News Release

NCD #01-330
June 14, 2001
Contact: Mark S. Quigley
202-272-2004
202-272-2074 TTY
mquigley@ncd.gov

National Council on Disability Says People with Disabilities Still Confronted with Major Barriers of Discrimination

WASHINGTON--The National Council on Disability (NCD) today released its annual National Disability Policy: A Progress Report, confirming that despite great strides toward equality, people with disabilities still confront major barriers of discrimination and suffer the consequences of weak federal enforcement.

Because of the persistency of these barriers to equal opportunity, NCD believes that the President and Congress must set a standard of greater federal commitment to deliver on the promises of disability and other civil and human rights laws.

According to NCD chairperson Marca Bristo, "NCD believes that Americans with disabilities have witnessed incremental expansion of self-sufficiency and inclusion this past year. However, far too much of our time is spent in defending the bedrock civil and human rights protections of the past 30 years against attempts to weaken laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act."

The report uses as benchmarks the recommendations for change made by disability leaders from throughout the country and captured in the 1996 NCD document Achieving Independence: The Challenge for the 21st Century. These recommendations--elaborated upon in the ensuing annual progress reports--reflect a wide array of public policy areas designed to advance inclusion, empowerment, and independence of people with disabilities of all ages from diverse backgrounds consistent with the vision of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

NCD stands ready to work with the new administration, Congress, and stakeholders inside and outside the government to see that the public policy agenda set out in National Disability Policy: A Progress Report, in Achieving Independence, in a series of civil rights monitoring studies published as NCD reports, and in the New Freedom Initiative is implemented.

The report covers the period November 1999 through November 2000, the end of the 2nd Session of the 106th Congress. It reviews federal policy activities by major issue areas, noting progress where it has occurred and making further recommendations where necessary. The recommendations apply to the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government and include:

• NCD strongly recommends that the ADA Notification Act and the exclusion of undocumented workers from the scope of ADA coverage be dropped from the legislative agenda and additional resources be appropriated to strengthen ADA Title III technical assistance for better compliance.
  
  
• NCD urges the reintroduction of legislation in the 107th Congress that provides direction, incentives and flexibility to states in making federal elections accessible to people with disabilities.
  
  
• NCD recommends that as the new administration and Congress look at appropriations, they include the additional IDEA funding and the 10 percent set-aside provision for complaint processing, as described in the Back to School report. Joint agreement among the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the General Accounting Office, and the Office of the Inspector General will enable regular and independent audits and greatly enhance efforts to decrease the burden of enforcement that parents of children with disabilities have endured in expensive due process and court procedures over the past 25 years.
  
  
• NCD recommends that the new administration work with Congress to develop a comprehensive reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that meets the needs of all students, including students with disabilities. NCD urges Congress to support initiatives that research has shown to work: smaller classes, safe and modern schools, and qualified, well- trained teachers. Federal money set aside in ESEA should be used to support these types of programs and should not be sent back to states in the form of block grants.
  
  
• NCD calls upon Congress to formulate a comprehensive Patients' Bill of Rights that will cover health care concerns of people with disabilities, including provisions that appropriately define "medical necessity" and address issues pertaining to quality of care and who makes determinations about medical necessity.
  
  
• NCD recommends that the General Services Administration (GSA) provide opportunity for and rely on direct consumer feedback throughout its implementation of Section 508, particularly as it relates to matters of accessibility. NCD also recommends that GSA ensure that validated accessibility tools be created, adopted, or adapted for Web site accessibility purposes as well as for other technology purposes immediately after the Access Board's publication of Section 508 standards. In addition, NCD urges Congress to take whatever steps are necessary to amend the Congressional Accountability Act so that the Government Printing Office (which maintains 30 federal agency Web sites) does not remain exempt from federal accessibility laws and regulations, including Section 508, as they pertain to Web sites.

The report is available at www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/progressreport2000.html.