New York Times, Associated Press:

The House passed a major civil rights bill on Wednesday that would expand protections for people with disabilities and overturn several Supreme Court decisions issued in the last decade.

The bill, approved 402 to 17, would make it easier for workers to prove discrimination. It would explicitly relax some stringent standards set by the court and says that disability is to be “construed broadly,” to cover more physical and mental impairments.

… Supporters of the bill immediately shifted their attention to the Senate, which is expected to pass a similar bipartisan measure.

… The House bill reflects a deal worked out in months of negotiations by business groups and people with disabilities.

From the Orange County Register:

Robert Velasquez claims that a face-down restraint technique caused emotional and physical damage in his 8-year-old son. His formal complaint, seeking at least $25,000, alleges negligence, civil rights violations and false imprisonment. He said the teachers did not have proper training to use the technique, and that the boy’s nose was broken in the incident.

District officials declined to comment on the case, but said all special education teachers were adequately trained for their jobs.

From National Public Radio:

There’s expected to be a highly unusual outbreak of bipartisanship in Washington today. If all goes well, it will result in a major piece of civil rights legislation. Two groups that had been at odds, people with disabilities and American businesses, have put aside their differences to design a bill that now seems on an improbably fast track through Congress.

Joseph Shapiro reports that the two groups have compromised on a definition of disability that is a little more narrow than some people with disabilities had wanted. If all goes smoothly, the bill could reach President Bush’s desk by July 26 — the 18th anniversary of the day his father signed the original Americans with Disabilities Act.

Shapiro interviews a man with muscular dystrophy who was found by General Motors to be too disabled to perform the job for which he was hired. When the man sued to challenge GM’s withdrawal of the job offer, GM argued that he wasn’t disabled enough to be covered under the ADA.

See also this version of the story.

From ABC Good Morning America, a five-minute segment on a “controversial group hoping to radically change” the way we look at autism. They want society to “celebrate autistic people for their differences.” (With video)

Advocate Ari Ne’eman, 20, (left) is the founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a non-profit group aimed at advancing autism culture and advocating for diversity. Ne’eman says the group is engaged in a civil rights movement, and says he wouldn’t change his autism diagnosis if he could.

“Where does disability come from?” Ne’eman asks. “It comes in many respects from a society that doesn’t provide for an education system that meets our needs, and a society that is largely intolerant.”

Some experts say Ne’eman and his group may not be representative of a broad swath of people with autism. Diane Sawyer appears skeptical of Ne’eman’s message. “You keep wondering .. is it in some way a beautiful way of justifying heartbreak,” she says.

At last count, the segment had drawn more than 300 comments.

Related post here.

On ABC Good Morning America, video of an extended interview with Dan Habib, director/producer of ‘Including Samuel.’ The recently released documentary chronicles his son’s journey through elementary school in New Hampshire. Habib explains the philosophy behind the decision to include Samuel in general education classes (he has cerebral palsy), and shares footage of him interacting successfully with classmates.

Interviewer Marysol Castro poses some skeptical questions, which Habib handles with ease.

An excerpt:

Habib: … Disability is part of diversity, just like ethnic diversity and racial diversity. You create a society where that’s accepted as the real world. And kids need to understand this is the real world. Kids with disabilities and adults with disabilities will be living and working alongside them.

… [We want people] to see disability part as an enrichment of our culture — not something we that need to fix. For a while, we always focused on ‘we need to fix Daniel’. Now we realize we just need to accept him as our son, for who he is, and his disability is just part of who he is.

Earlier posts here.

Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Times:

Civil and disability rights attorneys Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleging that “egregious” jail conditions amounted to illegal discrimination against people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sheriff Lee Baca said the lawsuit was “unreasonable and unfair.”

The lawsuit alleges people with disabilities face inhumane treatment and are illegally discriminated against because the jail system routinely fails to accommodate their basic needs.

In interviews with 70 inmates, the attorneys cited inmate accounts of having to lie in their own waste for hours because wheelchair-accessible toilets and showers were not available or because their catheter bags were taken away.

Others said they had to drag themselves on the floor because they had no access to their wheelchairs or bathroom doors weren’t wide enough to accommodate them.

The ABC News site had drawn more than 700 comments at last count to its Associated Press story about the church in Minnesota that took legal action to prevent Carol and John Race from bringing their 13-year-old son, Adam, to services. Adam has autism.

Here are a few recent ones:

• Which of Adam’s rights is more important here: his ‘right’ to attend a church service in which he may or may not get the ‘message’ over top of the other sensory input; or his right to be in a situation that is not overwhelming to his senses. I am under the impression that this is not so much about Adam’s rights, as this is about Carol Race’s demands to have her own way.
• I don’t see autism as a major problem for those not directly affected. Violent behavior is a major problem for everyone within reach. The fact that young Mr Race is autistic is a secondary or even tertiary consideration. The fact that he is violent is the primary consideration. He is not denied attendance to the church because of his autism. He is being kept out because of violence. He has rights to attend church. Others have a right to attend church without physical pain inflicted by Mr. Race.
• I have experienced discrimination against my son because of behaviors he cannot control. It’s true that some people are very ignorant and do not want to deal with reality. They think children with autism should be locked away. In Minnesota, 1 in 81 children have an ASD diagnosis. So maybe over 1 in 40 families have a child with autism. We will not stand to be treated as second class citizens.

Earlier posts here and here.