I’ve always said – we are all one step away from being disabled, either by age, by accident, disease or war – Or by our relationship to our loved ones one step away from poverty – because that’s how it stands in America.

For some reason we all think we are impervious, yperfect and forever young.

Our policies reflect this basic total denial of our collective vulnerability and interdependance.

But we go on pretending that we are rugged individuals perpetually able to conquer all in our paths.

Even to the degree to which some of us refuse to acknowledge the impact of disabilities we ourselves have!

And as caretaking is women’s work it seems – it t is perpetually set at ZERO monetary value. People wonder why women’s wages are lower, it is precisely because we do and are expected to be the one to take the more flexible job, to run home when someone is sick, to take the long leaves of unpaid work – THAT is why.

As long as we pretend that we are complete and free individuals making free choices – or allow ideologues to frame our lives that way – the problem will not be understood much less addressed.

Anyway – thank you again for a great post!!

You mentioned ADA-realted issues, but I’d like to bring up the fact that the Fair Housing Act is supposed to protect disabled people from discriminatin in housing, and extend ADA-like protections—such as ‘reasonable accommodations’—into rental housing.

It’s supposed to—but it doesn’t. The GAO published several reports on HUD/FHEO non-enforcement, as did the National Council on Disability (NCD’s report ‘Reconstructing Fair Housing’, is available online; GAO reports can be found by searching their website).

Only thing is—foolish me!—I didn’t read those reports before bringing a Fair Housing Act disability-related civil rights conplaint against my HUD Project-based Section 8 landlord. After more than a year, the state enforcement agency has still managed to keep from entering any meaningful evidence into my case file. That didn’t prevent them from arriving at a baseless decision, and from otherwise depriving me of rights (such as due process and equal access to justice) and attempting to dupe me into forfeiting additional rights (such as free speech).

I’ve recently (ie last week) begun to document my experiences with HUD’s Fair Housing Act non-enforcement at http://acitizenprose.wordpress.com . It’s only a first step , but I hope to contribute to the welfare of other disabled people by developing this website as a ‘witness’ to HUD’s failure to enforce the Fair Housing Act.

Good point, Mitzi—and I should have noted that I’m also uncomfortable with the idea that we’re going to “fight” autism. It ain’t smallpox. But as I noted when one of my students pointed out that we have a 5K “Autism – Race for the Cure” event here in central PA, I do acknowledge (with a sigh) that it’s soundbitier to speak of “fighting” autism and “racing for the cure” than to speak of “living with autism” and “racing for the reasonable accommodation.”

I am not a lawyer, but I have spent some time helping people with SSI cases.

The ADA and the Social Security Act do not converge at all; they offer contrary definitions of disability. People covered under the ADA are presumed capable to function fully in society—most significantly, they are presumed able to work if reasonable accommodations are made.

To be found disabled by Social Security, one must prove one’s incompetence. The first rule is that the claimant must not be engaged in “Substantial Gainful Activity.” SGA, in 2008, is $940 a month. The remainder of the process of proving disability is showing that there is no way the claimant could get a job making that much money. (And as the prize, you get a maximum benefit of $637 a month.)

Here’s a simple summary of the Social Security process.

Wow, a concern troll for the ages. That took a full step into genuinely offensive.

Call me an optimist, but I don’t think ‘people with disabilities’ evokes the same sentiment as ‘people on welfare’ even amongst those individuals who recoil at the sound of that W-word and would openly embrace the use of the word ‘scrounging’ in that context. There may be a few truly sociopathic types who equate the former with the straw-man latter, but those sociopaths are rightfully marginalized and they don’t significantly influence the discourse.

Isn’t this part of the newspeak though – talking about disability equates to welfare scroungers, so you have to reframe any disability related project in other terms, like ‘think of the children’, or ‘support the troops’, or the like.

Apparently the best place to work in Cambridge University if you are in a wheelchair is the Mathematics Institute. Stephen Hawking you see.

PS: Preview still broken.

Alcoholism and other addictions have an ambiguous status under Canadian disability law as well, though chronic health conditions, including mental health issues like depression,are well recognised. We have fewer of the health care issues, of course (for all its flaws, I would never, ever trade the Canadian health care system for yours. really, this is one of the things that makes us such a smug, self righteous little people). But disability is going to become an increasingly important issue as the aging population realises it’s mostly “temporarily abled.” I’m very glad you brought it up.

At Iowa, my sense is that while I may not be directly obligated to accommodate students with disabilities, my contract requires that I work with the disabilities support office. This means that the students have to have contacted the office, done the proper documentation, and worked with the office on a plan. I’ve been in meetings with the director of the office, and he seems on fire for the students he works with and the individual counsellors/advisors know the students I’ve worked with quite well.

Still, there’s an onus on the students to recruit the office’s help, and some of them are just getting to the point where they realize they need help. The stigma doesn’t help them there. So I know there are students who struggle who don’t get the help until too late. Or latish, anyway.

And of course, this doesn’t begin to chart the moral and professional obligations we have to our students, regardless of the letter of the law.

Rimmer: Kryten, you’re forgetting about Space Corps Directive 1742!
Kryten: 1742? “No member of the Corps should ever report for duty in a ginger toupee.” Well, thank you for reminding me about that regulation but I can’t see how it is pertinent to our present situation.
Rimmer: 1743, then!
Kryten: Oh, I see. “No registered vessel should attempt to transverse an asteroid belt without deflectors.”
Rimmer: Yes! God, he’s pedantic!

Rimmer: Need I remind you of Space Corps Directive 34124?
Kryten: 34124? “No crewmember with false teeth should attempt oral sex in zero-gravity”?

Rimmer: That’s it. I’m invoking Space Corps Directive 68250.
Kryten: 68250? But sir, surely that’s impossible without at least one live chicken and a rabbi.
Rimmer: Forget it. Forget I was ever born.
Kryten: But, sir, I’m very happy to perform the ceremony, but I’m absolutely bewildered as to how sacrificing poultry might clear up the screen problem.

Rimmer: [to a Rogue Simulant] I don’t know who you are, but boarding this vessel is an act of war, ergo we surrender! And as prisoners of war, I invoke the All Nations Agreement article number 39436175880932/B.
Kryten: 39436175880932/B? “All nations attending the conference are only allocated one car parking space?” Is that entirely relevant, sir? I mean, here we are in mortal danger and you’re worried about the Chinese delegates bringing two cars.

Quite so.

Alas, insofar as drug-dependent folks are concerned, that conundrum is one we can’t blame on the Court; it’s a part of the statute itself. See 42 U.S.C. § 12114(a) (people who’re currently using “illegal drugs” don’t count as having a disability).

With respect to alcoholism, things are a little more complicated. While current alcoholism can indeed qualify as a disability, alcoholics can lawfully be “held to the same qualification standards” as non-alcoholics. See 42 U.S.C. § 12114©(4). So, in the end, you’re right: they’re screwed too.

If I have my legislative history right, I believe we have Jesse Helms to thank for this statutory grotesquerie. Thanks, Jesse!