Security Disability, spring
up to fight these terminations. Several disabled
people, in despair over the loss of their benefits, commit suicide.
National Black Deaf Advocates is founded.
The parents of "Baby Doe" in Bloomington, Indiana, are advised by their
doctors to deny a surgical procedure to unblock their newborn's esophagus,
because the baby has Down Syndrome. Although disability
rights activists try to intervene, Baby Doe starves to death before legal
action can be taken. The case prompts the Reagan
Administration to issue regulations calling for the creation of "Baby Doe
squads" to safeguard the civil rights of disabled newborns.
The Telecommunications for the Disabled Act mandates telephone access
for deaf and hard-of-hearing people at important public places, such as hospitals
and police stations, and that all coin-operated phones be hearing aid-compatible
by January 1985. It also calls for state subsidies
for production and distribution of TDDs (telecommunications devices for the
deaf), more commonly referred to as TTYs.
The National Council on Independent Living is formed to advocate on
behalf of independent living centers and the independent living movement.
1983
The
Disabled Children's Computer Group (DCCG) is founded in Berkeley, California.
Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann, and Joan Leon found the World Institute on
Disability in Oakland, California.
American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) is organized
at the Atlantis Community Headquarters in Denver, Colorado.
For the next seven years ADAPT conducts a civil disobedience campaign
against the American Public Transit Association (APTA) and various local public
transit authorities to protest the lack of accessible public transportation.
The National Council on the Handicapped issues a call for Congress
to "act forthwith to include persons with disabilities in the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 and other civil and voting rights legislation and regulations."
The United Nations expands the International Year of Disabled Persons
into the International Decade of Disabled Persons, to last from 1983 to 1992.
Sharon Kowalski is disabled by a drunk driver near Onamia, Minnesota.
Her parents, discovering that she is a lesbian, refuse to allow her
to return home to her lover Karen Thompson, instead keeping her in a nursing
home. Thompson's eight-year struggle to free Kowalski
becomes a focus of disability rights advocates and leads to links between
the lesbian and disability rights communities.
The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is founded by the President's Committee
on Employment of the Handicapped to provide information to businesses with
disabled employees.
1984
The
Baby Jane Doe case, like the 1982 Bloomington Baby Doe case, involves an infant
being denied needed medical care because of her disability.
The case results in litigation argued before the U.S. Supreme Court
in Bowen v. American Hospital Association, and in passage of the Child Abuse
Prevention and Treatment Act Amendments of 1984.
George Murray becomes the first wheelchair athlete to be featured on
the Wheaties cereal box.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules, in Irving Independent School District
v. Tatro, that school districts are required under the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act of 1975 to provide intermittent catheterization, performed by
the school nurse or a nurse's aide, as a "related service" to a disabled student.
School districts can no longer refuse to educate a disabled child because
they might need such a service.
The National Council of the Handicapped becomes an independent federal
agency.
Congress passes the Social Security Disability Reform Act in response
to the complaints of hundreds of thousands of people whose Social Security
disability benefits have been terminated. The
law requires that payment of benefits and health insurance coverage continue
for terminated recipients until they have exhausted their appeals and that
decisions by the Social Security Administration to terminate benefits are
made only on the basis of "the weight of the evidence" in a particular recipient's
case.
The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act mandates
that polling places be accessible or that ways be found to enable elderly
and disabled people to exercise their right to vote.
Advocates find that the act is difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.
1985
Wry
Crips, a radical disability theatre group, is founded in and, California.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules, in Burlington School Committee v. Department
of Education, that schools must pay the expenses of disabled children enrolled
in private programs during litigation under the Education for All Handicapped
Children Act of 1975, if the courts rule such placement is needed to provide
the child with an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules, City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center,
that localities cannot use zoning laws to prohibit group homes for people
with developmental disabilities from opening in a residential area sole because
its residents are disabled.
Gini Laurie founds the International Polio Network, based in St. Louis,
Missouri, and begins advocating for recognition of post-polio syndrome.
The National Association of Psychiatric Survivors is founded.
