Payan v. Los Angeles Community College District

/in , , , , , , /by Evan Monod

Filed: November 8, 2024

Court: U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Overview: Amicus brief explaining that the availability of compensatory damages and broad injunctive relief is essential in safeguarding the rights of people with disabilities under the ADA, and in fulfilling Congress’s goal of promoting inclusion and ending discrimination.

Excerpt: “The availability of comprehensive remedies under Title II serves essential functions beyond merely compensating individuals who have been subjected to discrimination. These remedies play a crucial role in achieving Congress’s broader goals in enacting the ADA and ensuring the statute’s effectiveness as a tool for eliminating disability discrimination in American society. Discrimination can inflict a complex web of injuries on people with
disabilities, ranging from immediate economic losses to long-term limitations on educational and professional opportunities, as well as dignitary harms that affect one’s ability to participate fully in society. Comprehensive remedies acknowledge this reality and provide courts with the tools necessary to craft relief that truly makes injured individuals whole. Robust remedies also deter discrimination. When public entities face the prospect of significant liability for discrimination, they have stronger incentives to voluntarily comply with the ADA’s requirements.”

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Advocacy Conversations: How Medicaid Services Are Financed and Proposals to Limit Their Costs

/in , /by The Arc

In this webinar, Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc, and Julie Ward, Senior Executive Officer of Public Policy, provide valuable insights into Medicaid and its anticipated role in 2025 discussions.

Download session slides here.

Advocacy Conversations: Protecting Medicaid’s Future in 2025

/in , /by The Arc

Were you with The Arc in 2003, 2011, 2017, or 2023? During those years, we successfully fought against changes to Medicaid that would have reduced services for people with disabilities, including a narrow victory in 2017. As Congress prepares to debate Medicaid policies in 2025, we need your support. Join our nationwide movement to protect Medicaid and ensure it continues providing essential services. In this webinar, we focused on engaging chapter leaders in Medicaid advocacy, reviewing Medicaid basics, and preparing leaders to act in support of this vital program.

Download session slides here.

Tools for Self-Advocates for Contacting Members of Congress

/in /by The Arc

This toolkit was created by The Arc’s National Council of Self-Advocates. The toolkit empowers advocates to know who their members of Congress are, learn how to tell stories effectively, and create powerful social media advocacy posts.

Use accessibleGO for Travel Accommodation

/in , , , /by The Arc

Two young women with disabilities holding up their fists in a fun, "ready to fight" pose. Text reads, "Welcome members of The Arc! Sign up today for accessibleGO."The Arc is proud to announce a partnership with accessibleGO, the first full-service travel platform for people with disabilities. Customers can book hotels, flights, rental cars with hand controls, wheelchair vans, accessible rides, and mobility rentals all in one place on accessibleGO. Create a free account here.

accessibleGO is the first-ever hotel booking service built exclusively for people with accessible needs.

Learn about the history of accessibleGo:

AccessibleGO was inspired by Emma Eljas, the mother of accessibleGO cofounder Miriam Eljas Goldman. Emma was a longtime wheelchair user with multiple sclerosis, who split her time between serving as commissioner on the Valley Transportation Authority Disability Advisory Commission in her hometown of Silicon Valley, working to improve accessibility for regional transportation, and using a wheelchair-lift van to explore the sights and sounds of her local Bay Area region.

Through Emma’s eyes, Miriam witnessed the numerous challenges faced by people with accessible needs when they traveled. No amount of careful planning seemed to help. Even calling ahead could simply mean being misinformed by a well-intentioned employee and arriving to find that a hotel bed was completely unusable with a wheelchair.

There was plenty about traveling with accessible needs that could get a person down. But, inspired by her mother’s can-do attitude and her lifelong work for the accessible needs community, Miriam felt like there was something more she could do.

On travel websites, it was standard for people to post reviews about a hotel’s various amenities (check-in, how comfortable the beds are, food quality, etc.), but these reviews did not usually include any details about accessibility-related features. Miriam thought there could be a space where travelers with accessibility needs could share important details and real-time information with each other about accessibility features and verify the accuracy and utility of those features, so that travelers could be confident they were going to be safe and comfortable on their journeys. The way Miriam saw it, this simple information, shared within the community, could completely change the game for travel with accessibility-needs.

The vision of accessibleGO is to create a platform for travelers with disabilities to access information, share experiences, and be inspired to travel the world.

The Arc Urges Swift Passage of Reconciled Autism CARES Act

/in , , , , /by Robyn Linscott

September 16, 2024

Dear Member of Congress,

On behalf of The Arc of the United States, we strongly support the Autism CARES Act of 2024 (H.R. 7213). We thank House and Senate leaders and their staff for working together in a bipartisan, bicameral manner to reconcile and agree on a final bill to reauthorize and improve the Autism CARES Act.

The Arc of the United States has nearly 600 state and local chapters across the United States. These chapters provide a wide range of services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including individual and systems advocacy, public education, family support, systems navigation, support coordination services, employment, housing, support groups, and recreation. The Arc chapters are committed to improving the lives of people with IDD and their families—which includes the estimated 1 in 36 autistic children and 1 in 45 autistic adults in the United States.

