She says store made her feel like a ‘misfit’

From Minnesota Public Radio, [Minneapolis-St. Paul] Star Tribune:

Minnesota has fined retailer Abercrombie & Fitch $115,264 for discriminating against a person with a disability after store representatives refused to allow a family member to help a girl with autism in a dressing room.

The state’s Department of Human Rights imposed the fine after the company repeatedly refused to respond to the girl’s mother’s request for an apology and denied engaging in discriminatory practices. An administrative law judge found that the girl had suffered mental anguish as a result of the incident, which was witnessed by a long line of customers. “I am a misfit at Abercrombie,” she testified.

Just last month, a British tribunal fined Abercrombie & Fitch for unlawful harassment of a clerk for reasons related to her disability. Riam Dean had alleged that the company banished her to its stockroom after concluding that her prosthetic arm did not comply with its “look policy.”

The company paid $40 million to settle yet another discrimination lawsuit in 2004, admitting no wrongdoing but agreeing to new policies aimed at promoting diversity.

Writing in the Baltimore Sun, Nancy Langer praises President Obama’s announcement that the U.S. will sign the The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She urges the Senate to ratify the pact.

U.S. humanitarian assistance and disaster relief must incorporate special programs for people with disabilities. Disability rights are not merely “domestic” (as the Bush administration insisted even as it let people in wheelchairs drown during Hurricane Katrina). They are global.

By making good on his promise to support this convention, the president has set sail toward more sensible U.S. policy. The Senate should support the president and people with disabilities around the world and ratify the convention.

(Nancy Langer is the director of external relations for the Henry L. Stimson Center, a global think tank in Washington.)

From AP/Los Angeles Times and Reuters:

The United States Thursday signed a United Nations treaty aimed at protecting the rights of 650 million people with disabilities worldwide.

The Bush administration had refused to endorse the convention, arguing that it would weaken protections offered to U.S. citizens by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. The treaty will next be submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

… “We all still have a great deal more to do at home and abroad,” said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. “As President Obama has noted, people with disabilities far too often lack the choice to live in communities of their own choosing; their unemployment rate is much higher than those without disabilities; they are much more likely to live in poverty; health care is out of reach for far too many; and too many children with disabilities are denied a world class education.”

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, announced the creation of a  high level post in the State Department to promote the rights of people with disabilities around the world.

UPDATE: Remarks by Valerie Jarrett and Rice are here.

Editor Carl R Weinberg introduces the Magazine of History’s disability history issue with the observation that the concept of disability offers a “new way to look at history.”

Weinberg says many adults today grew up with a minimal consciousness of the rights and perspectives of people with disabilities. He urges teachers to incorporate an awareness of disability into a wide range of historical topics.

Even with our expanded awareness of disability rights today, it is still a revelation and not an easy one to grapple with that at least some activists for disability rights find offense in the common expression of denigration, “That’s so lame.” But the very difficulty we may have in considering “lame” offensive also conveys an important historical lesson: social change is difficult, painful, and contentious. (more…)

By Joseph Shapiro on National Public Radio:

Some 140 nations have signed a new United Nations convention to protect the human rights of people with disabilities, but the United States had refused to support it until yesterday. President Obama announced that the U.S. will now sign, but he’ll need to get the Senate to vote to ratify.

What was the source of the earlier reluctance? Dick Thornburgh, attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, has an opinion. “It’s always been hard for me to figure out what the basis for the opposition was, but I would speculate there is some resistance to the UN in general in this country …,” he said.

The measure would require countries to guarantee that people with disabilities have legal rights to things like jobs, education and access to public places.

More coverage of the President’s announcement from the ABC News Political Punch Blog and Associated Press.

From the President’s remarks:

“Disability rights aren’t just civil rights to be enforced here at home; they’re universal rights to be recognized and promoted around the world.

… “Today, 650 million people, ten percent of the world’s population, live with a disability. In developing countries, 90 percent of the children with disabilities don’t attend school.

… “I am not satisfied. I am proud of the progress we have made but I am not satisfied — and I know you are not either — until every American with a disability can learn in their local public school in the manner that’s best for them. Until they can apply for a job without discrimination and live and work independently in their communities, if that is what they choose, we have got more work to do. As long as we as a people still too easily succumb to casual discrimination or fear of the unfamiliar, we’ve still got more work to do.”

Obama was joined by New York Gov. David Paterson; Tammy Duckworth, an assistant Veterans Affairs secretary; former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.; and Senator Hillary Clinton who signed a celebratory proclamation commemorating the announcement.

Earlier post here.

(Associated Press photo)

UPDATE: CSPAN video here.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Nancy Lublin says it’s time for President Obama to step up as a global leader on disability rights and champion the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). An excerpt:

Not signing and ratifying the CRPD sends the message that while we protect our disabled, we don’t care if the rest of the world does too. If we feel strongly enough that our own citizens living with disabilities should be protected, shouldn’t we feel that those living in countries without such laws are entitled to rights and protection as well?

By signing and ratifying the CRPD, the U.S. will send a message to the world: Disability rights are essential for a fair and just world … and the United States wants to be a leader in protecting those ideals.

From the [Toronto, Canada] National Post:

Barbara Farlow and her husband Timothy are facing what is expected to be the end of their legal challenge to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children over the 2005 death of their daughter Annie, who had Trisomy 13. If a judge rules today that the case cannot be heard in small claims court, as expected, the Farlows have said they will withdraw their challenge for lack of funding.

Barbara Farlow has claimed that the hospital denied Annie proper treatment, issued a “do not resuscitate” order without her parents’ consent, and gave her a lethal dose of painkillers as part of  an unspoken policy to deny life-saving treatment in the case of infants with genetic disorders.

She says she wishes not to blame doctors but to provoke a broader discussion about the discriminatory policies used to treat children with disabilities.

[Barbara Farlow] said the trend in genetic screening for birth defects is “discriminatory,” in that people who choose to terminate genetically abnormal pregnancies are offered care and support, but those who choose not to are “on their own.” Once Annie was born, she alleges, she was falsely told doctors would provide life-saving care for her respiratory distress and other ailments related to Trisomy 13, when in fact, she alleges, they intended to let her die naturally.

Earlier posts here and here.

(Photo from the National Post)