The ADA Restoration Act is meant to prevent cases like that of diabetic Stephen Orr, who was fired from his Wal-Mart pharmacy job in Nebraska for taking 30-minute lunch breaks to help maintain his insulin level. His boss told him he was fired for his disability, but a judge ruled that because diabetes can be managed with insulin, Orr did not qualify as disabled under the ADA. Another example of the courts limiting the application of the law beyond all logic was last May's ruling by the Eleventh Circuit that "mental retardation" is not a disability under the ADA.
As Mark Siegel of The 19th Floor notes in commentary at BBC's Ouch!:
This kind of strained reasoning is indicative of society's misguided impulse to assess disability on the basis of, dare I say, freakishness. People in wheelchairs, people who are blind or deaf, people who talk to the voices in their heads; their obvious otherness makes it so easy for society to label these people as disabled. But when the distinction isn't as apparent, as is the case with most hidden disabilities, we become much more diffident. The legalistic notion that this person or that person isn't "disabled enough" is not so different from whistling while passing the graveyard; it allows us to ignore some uncomfortable truths. It allows us to ignore the fact that many perfectly normal-looking people can have significant impairments that can dramatically affect one's life. It allows us to ignore the fact that the gulf between disability and so-called "normalcy" isn't as wide as we might imagine (or hope).
The notion that some disabilities can be made to simply go away is a fiction and almost childish in the wishfulness it conveys. Diabetes can be managed with drugs in the same way my condition can be managed with a wheelchair. But in both cases, the underlying impairments and their complicating factors remain. The person with diabetes just looks more able-bodied. And in this culture, looks are everything.
Truthfully, the entire focus upon membership in the disabled class is a deeply flawed way of protecting against discrimination in the first place. It feeds upon a mythical, binary idea of "able" and "unable". A persistence in judging the plaintiff first before ever looking at the actions and motives of the defendants encourages the persistence of the medical model where the ultimate fault of any discriminatory situation depends on medical diagnosis.
Other related links:
Reunify Gally's Restoration Act coverage (the blog's title refers to the need for unity at Gallaudet University)
Ian Johnson on the "token representation" in the ADA
The Road to Freedom blog coverage of the bus tour around the country
A photo gallery of the bus tour and the events the tour was a part of
The ADA Restoration Act of 2007 blog by the AAPD (American Association of People with Disabilities) -- includes links to the full texts of the act from both Congressional houses, a list of Congressional sponsors, talking points for the act, real case stories and a history of relevant court cases
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