By Dana Goldstein at thedailybeast.com:

As Sarah Palin attempts to position herself as a national spokesperson on issues related to disability, disability rights leaders say they view her with skepticism. Palin, they say, is out of step or silent on most of their policy priorities. But some still hold out hope that she may yet approach their issues in a serious fashion.

“Since the end of the presidential election, we haven’t heard Sarah Palin articulate any specific policy proposals [on disability],” said Peter Berns, CEO of The Arc, a Beltway lobbying group representing people with intellectual disabilities. Like nine other national disability-rights leaders The Daily Beast spoke to, Berns pointed to Palin’s excusing of Rush Limbaugh’s use of the word “retarded”-even as she hammered Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, for the same sin-as evidence of her lack of seriousness. “It has unfortunately politicized the issue in ways that are not productive, and it has converted what really are bipartisan issues into partisan ones,” Berns said.

See also: Palin, really a special needs advocate? — MSNBC

(Photo from thedailybeast.com)

Says VCU students twisted his meaning; VCU stands by its story

Recordings of Marshall’s remarks posted on the Web

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Post, WTKR Norfolk, Virginia Commonwealth University, AP/[Newport News] Daily Press:

Virginia Del. Bob Marshall turned aside calls for his resignation Wednesday and attempted to distance himself from recorded remarks that have been construed as saying that a woman who has an abortion runs the risk of birth defects in later pregnancies as a punishment from God.

Addressing his colleagues in the Virginia General Assembly, Marshall called for a correction from journalism students at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Mass Communications. Jeff South, an associate professor of journalism who oversees the school’s Capital News Service, said VCU stands by its report “as a fair and accurate account of the press conference that Del. Marshall held last Thursday.”

The school’s website and Marshall’s website both carried recordings and transcripts of Marshall’s remarks, delivered last week at a press conference organized against public funding for Planned Parenthood.

(more…)

Company sees threat to free speech on the Internet

From Reuters/New York Times, AP/Forbes.com, CNN:

A judge in Milan has found three Google executives guilty of criminal privacy violation charges for allowing a cellphone video of the bullying of an Italian youth to be displayed on a company website in 2006.

Press reports said the video showed the boy, described as having Down syndrome or autism, being taunted by classmates while one of the teens made a mock phone call to a Down syndrome support group.

A Google spokesman said the company would appeal what it called an “astonishing” decision, and said the case posed a threat to freedom of speech on the Internet.

Prosecutors said the case was not about censorship, but about balancing freedom of expression with the rights of an individual. They said the video remained online for months even though some web users had posted comments asking that it be taken down. Google said it removed the video within hours of being notified by police.

The three defendants received six-month suspended sentences for privacy violation. They were acquitted of charges of defamation, as was a fourth executive. All had denied wrongdoing. In an earlier action in juvenile court, the four bullies were sentenced to community service.

From the Montreal Gazette, CBC News:

A French family is making a public appeal to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds after their application for permanent residency was rejected because their seven-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy.

Rachel Barlagne was deemed “medically inadmissable” because her disability would pose an “excessive burden” on the state. According to court documents, the “excessive burden” amounts to $5,200 per year for special education.

“We hope the immigration minister understands our situation and takes steps to allow us to stay,” David Barlagne said outside Federal Court in Montreal, where his lawyers are fighting to keep his family in the country. “We are determined to do whatever we have to to stay in Canada.”

Earlier post here.

(Photo from CBC News)

From Tom Brokaw, NBC News, a feature about American athlete Kevin Pearce, who was considered one of the best snowboarders bound for the Olympics until he was gravely injured in a training run. He sustained a traumatic brain injury, and is now working to regain his speech, vision and physical coordination.

Brokaw says Pearce has a “special relationship” with his brother, David, who has Down syndrome, a “kindness and patience” that the family has drawn upon during its recent crisis. Pearce’s mother says the wisdom she gained from David helped prepare her to cope with Kevin’s accident and recovery.

” I had never realized before this happened that the great gift of David in our life has been to prepare me for this experience,” she said. “And I feel way better equipped to deal with this thanks to having had David in our life for 24 years.”

UPDATE: A Facebook page honoring Kevin Pearce has garnered almost 44,000 fans as of Wednesday morning. Notes Sports Illustrated:

The site has received notes of support from fans and fellow snowboarders, but also from many survivors of traumatic brain injuries who have described the productive lives they now lead.

There’s also a Facebook page created by fans of David Pearce.

(Photo from NBC News)

From the Washington Post:

Federal law does not require Catholic schools to educate students with disabilities, and financial constraints have historically made it difficult for the schools to do so.  Church officials now say that is starting to change, with recent figures showing that 42 percent of Catholic schools offer some services for kids with disabilities.

“Children with disabilities have a right to a faith-based education,” said a school superintendent from a Virginia diocese. “We want to provide that as best we can.”

‘Our leaders fail the neediest’

Columnist Rick Green, writing in the Hartford Courant, says Connecticut’s leaders have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a legal fight to keep the Southbury Training School open, even though they know the facility violates federal discrimination law. “We will pay dearly for this,” he writes. A legal challenge to the sprawling institution for people with intellectual disabilities is being heard in federal court.

Green describes Southbury as a “1950s-era model for segregated care of the disabled,” and a “world that I thought existed only in film documentaries.” He says former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland caved to pressure from fearful families and staff fifteen years ago in a “transparent political move” that effectively halted efforts to move institutional residents back into the community and would “infect state policies for years to come.”

Experts say there is no reason why people with complex disabilities can’t live satisfying lives in the community with appropriate support, but families and guardians need to be educated about the possibilities to allay fears. Further, they say, community-based care comes at a lesser cost: approximately $122,000 per person per year, as compared with Southbury’s pricetag of $350,000 each for some 450 residents. An excerpt:

After more than a decade of waiting, we await a solution from a federal judge.

That’s what you get when nobody leads.

See also: School for intellectually disabled under pressure to change — Hartford Courant