Despite Concerns, Administration Backs Sweeping Civil Rights Bill for Disabled

The Bush Administration, declaring that many disabled persons “lead their lives in an intolerable state of isolation and dependence,” on Thursday declared its support, with some reservations, for a sweeping measure to extend key civil rights protections to those with disabilities.

“We must end the anomaly of widely protecting women and minorities from discrimination, while failing to provide parallel protection for people with disabilities,” Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh told the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.

“Persons with disabilities are still too often shut out of the economic and social mainstream of American life,” Thornburgh said.

Comparisons With Reagan

The Administration support was hailed by disabled rights lobbyists, who contrasted it with what they said was silence from the Ronald Reagan Administration on an earlier measure. There are more than 36 million disabled people in the United States.

Spectators, many of them in wheelchairs, jammed the committee room for the hearing and sign language interpreters relayed the testimony to the deaf.

The bill, which has 43 Senate co-sponsors, would:

--Ban job discrimination against the disabled in businesses with at least 15 employees. The protection covers those who, though handicapped, otherwise are qualified for the job. (Federal law currently bans such discrimination in federal agencies or for those receiving federal funds.)

--Require employers to make reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities, unless to do so would pose an undue hardship.

--Outlaw discrimination against the disabled in places of public accommodations. The definition of such places would be broadened beyond the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act’s provisions for restaurants and hotels to include doctors’ offices, supermarkets and drugstores. Access for the disabled would be required in any new structures, while for existing facilities only “readily achievable” structural changes would be required.

--Require wheelchair lifts in new buses and special provisions by telephone companies to enable the deaf to communicate with regular telephone users.

Contagious Disease Issue

The bill covers those with AIDS. It states that a person with a contagious disease or infection may be denied a job or benefit only if the employer can demonstrate that the person poses a significant health risk in the workplace or job site. If no reasonable accommodation by the employer can eliminate such a risk, the individual may be denied the position or benefit.

Thornburgh expressed concern that the bill might go beyond the definition of public accommodations used in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying that “we should make sure when we’re sailing into unknown waters what the perils are.”

He also questioned the bill’s provision of punitive damages to be used as a means of enforcement. “We are a litigious society, and, with a lot of people, the first thing they want to do is sue somebody.”

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the bill’s principal sponsor, contended that litigation is more likely without the provision for damages, which would make compliance harder to achieve. In support of his position, he cited the damage provisions added by Congress last year to the Fair Housing Act. But Thornburgh noted that the fair housing provisions were added only after 20 years of experience with that law.

Thornburgh said that the standard of “readily achievable” alterations in public accommodations required under the measure is “an undefined term” and said he preferred that changes not be required if they might cause “an undue financial and administrative burden,” the standard used in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Thornburgh questioned the impact that the bill would have on small businesses. He said he favors a standard that would apply the law to firms with more than 15 employees.

“Because small businesses have limited financial resources, they do not have the advantage of spreading the costs of accommodations over a large payroll,” he said.

Despite the Administration’s reservations, lobbyists for the disabled said that they were pleased by Thornburgh’s testimony. After negotiations on a final version, passage of the disabled rights act seems likely this year.

“I don’t see any potential major areas of disagreement,” said Pat A. Wright, who heads the Washington office of the Disabled Rights, Education and Defense Fund.

Evan Kemp Jr., a wheelchair-bound member of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said: “It’s an historic day. This is the first Administration that has ever taken a disability bill seriously.”

Several of those testifying had personal reasons for a keen interest in the legislation. Harkin has a deaf brother and nephew who is a quadriplegic. Thornburgh’s son, Peter, suffered injuries in an automobile accident that left him mentally retarded.