#handsoffmyada

This is a little lengthy, but please bare with me -- this is incredibly important to me as someone with a physical disability and multiple mental illnesses, who regularly relies on the ADA to be able to function in society. If you need an image description, scroll to the bottom of this.

HR620 is a bill that just passed the House of Representatives and is now heading for the senate, that will essentially gut the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA for short). Under the guise of protecting businesses, HR620 will essentially remove the threat of a lawsuit for businesses not complying with the ADA. Instead of having the right to legal action, disabled people who encounter barriers to accommodations to "write a letter to the business owner", and wait a grand total of 180 days before they can actually take action. No other civil rights laws require a lengthy wait in order to legally object to discrimination. This bill makes it almost comically clear how much the government doesn't view disabled people as actual human beings -- inaccessibility is seen as an inconvenience, and not a danger to our safety and something that further excludes us from society, and lawmakers are vastly more concerned with the rights of "businesses" as a population than actual disabled people.

From a personal standpoint, HR620 stands to take away so many parts of my life. ADA-mandated accommodations are the only reason I am able to attend school, plain and simple. Over the summer, I was able to have my dream job because I could commute to Philadelphia by train, because I knew that accessible seating would be available, and when you use forearm crutches, it's a necessity. When I run errands, travel, or go in public for any reason, I trust that I will be able to find an accessible bathroom. I like to go to coffee shops and cafes with friends to hang out and do schoolwork, and I can because the ADA ensures that I have the right to access these places.

HR620 makes it clear that the government doesn't really think I have a right to be in public, and that that's really just a luxury. This further pushes disabled people like me to stay out of public, to become even more invisible, to let the public convince themselves that we do not really exist, so that the government can continue to make us second-class citizens with impunity.

Now that this bill is heading for the senate, you need to act to help defend this. If you care even the slightest bit about me and other disabled people having rights and getting to live semi-normal lives, you need to help stop this bill. So what can you do? Call your senator -- especially if they are in support of the bill, but even if they're against HR620, you should call to tell them you appreciate their support. If phone calls make you nervous, visit https://5calls.org/issue/americans-with-disabilities-act-ada -- this gives you a script for what to say to your senator, and you can just read off of it and hang up. If in-person protests to HR620 are happening near you, attend them. At disability rights protests, disabled activists endure extreme dehumanization in the form of having our mobility aids removed -- we need abled bodies there to defend our rights. Especially considering how many disabled people who, like me, grapple with fatigue that might prevent them from taking part in protests. Finally -- make noise. Tell the people around you about HR620. Share this post or make your own. The government wants you to forget that disabled people are real human beings who exist -- don't let yourself or the people around you forget.

Thanks for reading this behemoth of a post -- I promise you I wouldn't be making this post if HR620 doesn't really stand to endanger the rights of myself and other disabled people.

If you want to do some more reading: http://www.ndrn.org/…/Overview_of_concerns_on_H.R._620_-_Fe… https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/620 https://www.aclu.org/…/hr-620-myths-and-truths-about-ada-ed…

Justice Department withdraws review of ADA access at Harris County polling sites #CripTheVote #HandsOffMyADA #HR620 http://ow.ly/wZSj30iRgGg  

Ugh. Yesterday congress voted to pass HR 620 - a bill which significantly undermines the Americans with Disabilities Act. You can read more about the bill here) and you can see how your reps voted on this issue here.

In this context, it feels totally absurd to offer you stickers. But I do think Disability Pride is critical and stickers are what I have available in this moment so here we are. I'm quite fond of them. This sheet is 4x6" (so each sticker is fairly small - hopefully small enough to fit on your wheelchair if you have one). If you're disabled and broke right now and you really want one shoot me a message with your address and I'll send one your way. ;)

For the sake of transparency, in a small run these cost me $3.20 each to print, I'm selling them for $5 and donating $1 of each sale of these to National ADAPT. If you have the means to support financially, you could also make a donation to National ADAPT (www.adapt.org) or the Disability Community Resource Center (https://www.dcrc.co/) who are both doing grassroots organizing to fight this bill and support disabled folks. If you'd also like to support my work, feel free to buy a bunch of these for your disabled buds so I can print more and give some away, or buy other things from my site.<3 Thanks for your attention and support, tender beings!

To order these stickers or see my other work, please visit www.haleybrown.org.

So. HR620 passed the House. That's really bad for the disability community, and we should all be upset about it. But what is HR620, and why is it so harmful? And what can we do about it?

(TL;DR: HR620 makes it difficult to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA). That shuts people with disabilities out of public life even more than we already are. It's in Congress' hands right now, but we can do our damn best to make sure it never passes the Senate.).

HR620, also known as the ADA Education and Reform Act, is a bill that would require written notice of an ADA violation and a significant waiting period before an ADA lawsuit can be filed. This is important because right now the only enforcement of the ADA is through lawsuits. Yeah. The major civil rights legislation for PwD is only enforced through lawsuits. Now HR620 is trying to make it harder to do that.