1986
The
Air Carrier Access Act is passed, prohibiting airlines from refusing to serve
people simply because they are disabled, and from charging them more for airfare
than non-disabled travelers.
The National Council on the Handicapped issues Toward Independence,
a report outlining the legal status of Americans with disabilities, documenting
the existence of discriminating and citing the need for federal civil rights
legislation (what will eventually be passed as the Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990).
Concrete Change, a grassroots organization advocating for accessible
housing, is organized in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Employment Opportunities for Disabled Americans Act is passed,
allowing recipients of Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability
Insurance to retain benefits, particularly medical coverage, even after they
obtain work. The act is intended to remove the
disincentives that keep disabled people unemployed.
The Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Individuals Act is passed,
setting up protection and advocacy agencies for people who are in-patients
or residents of mental health facilities.
The Society for Disability Studies is founded.
The Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986 define supported employment
as a "legitimate rehabilitation outcome."
1987
The
Alliance for Technology Access is founded in California by the Disabled Children's
Computer Group and the Apple Computer Office of Special Education.
Marlee Marlin wins an Oscar for her performance in Children of a Lesser
God.
The AXIS Dance Troupe is founded in Oakland, California.
The DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN) is founded in Winnipeg, Canada.
The US. Supreme Court, in School Board of Nassau County, Fla. v. Airline,
outlines the rights of people with contagious disease under Title V of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973. It establishes that
people with infectious; diseases cannot be fired from their jobs "because
of prejudiced attitude or ignorance of others." This
ruling is a landmark precedent for people with tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and
other infectious diseases or disabilities, and for people, such as individuals
with cancer or epilepsy, who are discriminated against because others fear
they may be contagious.
The Association of Late Deafened Adults (ALDA) is founded in Chicago.
1988
Students
at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., organize a week long shutdown
and occupation of their campus to demand selection of a deaf president after
the Gallaudet Board of Trustees appoints a non-deaf person as president of
the university. On Marck 13, the Gallaudet administration
announces that I. King Jordan will be the university's first deaf president.
Deaf Life begins monthly publication in Rochester, New York.
The Technology-Related Assistance Act for Individuals with Disabilities
(the "Tech Act" is passed, authorizing federal funding to state projects designed
to facilitate access to assistive technology.
The Fair Housing Amendments
Act adds people with disabilities to those groups protected by federal fair
housing legislation, and it establishes minimum standards of
an adaptability for newly constructed multiple-dwelling housing.
The National Council
on the Handicapped issues On the Threshold of Independence and a first deaf
of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which is introduced into Congress
by Rep. Tony Coelho and into the Senate by Sen. Lowell Weicker.
The
Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities
is created by Rep. Major R. Owens and co-chaired by Justine Dart Jr. and Elizabeth
Boggs. The task force begins building grassroots;
support for passage of the ADA.
Congress overturns President
Ronald Reagan's veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987.
The act undoes the Supreme Court decision in Grove City College v.
Bell and other decisions limiting the scope of federal civil rights law, including
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The U.S. Supreme Court,
in Honig v. Doe, affirms the "stay put rule" established under the Education
for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, under which school authorities cannot
expel or suspend or otherwise move disabled children from the setting agreed
upon the child's Individualized Education Program (IEP) without a due process
hearing.
The National Parent Network
on Disabilities is established as an umbrella organization for the Parent
Training and Information Centers.
1989
The
federal appeals court, in ADAPT v. Skinner, rules that federal regulations
requiring that transit authorities spend only 3 percent of their budgets on
access are arbitrary and discriminatory.
The original version of the American with Disabilities Act, introduced
into Congress the previous year, is redrafted and reintroduced.
Disability organizations across the country advocate on its behalf
with Patrisha Wright as "general" and Marilyn Golden, Liz Savage, Justin Dart
Jr., and Elizabeth Boggs as principal coordinators or this effort.
The Center for Universal Design (originally the Center for Accessible
Housing) is founded by Ronald Mace in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Mouth: The Voice of Disability Rights begins
publication in Rochester, New York.
The President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped is renamed
the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.
