The July 26 anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act is an important occasion for all Americans. Former president George H.W. Bush, when he signed the ADA into law, declared that the shameful wall of societyƵs exclusion of the disabled should come down.
As a government economist, I saw the ƵshamefulƵ exclusion firsthand when managers forced my colleagues into early retirement due to a disability. These retirement decisions were based more on managementƵs bias against the disabled than health concerns. Though I had no disability, I also experienced disability discrimination.
My daughter, Alex, was born with a cardiac disability. Soon after her birth, nurses recognized that Alex had a circulatory problem. Alex was transferred to Georgetown University Hospital, where cardiac surgeons diagnosed transposition of the arteries in her small heart.
Alex required immediate cardiac surgery. Based on the enormity of the cardiac problem and the smallness of Alex, I did not believe she would survive the long and complicated surgery.
Alex survived her heart surgery that morning in 1989, the year before the ADA was signed into law. She endured several other surgeries but required a lengthy recovery period.
I was in the Foreign Service, which by outdated law required only Ƶable-bodiedƵ diplomats with Ƶable-bodiedƵ families. Senior diplomats said Alex would be an Ƶinsurance burdenƵ to the government. They meant that Alex would be a management burden to them.
Senior diplomats removed me from the Foreign Service to a lesser job in the Civil Service. I was demoted due to my daughterƵs disability. I filed a disability discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Several senators, including Charles Grassley of Iowa, moved to make the State Department comply with all provisions of the ADA. I argued that my demotion was unlawful under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which specifically barred discrimination in government employment based on a personƵs association with a disabled person. The ADA had a similar provision.
Congress intended that federal agencies comply with the Rehab Act and the ADA. Arrogant senior diplomats disregarded both laws. Their sole reason, stated in writing, for defying the laws was that Alex would be an insurance burden to them. Imagine senior U.S. diplomats telling a fellow diplomat that their daughter was a burden to the government! It was the senior diplomats who were burdens to the United States.
I fought my demotion from the Foreign Service. I felt that Alex would grow to be an adult with a disability. I thought she might face less discrimination when I won my case for her.
Since childhood, my family taught me to respect the disabled. My mom was named Helen in honor of Alabamian Helen Keller, born deaf and blind. My parents and grandparents taught me that all people have challenges to overcome.
I also learned to respect the disabled from Sunday School lessons. In the Old Testament, when the Jews left Egypt for the Holy Land, they proudly took the aged and disabled. All people had value in the Holy Land. As an adult, I determined that, regardless of what senior diplomats at the State Department said, my disabled daughter had value in America.
My fight with the State Department lasted three years, 1992 to 1995. Senior diplomats changed their Ƶfinal,Ƶ Ƶnon-appealableƵ and ƵirreversibleƵ discriminatory decision on Monday, Jan. 23, 1995. Why did they reverse their ƵirreversibleƵ decision?
On Sunday, Jan. 22, the New York Times ran a 950-word article about the ƵirreversibleƵ decision by the arrogant State Department diplomats who called my daughter an Ƶinsurance burden.Ƶ The next day, I immediately went from being a pariah in the workplace to being an accepted disability rights activist.
After AlexƵs case was settled, the State Department could not reject a qualified candidate with a disability or a disabled dependent from the Foreign Service regardless of the severity of the disability. This was my daughterƵs gift to the Department of State. Senior diplomats learned that disability had nothing to do with ability. It was a lesson I learned from Helen Keller and Sunday School.
Alex lived to be 17. She was a brave and beautiful young woman. She was never a burden to her parents or her country. It is the wrong-minded senior U.S. diplomats who are burdens to America.
Time and chance make people. The ADA and Alex were born about the same time. Both made significant contributions to disability rights.
James Patterson is a writer in Washington. He is not the well-known author of best-selling popular fiction. He wrote this column for .
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