Proponents of the bill say it's needed so that businesses can "have more time" to follow the law. The ADA has been around since the 1990s. That's almost 30 years. How much more time do they need?

Another reason people are supporting the bill is to reduce "frivolous lawsuits for money". Except there are a couple problems with that. One: you can't be awarded money for an ADA lawsuit. The only thing that can come out of an ADA lawsuit is forcing them to make the building ADA compliant.

Second, most of these "frivolous lawsuits" and "minor violations" aren't so minor after all. A few inches in the doorway can be the difference between a wheelchair user getting through the door or being stuck outside. A ramp slightly too steep can make it impossible to use. These are the things businesses are calling frivolous so that they don't have to follow a thirty year old law.

So what happens if the ADAERA goes into effect? The big thing is that people with disabilities would have to wait 120 days to begin the process of filing a lawsuit after providing the correct notification. Not everybody has 120 days to wait. Many architectural barriers are urgent and time-sensitive. Waiting 120 days effectively makes it impossible to sue to fix those.

It would also become harder to sue without a lawyer. This will make it especially difficult for people in rural areas, low income people, people of color, and anyone who is already discriminated against in the legal system. Many people will likely not be able to sue at all due to not being able to get a lawyer.

The ADA would become the only rights bill in the U.S. to have this kind of mandatory waiting period.

All of this will lead to shutting disabled people out of public life. When something is inaccessible, when we can't access it, then we can't engage in public life the way anyone else can. This will threaten our independence and interdependence. This will take away our ability to connect with our communities.

This won't only affect people with disabilities (though, let me be clear: we are the primary target here). Have you ever heard of the curb cutter effect? When the ADA mandated curb cuts in the 90s, people with disabilities weren't the only ones to benefit. People with wheeled luggage, grocery carts, strollers, and all kinds of things also benefited from the cut curbs. This works in reverse too. Something that takes away access from people with disabilities will undoubtedly also take away access from nondisabled people.

So. HR620 passed the House. What can we do about it?

Right now, there is no Senate version of this bill. That's a good thing for now, but there will be a Senate version soon. When that happens, we need to do everything we can to stop it from going through. Lobbying, public demonstration, everything we have in our arsenal as a community needs to come out for this.

They could contine to keep their buildings inaccessible for people like me and many of my friends, which limits the things we are able to do in the real world. #HandsOffMyADA #NoHR620 #HR620

Read more about the harm this bill will do to people with disabilities.

1. The bill’s proponents have forgotten the everyday experiences of millions of ordinary people with disabilities who cannot shop, enjoy recreation, or transact personal business like most Americans take for granted.

>> For example, why should a wheelchair user be unable to join her family at a restaurant, just because the owner has resisted installing a ramp for the past 27 years? Such things happen to many people with disabilities every day. <<

2. When business owners have resisted the ADA for over 27 years, sometimes a lawsuit is the only way to make the ADA’s promise of equal participation real. Even so, if you examine the court records, there really are very few ADA cases.

3. The ADA is carefully crafted to take the needs of business owners into account. Compliance is simply not exorbitantly expensive. But this bill would remove any reason for a business to comply. Instead, they can take a “wait and see” attitude, and do nothing until they happen to be sued.

4. HR 620 requires a person with a disability to give a business owner who has barriers to access a written notice, and 60 days to even acknowledge that there is a problem—and then another 120 days to begin to fix it. No other civil rights group is forced to wait 180 days to enforce their civil rights.

5. HR 620 calls for education by the Department of Justice. But there are already extensive efforts, including by DOJ and the ADA Centers, to educate business owners about their ADA obligations. Businesses that violate the ADA should be held accountable.

6. Concerns about money damage awards are behind this bill. But that has nothing to do with the ADA, because the ADA does not allow money damages. Such damages are only available under a handful of state laws. This bill will do nothing to prevent damage awards under state laws.

7. Accessibility standards, such as those the ADA includes, are extremely important. They are not minor details, but rather, are essential to ensure true accessibility.

8. Concerns about serial litigants are also behind this bill. However, courts already have the power to deal with frivolous litigants and their attorneys.

9. It is troubling how this bill blames people with disabilities for public accommodations' failure to comply with the ADA. Why should people with disabilities pay the price of an inaccessible environment, where we cannot live our lives like everyone else? The true blame belongs on the heads of business owners who have delayed for 27 years and done nothing to comply with the ADA.

Just got my new voting info in the mail, and stuff like this? This is why the ADA is so fucking important and why we cannot allow it to be eroded.

Always be wary when some asshole tries to frame this fight as “oh, disabled people want to hurt small businesses and destroy historic architecture, they want special privileges, they’re lawyer-happy”. That’s just trying to distract you from what the ADA really does. It ensures that we can go to school and become educated and informed about our rights. It ensures that we can attain jobs and control our own finances. It ensures that we can go to doctors for life-saving medicine and procedures. It ensures that we have the ability to vote out politicians who do not vote in our best interests. It ensures not only our equal place in society, but our equal share of power.