Our founders’ work on local human rights issues paved the way for national disability rights legislation.
By Terry Moakley
When Americans with disabilities began to organize to seek protection from discrimination under federal law, the leaders of our founding organization supported this important effort. The February 1973 edition of our Monthly Report newsletter derides President Richard M. Nixon’s veto of the Rehabilitation Act of 1972, which happened to contain a short provision known as section 504- generally regarded as the first civil rights measure for persons with disabilities in our nation.
The Rehabilitation Act passed later on in 1973 with section 504 intact, but this same newsletter issue reports our involvement in pursuing another disability statute, an amendment to the New York State Human Rights Law.
This would soon prove to be a wise use of our time. Protection from disability discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations became part of the Human Rights Law in New York State effective September 1, 1974. Five years later, based partly on our belief that both transit buses and subway trains were public accommodations, we began litigation against the New York City Transit Authority because they were about to begin a long- term, multi-billion dollar program to purchase modern buses and to significantly renovate the subway system-without wheelchair-accessibility improvements.
Local to Global
This case was settled successfully in 1984, but, more importantly, its terms were a precursor of the transportation provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, clearly the most important civil rights law for individuals with disabilities in our country. Our staff assisted in composing this statute’s transit provisions and we served on the advisory body that helped to write its implementing regulations.
Coincidentally, our contribution to the larger effort of civil rights protection based on disability in the housing field followed a similar path. In the seventies and eighties, many of our staff worked to improve the multi-family housing specifications in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York City building laws and codes, with pretty good success. “Adaptable” housing specifications that apply to new multi-family housing complexes built in these localities found their way into the 1988 Fair Housing Amendments Act, which prohibits bias based on disability in a broad range of housing situations.
Others developed the lifts and ramps used on transit buses, and the design features that can turn an adaptable housing unit into a wheelchair- accessible living space. Over the years, United Spinal Association’s directors and staff have worked diligently to include these advances in local laws and eventually, in statutes that protect all citizens with disabilities.
Terry Moakley, associate executive director of Public Affairs, is United Spinal’s unofficial historian.
