Disability Act Inadequate, Panel Claims

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not go far enough in providing equal access for the disabled, according to the four members of a panel on the subject last night.

The ADA imposed sweeping requirements on state and local governments, public facilities and private businesses to make their services accessible to the disabled.

Panelist Samuel Bagenstos, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, called the act "probably the most comprehensive civil rights law the federal government has enacted."

Panelists said the law has provoked opposition because of the cost sometimes involved in accommodating the disabled and difficulty determining who is disabled.

But while the panel was called "Uses and Abuses of the ADA," all four panelists tried to debunk the notion that disabled people abuse the statute.

Bagenstos said he believed that, if anything, courts have narrowed the bill too much for it to adequately protect the disabled.

"I think there's quite a lot in the argument that the ADA is abused to disagree with," said Bagenstos, who is teaching a Law School course this semester on disability law. "There's a lot of reason to believe, if anything, the courts have gone too far."

He said plaintiffs in ADA suits win in court only 8 percent of the time, as compared to 60 percent of the time in general contract lawsuits and 40 percent in tort suits.

In fact, Bagenstos said, ADA plaintiffs win less frequently than any other category of plaintiffs besides those bringing prisoner's rights suits.

"I think a big part of the reason [for this low success rate] is the courts have stringently narrowed the definition of who's disabled," he said.

Jane Alper, a panelist and an attorney for the Boston Disability Law Center, said the disabled are still "the most oppressed group of any minority group in this country."

She said judges who enforce the statutes are often too hesitant to force businesses to make special provisions for their disabled employees.

"In the real world, reasonable accommodation is something a judge thinks is reasonable," she said.

As a result of these problems, members of the panel said that disabled Americans still face discrimination, years after the passage of the bill.

Brooke M. Ellison '00, co-chair of disabled advocacy group EMPOWER: Encouraging Mankind to Perceive Others with Equal Respect, said that while Harvard has been accommodating with regard to her disability, she has more trouble off campus.

Ellison, who is paralyzed from the neck down, uses a wheelchair and respirator. She said she has trouble using Boston public transportation and often finds local businesses and public facilities unaccommodating.

She said stronger legal standards are needed.

"Due to some failures of the act and its enforcement, I feel like we may be living under the Orwellian stance that all pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others," she said.

Panelist Michael Muehe, executive director of the Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities, said he believes the real abusers of ADA are those who complain about its costs and don't meet its standards.

"I think large institutions like the MBTA are the largest abusers of the ADA," said Muehe, who suffered a spinal cord injury in college and has used a wheelchair since.

"I still experience discrimination every day as I go about the city," he said.