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Princeton alum Steve Forbes witholds
funds to protest Singer

Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes has said he'll quit donating to his alma mater as long as Peter Singer is there.

Read the Associated Press story


Over 250 protest Singer's first day
Over 250 protesters greeted bioethicists Peter Singer's first class at Princeton. Singer says parents should be able to kill their disabled newborns, and says that people with cognitive disabilities should have fewer rights than the rest of us.

Read the Associated Press story

Read Philadelphia Inquirer feature writer Gwen Florio's take on the Peter Singer controversy in "Not your usual ethics professor"

Statement from Not Dead Yet


Prison quad to be released; activists credited with saving life
Sept. 17 -- Virginia Dept. of Corrections will release quadriplegic Christopher Tucker from the Lynchburg jail today, say crip activists who have been fighting prison officials over the man's lack of bowel and bladder care in prison. "When our community learned about him, Tucker had not had a bowel program for several days, had not been catheterized in two days and had blood in his urine and dangerously high blood pressure," says Janine Bertram Kemp. "The doctor in the Greensville prison was refusing to order the bowel and bladder assistance.

"Advocates from all over the country called and faxed letters to Virginia politicians and prison officials. Marjorie Rifkin, an attorney who is working with Capital Area ADAPT, guided advocate Lou Overstreet on legal strategy. Justin Dart, Jr. called Virginia's Lt. Governor, John Hagar."

More on this story


Memphis group wins suit against restaurant
Memphis, TN. Sept. 9 The Public Eye restaurant will become accessible, thanks to a settlement negotiated by the U. S. Dept. of Justice on behalf of the Memphis Center for Independent Living,. The Center filed the Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit after years of effort to get the restaurant to comply with the law by making its entrance and restroom accessible. The restaurant was fined $1,000 and has agreed to give the Center $5,000 for advocacy work.

Read the original story from last May's Ragged Edge.

Read the U. S. Dept. of Justice press release on the settlement.


Zero-step rule to start in Britain Oct. 1
All new housing being constructed in Great Britain will have a level, no-step entrance to make it accessible. That's the effect of a regulation taking effect Oct. 1; the law was passed 18 months ago. "People with disabilities in England will be able to visit their neighbor's homes -- get in, fit through the doors, and find a bathroom on the main floor!" says Eleanor Smith of Concete Change, the activist U.S. group that pushes for access to single-family housing. " Meanwhile, in the U.S., the National Association of Home Builders continues to swat down advocates' attempts to legislate access."

Read about the law from the July/August Ragged Edge

Read the new regulation and other info from the website of Concrete Change.


Airlines must pay full cost
of damaged wheelchairs, says DOT

Aug. 2 rules from the Dept. of Transportation mean passengers whose wheelchairs are damaged by airlines will be able to be reimbursed for the "original purchase price" of the chair. Previous rules had limited reimbursement to $2,500.

The rule applies to other assistive devices as well. Airlines are allowed to ask you to verify the original purchase price with an original receipt.


Crip rights groups sue Miami
Two crip rights groups have sued in U.S. District Court in Miami against Miami-Dade County, claiming the county does not provide federally mandated access. The late August suit alleges four counts and dozens of specific violations of the 1990 American with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

More on this story


Attorney protests telethon
Charleston SC, Sept. 3 -- As Jerry Lewis promises to be back for yet another telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Charleston attorney Harriet McBryde Johnson promises to be back for yet another protest. "I think Charleston holds the record for persistence in telethon protesting," says Johnson.

More on this story


NPR buckles on telethon controversy
Sept. 1 -- NPR's "Talk of the Nation" withdrew its decision to feature talk radio host Greg Smith on a Thursday "Talk of the Nation" show on telethons when the Muscular Dystrophy Association, refused to participate. "Talk of the Nation" had invited Smith to talk about the negative image telethons create. Smith, host of On A Roll, is hosting a
counter-telethon Sunday night. This weekend is the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. "Good strategic move on MDA's part, I must admit," Smith said. Activists argued with 'Talk of the Nation" that its point-counterpoint format effectively silenced Smith when the telethon giant MDA refused to participate.


Midtown Sweep continues against inaccessible Midtown businesses
Harrisburg, PA, Aug. 31 -- Activist crips sued Santo's Pizza Shop, Java House and Good Taste Chinese in Midtown Harrisburg today as the the group's Midtown Sweep continues. Accessible Communities Today -- or ACT -- has been suing establishments in the trendy Harrisburg area to make them accessible.

"All we want is to be able to get into the same places as our neighbors," says Midtown wheelchair user Joanna Raver. "The law is the law -- and the law says we should be allowed to go where everybody else goes."

"Hopefully, after the Midtown Sweep, other businesses will take our civil rights seriously and obey the law," said ACT.

The three lawsuits filed in late July against Pasquale's, Midtown Tavern and Goldstar Video are all in the settlement phase, says ACT.

