News Release

NCD #02-357
April 24, 2002
Contact: Mark S. Quigley
202-272-2004
202-272-2074 TTY
mquigley@ncd.gov

National Council on Disability to Market 25th Anniversary of Regulations Implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

WASHINGTON--The National Council on Disability (NCD) will highlight the 25th anniversary of regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (April 28) with a soon-to-be-released report on Section 504 civil rights enforcement efforts by the U.S. departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor, and State for people with disabilities.

According to NCD chairperson Marca Bristo, "The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 included the historic Section 504 which barred discrimination on the basis of disability in programs operating with federal financial assistance, and which required provision of reasonable accommodations to avoid such discrimination. Section 504 not only was the first statute in U.S. history applying civil rights protections to people with disabilities, it also furnished the model for major subsequent enactments, including the Americans with Disabilities Act."

NCD also examined implementation and enforcement of the Rehabilitation Act through several recent reports including two reports from 2001: Reconstructing Fair Housing (www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2001/fairhousing.htm) and The Accessible Future (www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2001/accessiblefuture.htm).

NCD's Reconstructing Fair Housing report examines in detail the way the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has handled complaints filed with it about illegal discrimination in housing and how it has used, or failed to use, its authority to secure compliance with the Fair Housing Act and Section 504. This study describes HUD's administrative enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and Section 504. It covers HUD's enforcement and compliance work conducted under these laws, with particular emphasis on the rights of people with disabilities during the period roughly beginning with the passage of the Fair Housing Amendments Act in 1988 and ending on September 30, 2000.

In The Accessible Future report, NCD found that for America's 54 million people with disabilities access to information and technology developments is a double-edged sword that can release opportunities or sever essential connections. On the one hand, such developments can be revolutionary in their ability to empower people with seeing, hearing, manual, or cognitive impairments through alternative means of input to and interaction with the World Wide Web, information transaction machines, and kiosks. On the other hand, electronic information and technology developments can present serious and sometimes insurmountable obstacles when, for example, basic principles of accessibility or universal design are not practiced in their deployment.

By and large, federal enforcement of key laws (i.e., the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 504 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended) as it relates to electronic and information technology (E&IT) is in its earliest stages. In this report, electronic and information technology specifically involves the Internet, the World Wide Web, and select information/transaction machines.

NCD intends its evaluative studies on the Rehabilitation Act to assist in the reauthorization of this historic law scheduled for 2003.