News Release

NCD #03-403
February 26, 2003
Contact: Mark S. Quigley
202-272-2004
202-272-2074 TTY
mquigley@ncd.gov

National Council on Disability Examines Untenable Aspects of Americans with Disabilities Act Decisions by Supreme Court

WASHINGTON-The National Council on Disability (NCD) today released two policy briefs analyzing and responding to certain untenable aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court-The Impact of the Supreme Court's ADA Decisions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and The Americans with Disabilities Act: The Implications of the Supreme Court's ADA Decision in Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett (http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/03publications.html).

The Impact of the Supreme Court's ADA Decisions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities explores the impact the Supreme Court's decisions have had on people with disabilities. It reviews court decisions, as well as anecdotal evidence, and demonstrates that the Court's restrictive reading of the ADA has undermined Congress' goal of eradicating discrimination on the basis of disability.

The Americans with Disabilities Act: The Implications of the Supreme Court's ADA Decision in Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett looks specifically at the Garrett decision and how it continued the Court's agenda for curtailing Congressional power to enact civil rights legislation. It also looks at how the Court's reasoning called into question the factual underpinnings of the ADA and the history of discrimination against people with disabilities.

In future papers in this series, NCD will examine various specific substantive aspects of the Court's rulings that have weakened or restricted the impact of the ADA.

NCD plans to address some limitations the Court has imposed on the remedies available in ADA cases and take a cross-issue look at the consequences of the Supreme Court's decisions by contrasting the state of the law before the decisions were rendered with the legal situation after the decisions, to identify undesirable and unjust results in the decisions of the lower courts as a result of the Supreme Court's rulings.

NCD will then develop legislative proposals for addressing those issues that appear appropriate for legislative correction, and present those proposals, along with pertinent supportive material from the previous papers in a final, comprehensive report Righting the ADA.