More on the Midtown Sweep
Maryland activists conduct sweep, too


States immune from Sect. 504 -- and ADA,
says 8th Circuit

Aug. 31 - The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has ruled that states are immune from lawsuits under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Court called Section 504 "an invalid exercise of Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment." The ruling came in the case Thomas Bradley v. AR Dept of Education

Title II under attack in 8th Circuit
Learn more about this case
Read the ruling in pdf format


Smith hosts Labor Day counter-telethon for literacy
Aug. 3` -- Greg Smith, host of the syndicated talk show "On A Roll," is staging a counter to the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon by emmceeing a crip telethon to raise funds for Literacy Volunteers of America, Inc. on Sept. 5., the Sunday of the much-disliked-by-activists Lewis extravaganza. Crips "aren't always on the receiving end of charity," says Smith.

More on this story


Columbus discovers ADAPT
Aug. 31 -- American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today will take its fall action to Columbus, Ohio Oct. 30 - Nov. 4 for a week of direct-action protests and calls for "real choice": "our homes, not nursing homes." ADAPT says Ohio is "one of the 10 worst states" for funding in-home attendant services, "spending 93% of its Medicaid long term care dollars on institutional programs." Contact national ADAPT in Denver by email at
national@adapt.orgor by phone (303/733-9324).


Egan not guilty of Smith death, says jury
Aug. 18 -- An Orlando, FL jury acquitted Shirley Egan of attempting to kill daughter Georgette Smith, who, left paralyzed, got court permission to end her own life this spring. Jurors deliberated for seven hours before the verdict. Egan had fired after learning her daughter planned to put her in a nursing home.

Report from Court TV
Smith chooses death -- our coverage


"Kendra's Law" protested in New York
Aug. 19 -- Activists labeled "mentally ill" have been holding a camp-out in the park in front of the State Capitol building in Albany this week to protest a new state law --"Kendra's Law" -- authorizing involuntary outpatient psychiatric treatment. Editorials in major papers have called for more such laws nationwide -- activists say the battle will soon move to California.

Read more about activism against involuntary forced treatment at the website of the Support Coalition International

Read an Associated Press story about the Albany protest


Quad dies after respirator removed;
activist group denied restraining order

Rochester, NY Aug. 14. -- Bill White died at 7 p.m. Friday, a day after the Rochester, NY district attorney had successfullly argued in court that the respirator that that had kept him alive for 32 years in Strong Memorial Hospital was "medical treatment" he could refuse. White had the respirator removed and he died. He was 50 years old.

Rochester members of the group Not Dead Yet had tried twice, unsuccessfully, to get a restraining order to prevent the death. The judge "questioned why we hadn't got an doctor and a psychologist to support us in court. It was a disaster," says Bruce Darling, director of Rochester's Center for Disability Rights.

"The Protection and Advocacy Office of Western New York declined to investigate Bill White's situation and take the case to court," says Darling. "Had they done so, there would have been no question of standing in court, and Bill might be alive to learn what options he would have had available to him."

Media coverage portrayed White's decision as a reasonable medical choice. "This is a completely settled issue, ethically and legally," Dr. Timothy Quill had told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle when White first asked for the respirator to be turned off.. Quill was lead plaintiff in the 1997 Supreme Court lawsuit urging physician-assisted suicide. "These kinds of things have been carried out in all our hospitals."

Read the story in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Read coverage of the protest by NDY


Act now, say advocates
Fair Housing Act's access requirement being gutted in Congress
July 15. -- A bill to get owners, developers, architects, designers, and contractors out of having to obey the Fair Housing Act's access requirements was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives July 1.

HR 2437, the Justice [sic] in Fair Housing Enforcement Act, would let local building code officials approve exemptions to the federal law's access guidelines. "It's an affront to the Federal housing rights that people with disabilities have fought for," says Heather De Mian of the Missouri Disability Rights Action Coalition for Housing, who says the bill would "set a slippery-slope precedent that would extend to other laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act." More information - how you can fight this bill.


FCC approves telecommunications access rule
July 14. -- The Federal Communications Commission has approved final rules implementing Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, requiring telecommunications companies build access into their products and services. The rule covers things like speed dialing, call-forwarding, caller-id and voice-menu interactions as well as equipment like cell phones.

"The Commission -- starting with the Chairman -- is committed to seeing that the Section 255 is implemented and enforced in such a manner that its original intentions are achieved," the FCC's Dale N. Hatfield told engineers at a meeting June 30. "In addition to benefiting persons with disabilities, accessibility holds the potential of benefiting everyone."

More on this topic


High-profile suits filed against MD businesses
Baltimore, July 3. -- ACCESS Maryland has filed lawsuits in U.S. District Court against NationsBank, AMES Department Stores; Choice Hotels International/Clarion Hotels and Martin's Westminster --well-known businesses with locations in Maryland -- because they are still not accessible to people with disabilities 9 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Between now and the July 26 ADA-signing anniversary the group, a joint public-interest project of the Maryland Disability Law Center, the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association and MCIL Resources for Independent Living, will file a series of suits targeting businesses that are not ADA compliant to draw attention to the fact that the law is continually being broken.

More on this story

Earlier D.R. Nation stories

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