From the Philadelphia Inquirer, Delaware County [Pa.] Daily Times, AP, with historic photos from Philly.com:

Pennsylvania’s historic Pennhurst Center, once the focus of landmark litigation that sparked nationwide changes in treatment for people with intellectual disabilities, opened last night as a Halloween-themed haunted house attraction over the protests of disability rights advocates.

Advocates had unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent the opening of the “Pennhurst Asylum” show on the grounds of the property, once known as Eastern State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic.

Even before the injunction was denied on Friday afternoon advocates called for a boycott of the attraction, which references historic abuse and neglect of the institution’s patients and features a “registration nurse” who tells visitors what the asylum’s “doctor” has planned for them. (See video here.)

The crumbling facility was closed in 1987 in the wake of a federal lawsuit alleging years of abuse and neglect. The suit, which spawned years of appeals and three U.S. Supreme Court rulings, alleged that residents had been beaten by nurses, strapped to beds, left naked or alone and drugged into stupors. At the time, the closure of the 600-acre facility was hailed as a civil rights victory.

Pennhurst property owner Richard Chakejian said said he and his crew are “just trying to pull off a fun, orderly event and we’re excited about that.”

Disability advocate Dave Hingsburger uses Jennifer Aniston’s recent gaffe (calling herself a “retard” during a televised interview)  as an opportunity to examine the word’s implications in modern society. His conclusion: The word is an unacceptable attack on a group of people who have historically been marginalized, stigmatized and oppressed. An excerpt:

The people who ‘ARE’ what the ‘R’ word refers to have a long history.

They have been torn from families and cast into institutions.

They have been beaten, hosed down, over medicated, under nourished, sterilized, brutalized, victimized.

They have been held captive, have been enslaved, have had their being given over to the state.

They are the group in society most likely to be physically, sexually and financially abused.

They are the group least likely to see justice, experience fair play, receive accommodation or support within the justice system.

… The ‘R’ word is an attack on a people who know discrimination. Tremble when you say it. Because those who should know better will be held accountable to those who know best.

Family Guy musical number was nominated in “Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics” category

Source: Letter from the National Down Syndrome Congress

Members of the Self Advocate Council of the National Down Syndrome Congress this week sent a letter protesting the Emmy award nomination given recently to “Down Syndrome Girl,” a musical number that appeared this spring on Fox Television’s “Family Guy.”

The number, which was honored in the category “Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics,” describes a character with Down syndrome as a “little whore” who is “poorly grooming,” “as-of-Monday-shoelace-tying,” “just a little crooked walking” and “a special person’s wettest dream.” The lyrics also include a reference to the “shorty bus.”

The Council, composed of people who have Down syndrome, characterized the song as “hateful” and said its recognition by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences carries the unjust message that “those of us who have Down syndrome are less valuable than others and deserve ridicule and abuse because of our disability.”

The letter, which was directed to Academy chairman John Shaffner, asked that the song not be aired on the upcoming Aug. 29 Emmy Award broadcast. An excerpt:

When the organization you head honors this kind of prejudicial materials, particularly on an award show that is meant to celebrate the best of television programming, it means that those of us with developmental disabilities will have to fight even greater discrimination. What you promote impacts us very personally. We will be taunted more and treated less humanely, we will struggle to be included at school and in our communities. We will have to fight even harder for jobs.

… We implore you as the Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and someone who has brought satisfaction to millions through your exceptional production design talents, to promote positive portrayals of those of us with Down syndrome on television.

We beseech you and the Academy to balance this discriminatory song with the truth about us … We are real people with real feelings trying our best to live productive lives in our communities.

The lyrics of the musical number “Down Syndrome Girl” are here, and a video clip can be seen here. Earlier posts are here.

In an obituary, the Los Angeles Times, describes Paul K. Longmore as a major founder of the field of disability studies, and says he helped establish it as a field of academic research and teaching. Longmore died August 9 at the age of 64.

