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So hi, I'm Catherine Blakemoore

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I'm the former Executive Director 
of Disability Rights California,

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which is the
agency established under federal law

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as California's protection
and advocacy system.

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Our mandate is to assist people
with disabilities

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and protect their civil rights through a
variety of advocacy efforts.

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Um, and I had the really good fortune
of working at Disability Rights California

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or other similar organizations
for about 40 years

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and both as a lawyer representing people
and protecting their civil rights

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and their educational rights
and their housing rights,

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and then most recently
as the Executive Director.

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So the ADA to me is really
based on the foundations

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of other really important statutes

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and those include the Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act

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Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

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and both of those laws helped ensure
inclusion and end discrimination.

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So when I was a very young lawyer in 1977,

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I did a lot of work
in the area of education

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and one of the very first cases I worked
on was representing a child, Jeremy

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who was in 1st grade and in the summer,

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he had been crossing a street
with his family

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and unfortunately was hit by a car and
became quadriplegic as a result of that

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and when his mother went to enroll him
in school for the next school year,

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she was told that because of
his disability,

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he could not
return to his neighborhood school.

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and instead would need to go to
a segregated special education program

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because that's where students
with disabilities went

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and his parents contacted us
and we agreed to take the case

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because that discrimination of saying

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you couldn't be with your neighborhood
peers was just fundamentally wrong

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and contrary to the very foundations

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of the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act

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so we represented him in he hearing,
we went to court.

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When we went to court, I think
one of the most important things to me,

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was numbers of his classmates and
their parents came to court with us

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and the students,
they're 1st and 2nd graders,

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um, clearly enjoyed being with Jeremy

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but also more importantly,
talked to the news media that was there

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about how they couldn't understand why
Jeremy couldn't attend school with them

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and how important it was that their friend
be able to go to school

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and participate with them
just like he had in the years before.

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So that case to me, just represented
the fist opportunity

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to really challenge a discriminatory
practice and ensure that Jeremy

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could attend his neighborhood school

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and be included with his friends.

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So I think the first "aha" moment
of the ADA was our ability

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to use the ADA and to discuss
the United States Supreme Court decision

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called the "Olmstead Case" which said
that people with disabilities

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could not be
unnecessarily segregated in institutions

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and one of the most powerful ways we use
the ADA and that case holding

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was to challenge the budget cuts

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that were proposed when California
was deep in an economic recession in 2008

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and 2009. The state made the decision
that what it was going to do is

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significantly reduce community-based
supports like the

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in-home supportive services program

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Umm and our lawyers in
Disability Rights California

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decided that that violated the ADA and
would result in people needing to move

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into institutions, contrary to the
Olmstead Decision

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So twice we went into federal court.
Twice we were successful

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with the court holding that the ADA
prohibited the state from making decisions

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that would result in the unnecessary
institutionalization of people.

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So the ADA is an 
extraordinarily powerful tool to

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protect people's civil rights and one
that we need to continue to use today.

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So I think what we've learned um
in the last few months is that

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there is always room for us to continue
to use the ADA as a tool to push further

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and the pandemic really
reminds us of the high risk

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that people with disabilities,
particularly those living in segregated

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and isolated settings
like nursing homes face.

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COVID, which disproportionately 
impacted nursing home residents

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and it's in part because of the congregate
setting that they live in

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and the vulnerability of people with
disabilities to this particular disease.

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And so as we think about reopening
California and moving forward,

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we have to really remember the
importance of the ADA in saying

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that people need to live in the community.

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They need to be included.

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We have to be mindful of how do we
accommodate the needs of people with

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disabilities as part of our reopening.

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How do we redesign service systems so that
we no longer think of nursing homes as

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a primary place where people with
disabilities or seniors should be living

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How do we ensure that people with
disabilities, when they are participating

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in activities of the day aren't placed
in isolated day kinds of programs

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but instead given opportunities to
interact in the larger community

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So lots of work in that area to be done.

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I think the other part that's important
is to use this moment to

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engage in intersectional civil rights
advocacy.

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There's lots of energy now to looking
at issues of discrimination affecting

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black and brown people who are
also more disproportionately impacted

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by the pandemic and to use this as an
opportunity to come together as

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a larger civil rights community
to advance inclusion, integration,

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nondiscrimination for all people
including those with disabilities.