Report Card: The Americans with Disabilities Act Tenth Anniversary

"Report Card" is a penetrating analysis of ten years of life under the Americans with Disabilities Act. When President Bush signed the ADA on the White House lawn on July 26, 2000, hopes were high for improvement in the lives of disabled Americans everywhere. Were the promises met? "Report Card" surveys the major events of the decade, and the grades are mixed. While unemployment is still disgracefully high among disabled people, there has been real progress in housing, travel by plane, train or bus, and access to state and city facilities and private establishments such as restaurants, theaters and the like. The book examines related subjects such as Special Ed, stem cell research promising new advances in medical science, computer technology and major court decisions involving civil rights for disabled people by various factions of the cold, conservative right, the issue of assisted suicide, the successes, failures and civil disobedience of ADAPT and the accelerating trend toward community living rather than nursing home incarceration. The book describes in detail the issue of the constitutionality of ADA itself, an important issue that has been decided in federal courts of appeal with diverse results, and seems likely to be decided by the Supreme Court, with revolutionary and possibly ominous consequences.