That was 27 years ago. It is one of the First Federal civil rights laws focused on protecting persons with disabilities and against discrimination and public accommodations and services and telecommunications. I am especially proud to highlight the commissions role. The disabilities focus and legislation in a 1983 report accommodating the individual abilities. A former staff attorney with the commission was one of the primary authors of the report described his job as to survey the whole field, history, legislation, legal commentary, and Court Decisions on the status of people with a in American Society and the law. The conclusion of the report was that society has tended to isolate and segregate people with disabilities and to despise and despite some progress, discrimination continues to be a serious and pervasive social problem. As i expect to hear in a few minutes, the council followed with a report that ultimately led to the americans with disabilities act in 1990. Before we hear from our speakers, i want to take a point of personal privilege to note how grateful i am to those commissions, congress, and president bush for the gift that is the ada. My brother has cerebral palsy. He spent the first 19 years of his life before the passage of the ada. We lived with the discrimination that before 27 years had no federal recourse. As much as we know compliance with the law is its own daily challenge i share one story to , celebrate why we are as a nation so lucky. A handful of years ago, my brother who was a teacher entered a contract to take an overseas teaching position. He prepared his life for an overseas move for a few years until the final skype meeting days before he was to get on a plane for the new job, somebody from the Recruitment Company witnessed my brothers disability and quickly communicated to my brother that the company does not take disabilities of any kind and he did not have a job. In the u. S. , we couldve moved quickly to educate that company about the law and the students would have benefited from my brother austrias excellence as a teacher. The act applies here and not abroad. My brother moved on and those kids learned from somebody else. Im deeply grateful to live in a country whose laws respect the value of all persons. Thank you to all those present today who worked to make it a reality and work to make its promises real in the lives of americans. We are so grateful today to have with us two speakers who will bring their own history in the movement for disability rights. Our first speaker is a career federal government lawyer with more than four decades of experience across administrations beginning with the Nixon Administration and continuously thereafter through 2011 when he left federal government. He served as the department of technicalhief expert during the writing of the ada. He was chief author of the department of justice in 1991, ada regulations and created the Technical Assistance program in the department in charge of enforcing it. Overseeing the department of enforcement efforts. He was responsible for the first major revision of the regulations including the 2010 standards for accessible design. He is also the chief author of the First Federal regulation of title iv in 1973. Thank you. As a member of the u. S. Delegation to the united nations, he assisted in that the development on the convention of the rights of persons with disabilities. He now provides training and guidance and continues to work on the International Level assisting countries with their own laws. In 2010, he was honored with the president ial distinguished rank award for Exceptional Achievement in his career. He received a ba from Trinity College and mpa from harvard. Our second speaker, rebecca served as the executive director of the National Council on disability which is an independent Agency Charged with advising the white house on issues of National Disability policy. She joined the National Council in 2013 after serving for 4 years in various Government Agencies including the department of education, health and human services, and also at the white house. Currently, she is consulting with civil rights organizations. And she is working on her first book. Rebecca has a long history of advocacy including working at the institute for Educational Leadership for five years building resources designed to , empower youth with disabilities and their adult allies. In she was inducted into the 2015, inaugural class of the disability mentoring hall of fame and was the recipient of the frank harkens memorial award. She has aba and politics from the university of california. Before hearing from our distinguished speakers, i want to turn to the commissioner. Thank you, madam chair. Good morning. I had the pleasure with my special assistant of working with our great staff to organize this discussion. I would like to add my welcome to the very distinguished speakers and thank them as well as the chair for sharing their stories as we celebrate the 27th anniversary of the passage of the americans with disabilities act. As well as the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the u. S. Commission on civil rights which is one of the reasons we started the series. I would like to thank mrs. Coakley for sharing her expertise with me and my special assistant over the past two years as we worked to make sure our Commission Hearings included the voices of people with disabilities. When signing the act, president George H W Bush said it would ensure people with disabilities are given the basic guarantees for which they have worked so long and so hard, independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives, the