AAPD meets with Attorney General

From Andrew Imparato, AAPD President and CEO:

Last week, nine representatives from the disability community met with Attorney General Eric Holder at the U.S. Department of Justice to go over our priorities for the Department under his leadership. The meeting was a follow-up to the brief meeting that the Attorney General, President Obama, and Secretary of Labor Solis had with disability community representatives at the White House on July 24. At the meeting last week, the disability advocates divided our priorities into three broad categories:

1) Leadership role of the Attorney General;
2) Enforcement priorities; and
3) Access to justice issues.

Under the first category, we brought up the importance of the Attorney General using his bully pulpit to frame disability issues as civil rights and human rights issues at their core. Whether talking about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, access to communications and information technology, or the ability to live outside an institution, the Attorney General has the ability to help the public understand how discrimination against people with disabilities is morally and legally linked to other forms of discrimination and should not be tolerated in this country or around the world. Also under this agenda item, we mentioned the importance of greater consistency across the Department of Justice on disability rights issues, specifically referencing the issue of the Civil Division, Antitrust Division, or the Office of the Solicitor General sometimes taking positions in cases involving disabled people that are not consistent with the positions taken by the Civil Rights Division. Finally, we touched on the importance of the Department of Justice leading by example in its approach to the recruitment and retention of workers with disabilities, noting the DOJ is currently the second worst cabinet agency in the percentage of workers with targeted disabilities according to the latest statistics from the EEOC.

Under the second category, we described the importance of a reinvigorated approach to enforcement of ADA and other civil rights laws protecting children and adults with disabilities, explicitly referencing the need for stronger enforcement of the right to community integration under the Olmstead v. L.C. Supreme Court decision and the need to shift departmental priorities from creating better institutions to creating community services for people with disabilities. On this point, we asked for DOJ to assert the kind of strong leadership role that it did historically in the area of school desegregation. We also discussed stronger enforcement of the right to equal access to information and communication technology under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the ADA, and other laws; the right to be free of abuse and neglect under multiple laws; and the right to vote privately and independently under the Help America Vote Act.

Under the third category, we emphasized the need for stronger leadership from the Department of Justice that will improve the interactions between law enforcement and the criminal and civil legal system and people with disabilities. We described the ongoing challenges many people with disabilities have in their interactions with law enforcement and corrections personnel who have not been adequately trained in how to interact appropriately with people who are deaf or have a hearing loss, people with epilepsy, people with psychiatric disabilities, and other disability groups. We noted the problems many law students and lawyers have in getting accommodations on the LSAT, in law school, on the bar exam, and in the legal profession. We emphasized the problems that our community has experienced with federal judges who have misinterpreted the ADA and other disability laws, and the need to have disability records more carefully vetted as part of the judicial nomination selection process. On this last point, we offered to work with the Administration to identify strong candidates for judicial nominations from the disability community.

We closed by thanking the Attorney General for his willingness to serve as a disability rights champion within the Administration, and suggesting the value of him appointing a senior level adviser on disability issues who would work out of his office and ensure greater consistency and coordination around disability law and policy issues across the Department. During our discussion of this potential new position, we acknowledged the important work of the Disability Rights Section within the Department’s Civil Rights Division in understanding and addressing our issues, but pointed out that this one department could not be solely responsible for all issues related to the integration and civil rights of people with disabilities, which had to be incorporated into practice and policy across all the divisions of DOJ. The Attorney General expressed a desire to have regular meetings to check-in on the Department’s progress, and thanked the advocates for our time and ideas. Overall, the disability advocates in attendance were very impressed with the Attorney General and look forward to working with him and his colleagues at the Department to follow up on the issues raised in the meeting.

Attending the meeting for the Department of Justice, in addition to Attorney General Holder, was Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Loretta King; Sam Hirsch, Deputy Associate General Counsel; Monty Wilkinson, Counselor to the Attorney General, and Margaret Johnson, Special Assistant to the Attorney General. Attending the meeting from the disability community were Tony Coelho; Curt Decker, National Disability Rights Network; Sandy Finucane, Epilepsy Foundation of America; Steve Gold, ADAPT; Marilyn Golden, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund; Andy Imparato, American Association of People with Disabilities; Jennifer Mathis, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law; Dr. Marc Mauer, National Federation of the Blind; and Jeff Rosen for NAD and Snap!VRS.