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Access to a high-quality education is critical for empowering all Americans to lead rich and productive lives.  Every day, the U.S. Department of Education and my office, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), work to ensure that all students, including those with disabilities, have equal access to that important benefit.  OCR does this by enforcing federal nondiscrimination laws, including two that specifically protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of disability: the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504).

The regulations apply to the activities of more than 80,000 units of state and local government and more than seven million places of public accommodation, including stores, restaurants, shopping malls, libraries, museums, sporting arenas, movie theaters, doctors’ and dentists’ offices, hotels, jails and prisons, polling places, and emergency preparedness shelters.

For the first time in more than 20 years, regulations governing the Americans with Disabilities Act are getting a major overhaul.

The updated regulations that govern the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act will become effective in March 2011. Significant changes are included in these regulations and they are likely to have a significant (and positive) impact on those with learning disabilities (LD).

 

 

 

This podcast features a conversation with attorney Jo Anne Simon on how, specifically, these new rules will impact students with LD. Ms. Simon has over 30 years of experience working with the disability community and has helped create the field of post-secondary disability services by working at the grassroots and organizational level. Ms. Simon has worked for effective implementation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act since its enactment in 1990, and before that with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

  

July 26, 2010, Palo Alto, CA – In recognition of the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Bookshare announces a free membership opportunity for all Americans with qualifying print disabilities, regardless of age or student status.  With this offer, Bookshare celebrates the huge strides forward towards inclusion and equality for Americans with disabilities resulting from this act.

The first member of the House of Representatives with quadriplegia will preside over the governing body on Monday in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Twenty years ago, a simple, standardized way to link together pages of text via the Internet was invented, and the World Wide Web was born.  Perhaps equally amazing as this innovation are all of the commercial communications advances that were either nascent or not even invented then  – email, Smartphones, GPS, and the rechargeable batteries that power laptops, cell phones, and cameras to name a few.   For as powerful as these inventions were in changing the lives of so many Americans, we recognize that technology has the power not just to entertain but to enhance our work-life experience and connect us to our families and communities.

 

This is particularly true for the approximately 54 million Americans with disabilities.

There’s still a long way to go in upholding disability rights 20 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the Justice Department’s top civil rights attorney.

 

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez told a group of disability rights attorneys Thursday that despite enforcement efforts, thousands of Americans remain unnecessarily institutionalized and accessibility is not as universal as it should be.

Sunday night, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, kicked off the President’s and White House’s celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act while delivering remarks to over 2,000 people from around the World at the VSA International Festival at the Kennedy Center.

The Impact on Students with LD and AD/HD

 
The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was passed by Congress in December 2008 and became effective January 1, 2009. This significant piece of legislation corrected what Congress considered to be a departure from the intent of the original ADA (passed in 1990) brought about by several narrow interpretations of the law through Supreme Court rulings. These rulings weakened the law and made it difficult for people with disabilities to receive the protection the law intended.

The ADAAA also has a direct and substantial impact on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) -an important law that provides protections for school-age children with disabilities. 

 

 

This Parent Advocacy Brief will help you understand the changes brought about by the ADAAA, how they apply to Section 504, and how these changes may impact children with disabilities, including learning disabilities, as well as other conditions such as Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), Aspergers Syndrome, diabetes, asthma, and life-threatening food allergies.

ADA Signing Ceremony
 

     

This video documents the speech given by President George H. W. Bush when he signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 26, 1990. In the video, President Bush speaks to a huge audience of activists, Congressional supporters, people with disabilities, and their families and friends gathered on the south lawn of the White House.     The 22-minute film, provided to the Department by the George Bush Presidential Library, is being re-released on the Internet to increase awareness of the ADA.

 

     

Dial Up (Modem & ISDN)     QuickTime: Open Captions | Audio Description   Real: Open Captions | Audio Description     High Speed Internet (DSL/Cable)    QuickTime: Open Captions | Audio Description   Real: Open Captions | Audio Description

Police Response to People with Disabilities

Police Response to People with Disabilities, Eight-Part Series - Designed for use in roll-call training, this videotape addresses law enforcement situations involving people who have mobility disabilities, mental illnesses, mental retardation, epilepsy or seizure disorders, speech disabilities, deafness or hard of hearing, and blindness or low vision.  The eight segments range from 5 ½ to 10 ½ minutes in length.

My Country

In this one-hour documentary originally shown on PBS, symphony conductor James DePreist, who contracted polio as a young man, profiles three people with disabilities whose lives have been shaped by the struggle for equal rights. Mr. DePreist is the nephew of African American contralto Marian Anderson, who in 1939 was prevented from singing at Constitution Hall. He draws parallels between racial barriers and the barriers faced by people with disabilities.

The first video podcast in ASL that brings you information on the Americans with Disabilities Act and other disability rights laws.