opportunity to blend fully into the rich mosaic of the american mainstream. The National Council on disability which ms. Coakley helped to lead played a pivotal role in formulating what would become the ada and continues to ensure americans with disabilities have powerful voice in washington. As the chair mentioned, we are very proud of our commission in the formation of the ada and our report accommodating the spectrum of individual abilities that helped to lay the groundwork. We have issued several reports examining and recommending solutions for the continuing challenges that americans with disabilities face. Currently, our staff is preparing an investigation for next year that will examine the disproportional impact of School Discipline policies on students of color with disabilities. The passage of the ada made up made it clear that the rights of people with disabilities is a human and civil rights issue. I want to give particular recognition to one of the leaders who made that point very clear. The ada has greatly improved the lives of millions of americans fostering public understanding of individuals with disabilities access to vital public services, and demonstrating the immense positive impact that people with in ourities can make communities. It is the model for the convention which the u. S. Has yet to ratify. It is important to learn from history to celebrate the progress we have made and recommit ourselves in ensuring every person is able to pursue their dreams and fulfill their full potential. As the chair noted america is an , amazing country because we are willing to acknowledge where we fall short and continue to strive to live up to our founding principles. That is why todays commemoration of the ada is important to all of us. Thank you. Thank you. We will start with you. Good morning and thank you for inviting me to join you in the celebration of the ada and i am honored to be with you all today. You have asked me to give a Historical Perspective. Since i lived through much of this, i will try to do that in 15 to 20 minutes instead of two or three hours. I will start, let me start my Historical Perspective in the 1980s. The consensus was developing that persons with disabilities did not have the same federal civil rights protections that other people in the country had, African Americans had, women had that people of color, ethnic , minorities, persons language was other than english had protections that people with disabilities did not. Congress had enacted title five of the rehabilitation act of 1973 which included section 504. But i think there was beginning to be recognition it was only a good first start. The problems with that was coverage was linked to the receipt of federal funds so coverage may vary from year to year. A Fire Department would get a grant one year and would be covered and then the next year it would not receive the grant and so there would be no protection for nondiscrimination in the next year. Also, large parts of the american economy, especially the Business Community did not receive federal funds so there was not total coverage with section 504. And unfortunately, there had been really spotty enforcement of the law by both the federal government and private groups including disability Rights Groups. As a result, even in the 1980s, the picture for people with disabilities was bleak. There were very few accessible buildings. We learned there were almost no accessible Public Restrooms in American Cities with little accessible housing. Very few Employment Opportunities and we had a lot of people who were warehoused in segregated institutions. In the 1980s, factors and trends were starting to change the public dynamic. I would like to focus on a couple of them. One of them was the change brought about by returning veterans from the war of vietnam. Because of advances in medical technology in the field, people, veterans with disabilities were returning who did not make it through earlier wars. These were people who came back and became disabled fighting for their country and were not willing to accept secondclass status of people with disabilities in the country. In one of the hearings, there was testimony from a gentleman from long island was a vietnam vet who was disabled. His Rehabilitation Program included swimming. Unfortunately, there were no accessible pools and no designs to make them accessible in his area. Another factor and a very important one was the impact our laws on education had had. Starting in 1968, congress enacted the education of the handicapped act and now it is called idea. And it required a free appropriate Public Education in a mainstream environment for children with disabilities. The impact of that law in our society was profound. It brought about integration of children with disabilities with their nondisabled peers. But it also created a generation of students educated and some had High School Diplomas and some had certificates of completion. But they were all ready to enter and do thingsty their nondisabled peers were doing. Happeningend that was was people with disabilities who began to organize saw how womens groups and African Americans had organized to achieve their rights, so they adopted the tools and models of these movements whether it was , organizing for social action and protest, whether it was going to members of congress or to the executive branch to press their cause, or using the media as a way to get the message out, that they were facing discrimination. Another another factor that i think is important is, we and our society had a series of laws that protected people with disabilities. There are based