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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

AUGUSTUS F. HAWKINS, California, Chairman

WILLIAM D. FORD, Michigan
JOSEPH M. GAYDOS, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM (BILL) CLAY, Missouri
GEORGE MILLER, California
AUSTIN J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania
DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
PAT WILLIAMS, Montana

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California
MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
CHARLES A. HAYES, Illinois
CARL C. PERKINS, Kentucky
THOMAS C. SAWYER, Ohio
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
NITA M. LOWEY, New York
GLENN POSHARD, Illinois

JOLENE UNSOELD, Washington

NICK JOE RAHALL II, West Virginia JAIME B. FUSTER, Puerto Rico PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana

JIM JONTZ, Indiana

KWEISI MFUME, Maryland

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania
E. THOMAS COLEMAN, Missouri
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
MARGE ROUKEMA, New Jersey
STEVE GUNDERSON, Wisconsin
STEVE BARTLETT, Texas
THOMAS J. TAUKE, Iowa
HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois
PAUL B. HENRY, Michigan
FRED GRANDY, Iowa

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
PETER SMITH, Vermont

TOMMY F. ROBINSON, Arkansas

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HEARING ON H.R. 2273, THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1989

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1989

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEES ON EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

AND SELECT EDUCATION,

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m. in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Major R. Owens [Chairman] and Hon. Matthew G. Martinez [Chairman] presiding. Members present: Representatives Owens, Martinez, Payne, Jontz, Bartlett, Ballenger, Smith, and Gunderson.

Staff present: Eric Jensen, staff director; Terry Deshler, legislative assistant/clerk, Employment Opportunities Subcommittee; and Bob Tate, Select Education Subcommittee.

Chairman MARTINEZ. Let me have your attention. I am calling the meeting to order. I am joined in the panel at this time by the chairman of the Select Education Subcommittee. Let it be announced at this time that this is a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Select Education and the Subcommittee on Employment Opportunities.

The hearing today is on the Americans With Disabilities Act. We will receive testimony on a bill that works toward eliminating the discrimination against the physically challenged. We are hopeful that its passage will enfranchise the rights of disabled in this country so that they might participate in the productivity of our country and become self-reliant.

However, we cannot take for granted the passage of this bill as there are obstacles. There are many in our communities who are naturally fearful of any cost or inconvenience this new law will create. However, the fact is that many states already provide this protection.

This bill enables the whole country to be governed under the same conditions as those states that have had the foresight to pass such legislation.

We then enfranchise the rights of all our citizens. Let me point out that as a nation, we should not be proud that it has taken us so long to work towards ending systematic oppression of the disabled in our country.

I am pleased that here in Congress we have finally gathered enough will and support to make an attempt to end the shunting of

our nation's citizens to the limbo of non-participation and dependency.

It is time that we stop this wastefulness. There are more than 43 million disabled in our society who are idle and dependant. With the American Disabilities Act, we can make a difference in their lives. Failure to take advantage of this opportunity robs our nation of a productive and enthusiastic human resource base.

This wastefulness not only burdens society with support payments, but perpetuates a tragedy of denying the aspirations of individuals who seek self-sufficiency and wish to join the mainstream of our society. By passing the Americans With Disabilities Act and insuring equal access to opportunity, we will have broken down one of the final barriers in our society to equal opportunity.

The Americans With Disabilities Act is a civil rights priority whose time has come. Now is the time to give to the disabled of our country back their personal and professional dignity.

I look forward to the testimonies given today. I will now turn to Major Owens for his opening statement and turn the meeting over to Major Owens.

Chairman OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I have no opening statement. I would like to note the fact that these hearings are being held at a time when we should be applauding the wisdom of the President and the leadership of the Senate.

Also, I would like to applaud the fact that the full Senate has passed a bill. We in no way, with these hearings, wish to impede the progress of the bill. We only offer these hearings as an opportunity for the people to add their wisdom so that we may be able to refine the bill in some way and make some adjustments which are important and productive. But, by all means, we want to move the bill and move it rapidly.

We want no impediments. We want no opportunities for those forces Neanderthal forces out there which are gathering-to in some way decimate the great qualities of the present Senate bill.

So, without any further comment, I want to welcome our first witness, Mr. Evan Kemp, the Commissioner of Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. Mr. Kemp.

STATEMENT OF EVAN KEMP, COMMISSIONER, EQUAL
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION

Mr. KEMP. Thank you, Mr. Owens. I am here today to talk about employment discrimination against people with disabilities. Twenty-six years ago, I was entering my last year at the University of Virginia Law School. I signed up for interviews with 39 of the top law firms in the country.

I had 39 interviews and 39 flat refusals. Several told me that the reason I was not being hired was that I was disabled.

Chairman OWENS. Could you talk just a little bit louder, Mr. Kemp?

Mr. KEMP. Others said that I wasn't hired because they feared that I would be discriminated in air travel. It was the most traumatic experience of my life and I found it devastating at that time.

Because of my uncle who was the late columnist, Drew Pearson, I did secure a job with the Internal Revenue Service. I started in

October of 1964 as a GS-5. Within less than seven years, I was a GS-15.

In 1971, I broke my leg because I was denied an accommodation, a very minor accommodation, at the Securities Exchange Commission.

It was interesting that I had the same degree of weakness I had before I broke my leg, but after that others perceived me quite differently. I was considered severely disabled afterwards because I had to use a wheelchair. The way I define "severely disabled" is a disability that able-bodied people think is so bad that they would rather be dead than have that disability.

I never got another grade increase at the SEC until they advertised for a job as a supervisor. I was told that I couldn't apply for a supervisor position because I was in a wheelchair. In 1977, I sued the government for denying me a supervisory position on that basis and won that case. In 1980, I left the government to become executive director of the Disability Rights Center.

There are several things that I notice even today that I consider to be discriminatory. One is that when people meet me, they don't assume that I work or have a job. It surprises them when I tell people that I am a commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They say, "Gosh, I didn't realize that was a part-time job. Do you meet four times a year?"

The other thing that I find rather shocking is that people do not listen to people with disabilities. They assume that they are mad at the world, that they haven't adjusted to being disabled, et cetera.

I think I can illustrate it with a couple of issues that have come before Congress in the last year. First, the question of paratransit. If people would listen to what disabled people say, would look at the studies, it wouldn't be a controversy.

Paratransit does not work for mainstreaming disabled people. It has never worked for getting people to a job. It is great for getting people to a doctor's appointment once a month, maybe to a shopping center, but it cannot work to mainstream people with disabilities.

If you talk to any disabled person, whether employed or not, they will tell you the same thing-people do not listen to disabled people.

Another example is that the first politician who listened to me, and I think to other disabled people, was George Bush and it impressed me so much that I left a very strong Democratic family and converted to the Republican party.

Through 1982, I had always voted the straight Democratic ticket. Since then, I have voted the straight Republican ticket.

Another illustration of not listening to disabled people is my experience with wheelchairs. I ended up in a wheelchair after I broke my leg at the SEC and I found that it didn't meet my needs.

I gathered the information that was used by the Justice Department in an anti-trust suit against Everst & Jennings. The U.S. government won that case in 1979, but there was no second, no rival to Everst & Jennings.

I got a group together and we purchased a run-down, second-rate wheelchair company. The only thing that we did differently is that we listened to disabled people.

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