From Youtube, Newsday, the New York Times and elsewhere:

Framing his remarks within his own personal saga as a person with near-blindness, New York Governor David Paterson told the Democratic National Convention that Barack Obama could bring new economic opportunities to all Americans, including those with disabilities.

In a speech that was described as militant and partisan, Paterson told of graduating from Columbia University and Hofstra University School of Law, and then being turned down for a job because of his disability. He said his recovery from that defeat embodied the promise of America.

The governor hammered hard at the need for government intervention to provide supports for people with disabilities. Only 37 percent of people with disabilities are working, Paterson said, and only 29 percent of blind people; the unemployment rate of deaf people is nearly 90 percent. He said Obama would work with Congress to overturn Supreme Court decisions that wrongly narrowed the Americans with Disabilities Act

From the New York Times report:

… like many supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, [Paterson] was shunted to a marginal time slot — 5:50 p.m. Eastern time — and given just four minutes to fill.

The advance text of Paterson’s speech is here.

From the Miami Herald:

Twelve students with disabilities are working in Miami’s City Hall, rotating through city departments as they learn marketable job skills. While there’s no guarantee of a permanent city job, it’s a possibility.

They’ll spend the school year answering phones, scanning documents into computers and generally learning the ins and outs of being a big-city bureaucrat.

”It’s pretty cool,” Julius [Curry] said. “They actually care, and they want to help you train.”

The pilot training program is part of Project SEARCH, which runs dozens of job sites nationwide for people with disabilities, most in hospitals.

The Miami effort is one of only two (with Vancouver, Washington) in which local governments have adopted the program. Program graduates are said to have a success rate of more than 80 percent in finding jobs.

From the New York Times:

At a farm on Cape Cod, adults with disabilities are learning to grow vegetables and sell them at roadside stands and farmers markets. Employees of Cape Abilities Farm work up to 20 hours a week, at rates up to $10 an hour. It’s a for-profit venture, but it hasn’t yet turned a profit.

Similar ventures have grown up in New Hampshire, Montana, Pennsylvania and New York.

“When I had no work, I got so sick and bored,” said Gail Gaulin, 47, who has a seizure disorder. “But now I’m learning a new skill. I like it here.”

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Janet Murray says the UK needs to provide more options for young adults with learning disabilities after they finish school.

Too many of these young people find themselves stifled by inappropriate adult day care centers that do nothing to help them gain skills and independence, she says. Less than five percent of them find employment.

The government has promised to provide funding to support young adults in their quest for jobs, Murray says, but employers are reluctant to hire them.

From Federal Times:

A complaint filed against the Social Security Administration by more than 40 current and former employees alleges that the agency engaged in systematic discrimination against employees with disabilities. The employees are seeking class action status for their complaint.

Approximately 2 percent of the SSA’s work force is comprised of employees with severe disabilities, compared with about 1 percent across the federal government.

Barbara Penny, a former SSA supervisor, said employees with disabilities at the agency are passed over for training, are not promoted as frequently as other employees, and are generally viewed as a costly burden.

“There is no doubt in my mind that disability was a factor in decision-making because it was more convenient for SSA not to pick the disabled person who needed an expensive accommodation,” she said.

From MarketWatch:

Vital Signs columnist Kristen Gerencher says a broad coalition of disability rights and business groups has come together behind a measure to revise the ADA in the wake of  a series of Supreme Court decisions that severely narrowed the law’s definition of disability. The ironic effect of those decisions, Gerencher says, is that the people who most need protections under the ADA often can’t get them.

An excerpt:

That means many people who suffer from a chronic disease but manage their illness well aren’t considered disabled and therefore aren’t covered by the law — even if an employer fires or refuses to hire them because of their disease.

The courts’ decisions have resulted in a Catch-22 for people with a range of disabilities, including diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy and mental illness, said Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington.

“You can be disabled enough to be fired but not disabled enough to sue,” she said.

From the Topeka [KS] Capital-Journal:

A federal appeals court has taken laws prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities into territory we don’t think those who drafted the laws ever anticipated they would venture.

We’re sure we never imagined the Rehabilitation Act, passed by Congress in 1973 and a forerunner to the Americans with Disabilities Act, would be invoked to cover a “sexual disability.” We’re still mystified at how a such a disability is anything an employer or potential employer should be made aware of and hope further court action in the case offers some enlightenment.

Earlier post here.