News Analysis: High Court Decision to Have Major Impact on Disability Rights
Feature Story by Jim Ward - 1/13/2004
Note: Jim Ward is president of ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights.The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could determine whether Tennessee officials will be allowed to block the doors Congress meant to open for people who have disabilities.
Instead of directing the state to bring Tennessee's county courthouses into compliance with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Atty. Gen. Paul Summers has chosen to fight a lower-court ruling and challenge the constitutionality of the ADA.
On Jan. 13, the court will hear arguments in Tennessee's appeal of a lower-court ruling that allowed 1998 lawsuits filed by two people to go forward. Both individuals had been denied wheelchair access to courtrooms or other facilities in county courthouses. At issue in the lawsuits is whether Congress had the authority to require states to pay monetary damages for violations of Title II of the ADA, which prohibits discrimination in the provision of public services.
A ruling in favor of Tennessee's position that the states are protected from such lawsuits would deliver a cruel blow to the rights and opportunities safeguarded by the 1990 ADA.
The state will base its legal arguments at the Supreme Court on the tainted doctrine of states' rights under the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although the scope of that amendment has expanded over the years, it originally was written to protect states from lawsuits "by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state."
But it was two Tennesseans who brought the lawsuits that challenged the state's enforcement of courthouse access for disabled people.
One of them is George Lane, a Benton, Tenn., resident who lost a leg in an auto accident in the mid-1990s. When he was summoned to appear in the Polk County Courthouse as a defendant in a criminal case, Lane was forced to crawl up two flights of stairs to the courtroom because the courthouse lacked an elevator or other ADA-required accommodations.
When a second hearing was scheduled, Lane came to the courthouse and sent word to the judge that he was there, but he refused to crawl or be carried up the stairs again. He filed his lawsuit after officials arrested him for failing to appear in court.
Beverly Jones of Lafayette, Tenn., is a court reporter who relies on a wheelchair. She filed suit after several requests for wheelchair accommodations in four county courthouses were ignored and she was forced to allow a judge to carry her into a courthouse restroom.
The Supreme Court cannot erase the lingering memory of such degrading incidents, but it can help ensure that other Americans - wherever they live - can perform their jobs and attend court proceedings without enduring similar indignities.
A Supreme Court decision three years ago in another case said state employees cannot use the ADA to seek damages for discrimination in the workplace. The 5-4 vote in that case, University of Alabama Board of Trustees vs. Garrett, reveals that the high court is deeply divided on the issue, but if Tennessee's legal challenge succeeds, it will strike another major blow to the law.
As the nine justices weigh the arguments in the Tennessee case, they must remember that laws are much more than words. Fundamentally, laws are about people.
In deciding to appeal to the Supreme Court, state officials are ignoring the needs of their disability community and the views of the country. Last summer a Harris poll revealed that 88 percent of Americans support the ADA's goal of making public places more accessible to people with disabilities.
Sadly, the Supreme Court case puts Tennessee on a collision course with the ADA and the millions of people in all 50 states whose lives have been enriched by the law. It would be tragic if Tennessee's proud legacy were tarnished by being known as the state that turned back the clock on this progress.