The Autism CARES Act is the most comprehensive law addressing research, education, and services for individuals with Autism and their families. The Autism CARES Act, as negotiated and amended, addresses some of the most pressing needs by including research in Autism and aging, services for those with more complex needs and communication needs. Additionally, it responds to the challenges in attracting and retaining developmental pediatricians—a workforce critical to early diagnoses and access to interventions.

Again, we thank you for the tremendous work developing a bill to reauthorize this important law. With the sunset date of September 30 fast approaching, The Arc urges Members of the House and Senate to support the passage of this bill as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

The Arc of the United States

The Arc Submits Letter of Support for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act

/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by Robyn Linscott

Dear Member of Congress,

The Arc of the United States writes in strong support of the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act (SICAA) H.R.2955 & S.1351.

The Arc of the United States has nearly 600 state and local chapters across the United States. These chapters provide a wide range of services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including individual and systems advocacy, public education, family support, systems navigation, support coordination services, employment, housing, support groups, and recreation. The Arc chapters are committed to improving the lives of people with IDD and their families, including the youth with disabilities who experience disproportionate harm at youth residential programs.

An estimated 120,000-200,000 of our nation’s most vulnerable youth are pipelined into youth residential programs each year by state child welfare and juvenile justice systems, mental health providers, federal agencies, school districts’ individualized education programs, and by parents. These facilities, including but not limited to boot camps, wilderness programs, therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment facilities, or group homes, cause harm at a higher rate to youth who are Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) and youth with disabilities.

These programs receive an estimated $23 billion dollars of public funds annually to purportedly “treat” the behavioral and psychological needs of vulnerable youth yet there are systemic reports of youth experiencing physical, emotional and sexual abuse including but not limited to prolonged solitary confinement, physical, chemical, and mechanical restraints, food and sleep deprivation, lack of access to the restroom or personal hygiene, “attack therapy,” forced labor, medical neglect, and being denied a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). Public records and news reports have documented more than 350 preventable child deaths in these programs.

The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act aims to lift the curtains on this opaque industry by enhancing national data collection and reporting and facilitating information sharing among every agency who interact with these programs. Transparency and accountability are critical in our mission to ensure the safety and well-being of youth in institutional care settings.

The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act will establish:

A Federal Work Group on Youth Residential Programs to improve the dissemination and implementation of data and best practices regarding the health and safety, care, treatment, and appropriate placement of youth in youth residential programs.
A complementary study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to examine the state of youth in youth residential programs and make recommendations for the coordination by Federal and State agencies of data on youth in youth residential programs; and the improvement of oversight of youth residential programs receiving Federal funding.

If you have any questions about the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act or would like further information, please email Rebecca Mellinger, Paris Hilton’s Head of Impact, at impact@1111media.co.

Respectfully,

Robyn Linscott

Director of Education and Family Policy

The Arc of the United States

Hall v. Florida

/in , , , , , , /by Shira Wakschlag

Filed: December 23, 2013

Court: United States Supreme Court

Overview: Amicus brief urging the court to reject an arbitrary cutoff for IQ scores in making the intellectual disability determination and emphasizing the importance of courts consulting clinical standards in their analysis.

Excerpt: “After decades of intensive study, mental disability professionals have a substantial understanding of what an individual’s score on an IQ test can tell us and what it cannot. There is a strong consensus among psychologists, psychiatrists, and other clinicians, as well as their professional associations, that imposing an arbitrary IQ cutoff score of 70 is wholly inconsistent with our scientific understanding of these instruments. Florida courts responsible for adjudicating Atkins cases are precluded from fairly evaluating all of the essential evidence that has probative value in making that determination. Evidence about a defendant’s impaired adaptive functioning—in this case, clearly impaired starting in childhood—cannot be ignored merely because of a judicially-imposed rule which is neither clinically nor scientifically justified. In Atkins, this Court invited States to devise ‘appropriate procedures to enforce the constitutional restriction’ against executing individuals with [intellectual disability]. The Florida Supreme Court’s arbitrary rule prevents consideration of relevant evidence and excludes from the Constitution’s protection a considerable portion of those persons who have mental retardation. It therefore cannot be deemed “appropriate.” Effectively reducing the group of individuals entitled to that protection by means of an arbitrary rule can hardly be deemed to be “enforcement” of the right that this Court announced.”

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Related Media:

The Arc Sends Letter of Support for the International Children With Disabilities Protection Act

/in , , , , , , /by The Arc

The Arc sent a letter supporting the inclusion of the International Children with Disabilities Protection Act in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This bill would provide funds to train individuals internationally to advocate for children with disabilities to remain at home in their communities.

The Arc Submits Letter for Accessible Digital Form Filler Tool for the National Mail Voter Registration Form

/in , , , , , /by The Arc

The Arc submitted a comment letter about the National Mail Voter Registration Form. This is an online form that helps people register online and mail in their information. We offered suggestions to make it more accommodating for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.