on the idea that people with disabilities needed our help. We had rehabilitation services, vocational, income support, there were that series of loss. We were used to using laws to solving problems of our society. Starting in 1968 with the act of 1968, we started to enact some laws that started with a different paradigm. People with disabilities were individuals with rights. We had to pass laws that enforced these rights. We were not doing it because we were good, we did it because citizens have human and basic civil rights. The idea came about in 1968. There were a series of laws. Title v of the rehabilitation act included a affirmative action and federal employment and implemented a federal government. Establish the access aboard and created section 504. There was the air carrier access act that apply to air travel in 1986. In 1988, we amended the Fair Housing Act to include disability provisions and require that multi Family Housing built in the United States must be accessible to people with disabilities according to standards. In 1988 there was the civil rights restoration act that expanded the reach of Program Activity for the coverage of section 504. The Important Message was, people would go to congress and use a law as a way to address their grievances. Another factor, and an important one that was mentioned today, the work of the mission on civil what civil rights and the council on disability. I think the director of that time created the report towards independence, which included a text of the comprehensive civil rights bill. They had a report that talked about the history of discrimination against persons of disability. As the chair has mentioned, we have the report of accommodating the from this commission. That really made clear the concept of dust of the disabilities are a natural occurring problem of the human condition. We accommodate the full spectrum of people along that. These reports really provided that heft, vigor, the basis for what would become the idea. Ada. At would become the another report came about in 1988 that was interesting. It was a response to the aids epidemic. There was a report that was done, admiral james was in part was in charge of it. It had 400 recommendations, 10 chief recommendations, and one of them was that there needed to be a law to protect people that were hivpositive. That needed to protect their life and privacy, but also to stop discrimination against them. The report said, the civil rights bill should not just single out people with hiv, issue be comprehensive and deal with all people with disabilities. Another thing in 1988, we had a president ial election. I guess my message is, one should not underestimate the power of a promise made in a campaign. You may remember in 1988, then Vice President george h. W. Bush was running for president. He was attempting to establish his own credentials and to separate himself from being Vice President for president reagan. He had a long history of working with people with disabilities during the time of his vice presidency. At the beginning of the reagan administration, there was an attempt to look at the regulation and see that it was part in some and to review. There was burdensome and to review. There was a task force on regulatory relief. They asked him to chair that. There was an attempt to get rid of section 504, and to get rid of the disability laws in education. That brought Vice President president bush and his Legal Counsel into contact with the Disability Community. Over that period of time i was involved with that, i was at justice in the process of issuing section 504 regulations. We became involved in a negotiation between Vice President bush, the Disability Department of justice, and a really created a working relationship that made the been Vice President bush comfortable enough when he was running for president to say, one of the things he wanted to do was issue a comprehensive civil rights law. When he became president , fulfilling that Campaign Promise became a big deal. The most important trio trend or factor, which is the disability committee. They were incredibly well organized in the period of the 1980s. They were organized statebystate. Justin dark was a leader at that time, hugh and into every state in the country and worked with people with disabilities. He had them developed arteries of discrimination. Everyday people just wrote down what their life was like. What discrimination they faced. When the ada was being considered, justin brought these diaries and presented them to the congress. Congress had a sense of what the nature of discrimination is on a state level, and at a very personal level for people with disabilities. It let Congress Know that discrimination was widespread. Another part of the organization id like to give a shout out to pat right, lou was the leader of disability rights. She became known as the general because of a strong control and strategic planning. What was important about that movement is that it was a cross disability movement. Disability groups banded together for a common persis common purpose. The cohesiveness of this organization was essential to getting the ada. At one point during the ada process there was an amendment to strike people that were hiv positive from the bill. The disability groups banded together and said, no, you cannot take us apart. We will all stand together and this bill will cover people who are hivpositive or will not support the bill. It is an idea of how that works. Another example, i was involved with a meeting with a congressman in the morning with the Disability Community. I was representing the negotiations on the bill.