vimeo.com/.../435170434

So hi, I'm Katherine Blakemoore
I'm the former Executive Director

of Disability Rights California, which is

the agency established under federal law
as California's

protection and advocacy system.

Our mandate is to assist people
with disabilities and

protect their civil rights through a variety
of advocacy efforts.

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

or other similar organizations
for about 40 years

both as a lawyer representing people
and protecting their civil rights

and their educational rights
and their housing rights, um

and then most recently
as the Executive Director.

So the ADA to me is really
based on the foundations of other

really important statutes and
those include the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

and both of those laws helped ensure
inclusion and end discrimination

So when I was a very young lawyer in 1977,
I did a lot of work in the area of education

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

who was in 1st grade and in the summer
he'd been crossing a street with his family

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

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

she was told that because of
his disability, he could not

return to his neighborhood school.
and instead would need to go to

a segregated
special education program

because that's where students
with disabilities went

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

because that discrimination of saying

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

and contrary to the very foundations of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

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

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

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

and the students, 1st and 2nd graders,
um, clearly enjoyed being with Jeremy

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

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

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

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

So that case to me, just represented
the fist opportunity to really

challenge a discriminatory practice and
ensure that Jeremy could attend

his neighborhood school and be included
with his friends.

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

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

called the "Olmstead Case" which said
that people with disabilities could not be

unnecessarily segregated in insititutions
and one of the most powerful ways we use

the ADA and that case holding was to
challenge the budget cuts

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

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

significantly reduce community-based
supports like the

in-home supportive services program and

our lawyers in
Disability Rights California

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

into institutions, contrary to the
Olmstead Decision

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

with the court holding that
the ADA prohibited the state

from making decisions that would result in
the unnecessary institutionalization

of people. So the ADA is an
extraordinarily powerful tool to

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

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

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

to push further and the pandemic really
reminds us of the high risk that

people with disabilities,
particularly those living in segregated

and isolated settings like nursing homes
face. COVID, which disproportionately

affected nursing home residents
and it's in part because of the congregate

setting that they live in and the
vulnerability of people with disabilities

to this particular disease.

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

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

that people need to live in the community.

They need to be included.

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

disabilities as part of our reopening.

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

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

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

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

but instead given opportunities to
interact in the larger community

So lots of work in that area to be done.

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

engage in intersectional civil rights
advocacy.

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

black and brown people who are
also more disproportionately impacted

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

a larger civil rights community
to advance inclusion, integration,

nondiscrimination for all people
including those with disabilities.