“He devoted his life to making this a better and more just world,” Robert A. Corrigan, [San Francisco State's] president, said in a statement. “Legendary, inspirational, pioneering, irreverent … many words are needed to sum up this remarkable man.”

… Last month, Longmore spoke at a San Francisco celebration of the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act and reminded the crowd of a perspective he had long espoused: Disability rights activists had brought about change by redefining what it means to be disabled.

The movement recast “disability” as “a problem located mainly out there in society” that had to be dealt with, Longmore had said, whether it meant improving access by placing wheelchair-accessible ramps on curbs or elevators in buildings.

Read the full obituary here.

Earlier post here.

Joseph Shapiro, writing on NPR’s ‘Shots’ health blog, salutes the legacy of disability advocate, scholar and historian Paul K. Longmore, who died Monday at the age of 64. Longmore was a professor of history and director of the Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University. He lived with complications of polio contracted when he was a child.

Longmore emerged on the national stage in 1988, when he burned a copy of his first book in an act of protest against federal regulations that keep many people with disabilities from working and deprive them of public benefits if their incomes exceed certain levels. (Longmore reasoned that he would lose some $20,000 in the yearly federal benefits that made it possible for him to work if his book, The Invention of George Washington, made just $10,000.)

The story of the protest is featured in Longmore’s book, Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability History. Social Security changed its rules on royalties in the wake of Longmore’s protest, Shapiro writes, but left in place other work disincentives which contribute to widespread unemployment among people with disabilities.

An excerpt:

Most of all, Longmore taught that people with disabilities, themselves, had changed the way the world defined what it means to have a disability. “Previously, disability was defined as a set of limitations in the abilities of people with disabilities to function in society because of some pathology in us,” Longmore said last month, at a San Francisco celebration of the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. “The disability rights movement redefined disability as a problem mainly out there in society-not just in our bodies and minds but in society.”

It wasn’t the person with a disability who needed to overcome that disability, Longmore said. It was society that needed repair – whether it meant putting curb cuts at the end of the block, so someone like Longmore could get around in his power wheelchair, or changing Social Security laws so he could publish books and not lose the assistance that assured his accomplishment and independence.

See also:

• A tremendous loss — Not Dead Yet
• Federal employment data for people with disabilities

From Dana Milbank in the Washington Post;  Politico.com, CBS News:

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to address a progressive conference in Washington Tuesday, her speech was disrupted by the raucous and sustained shouts of angry protesters.

Among the loudest were disability rights advocates fighting for passage of the Community Choice Act. The measure would allow eligible people to receive care in their own homes rather than in nursing homes.

The protesters, many wearing orange shirts and using wheelchairs, chanted “our homes, not nursing homes,” repeatedly as Pelosi struggled to be heard over the din. They said they were affiliated with the advocacy group ADAPT. Excerpts:

Pelosi said she supports the hecklers’ legislation, a long-languishing proposal to increase access to community services for the disabled, who say it would allow more of them to live at home. But the protest wasn’t about reason; it was about rage. Pelosi finally finished her speech to a mixture of cheers and boos.

… Demonstrators from ADAPT have followed Pelosi to other speaking engagements in recent weeks, organizers said. But Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future and one of the conference organizers, said it is an unusual tactic to protest Pelosi because she is one of the group’s few lawmakers on Capitol Hill to support their position.

“The bizarre thing is the speaker is their ally,” Borosage said. “She just needs a coalition.”

(Image from Washington Post video)

From the Los Angeles Times:

Actor Ed Asner was among a group of 200 parents and advocates who turned out at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters this week to criticize expected cuts to special education programs. The cuts will reverse progress for students with disabilities, they said.

Asner, whose grandchild receives special education services in Los Angeles, said

students were at risk of being relegated to “a barebones education that essentially dooms their future.” He added: “Moving down this dangerous path will doom many of these children to prisons and homes costing much more money than the education that we have promised them.”

Parents raised concerns about a consolidation plan that could lead to larger class sizes, and the possible channeling of students away from inclusive classrooms to more segregated settings.