Today that wheelchair company is the leading wheelchair manufacturer in this country. We have made money every year. Everst & Jennings has not made money any year domestically since we took over Invacare.

Everst & Jennings still will not go and talk to disabled people. They are still making chairs that they think will satisfy disabled people, but which don't.

I think in closing I'd like to say that the ADA is a monumental bill. Basically, it's turning around a policy that has been dominant for a number of years, that is the segregation of disabled people into a dependency relationship.

It is saying that we want disabled people independent. We want them having control of their own lives and that is quite a statement.

I remember in one of the meetings at the White House, a person who was opposed to ADA stood up and said, "Who had the bright idea of taking disabled people out of the charity pity model and put them in the civil rights model?" I think that really explains what this bill is all about.

If I can answer any questions, feel free to ask them.

[The prepared statement of Evan J. Kemp, Jr. follows:]

TESTIMONY OF

EVAN J. KEMP, JR., COMMISSIONER

U. S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION

BEFORE THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEES ON SELECT

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

SEPTEMBER 13, 1989 AT 10:00 A.M.

I am here today not as a Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but as a person with a disability.

I am

100% for the Americans With Disabilities Act. But there are those who ask "Does it make economic sense to integrate disabled people into society?" Other people inquire "How many disabled people are there really?" While others ask "Does it really matter? Isn't medical science going to cure most disabling conditions?" disabled people and nondisabled and politician and nonpoliticians have all asked these questions many times.

Both

To answer these questions and others, I have found it necessary and helpful to have a philosophical framework to work from. I would like to share it with you.

The disability rights movement addresses the problems of all our citizens who are different in some respect from what society considers to be an acceptable American: the 28 year old, 5'10",

2

160 lb, male WASP with no physical or mental impairments. I believe that the problems encountered in employment, education, and access to transportation and other public facilities by the physically and mentally disabled are but newsworthy examples of the real, but private, frustrations many of our nondisabled citizens face in these same areas every day.

The disability community seems at times to be a cacophony of voices. Beneath the clamor and confusion there is a common philosophical thread which unites the disabled and places them in the vanguard, in calling for modifications and adjustments to our technology and institutions, in order to make them work for all Americans. Opening society will improve the quality of life not

only for the disabled but for all our people.

Moreover, our country will be increasingly less able to afford our present welfare and support systems for the disabled. They often foster dependence instead of independence. The desire of disabled people to be integrated into society, and the need for social programs to serve only the truly needy, are each advanced by the independence movement of disabled people.

The mythical American made the United States the strongest economic power in the world. Henry Ford made one automobile to fit the mythical American and employed mythical Americans to build it.

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At the height of our industrial revolution, we were so enamored of the mythical American that we forced 15% of the population that was left-handed to become right-handed. With mass production, it was more economical to make all right-handed scissors than to manufacture 85% for the right-handed and 15% for southpaws. Those Americans who deviated too far from the mythical American were excluded from society and sent to special schools, workshops, institutions, or kept at home in the closet.

sheltered

There was

a cost to society in excluding people who were different, but it was minor in comparison to the economic benefits our industrial era brought us. By the 1980s, one dollar in every 12 that the Federal .Government spent was a direct payment to a disabled person or to a disability program. What had started out as a minor cost had

escalated into a major drain on our economy.

But the new economic era described by Toffler, Nesbit, and others, no longer needs the model or concept of the mythical American. Products and jobs can be tailored to the individual. Disabled people can be employed by the new high-tech industries which are beginning to dominate so much of our society.

For the first time in memory, the jobs are there for disabled people. But the biggest barrier disabled people face in securing these jobs is attitudinal. The cost of these attitudinal barriers is immense.

The cost to society of excluding just those disabled

people of working age is estimated by the U.S. Department of Labor to be $300 billion a year.

Many transit systems installed escalators when building their facilities. Escalators can be dangerous. There are 60,000 reported injuries a year on escalators in the United States alone. Half of the people over 45 have sight problems that make escalator riding dangerous for them. They use or are in need of bifocals. Children who use escalators are at a high risk, especially in the winter time.

Elevators are available for the disabled. Unfortunately, they break down often and at a rate the general public would find intolerable. For example, many elevators in the District of Columbia Metrorail system "are not operational because they have broken down and have not been repaired in a timely manner." Paralyzed veterans of America v. Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, No. 776-72-LFO, Slip op. at 1 (D.D.c. Oct. 19, 1988).

When these systems were designed, if they had been designed for all ages and not just for the mythical American, there would be escalators for less than half the people in our society, and elevators for the majority of people--those over 45 with sight problems; for the elderly; for children; for pregnant women; for adults with strollers; for people using wheelchairs; for those with