Rumor has it that the disability and business communities are trying to agree on a compromise version of the ADA Restoration Act. Have we forgotten our past?

Here's a chunk of mine: In 1968, when looking into teaching, I learned the Los Angeles County Board of Education prohibited hiring teachers in wheelchairs. Blatant discrimination was common in those days — some say it still is.

Twenty-four years after that door slammed in my face, in the inaugural year of ADA implementation, I applied for an instructor job at a Portland, Ore., community college. The department chairman told me he  would not hire me solely because I was disabled, and I would have to be fully qualified for the job.  His assumption that I came as a beggar seeking "special" consideration was discriminatory in itself. After reviewing my application materials, he realized I was qualified and hired me. 

In my first term the department chairman entered the bathroom in the building where I was teaching, dropped his trousers and sat on the toilet in the handicapped stall, only to see my wheels enter the bathroom (from beneath his stall door) and hear my voice say, "I'm sorry to bother you, but I have no other stalls I can use, I have to go immediately, and there are four other non-handicapped stalls not in use." Since only his dropped trousers were visible, I had no idea he was the department head. When he emerged from the stall, blushing, I felt mildly elated, for to interrupt a man, a superior, no less, in the midst of disgorgement, and to force him from his throne with the full authority of federal law, was sweet retribution.

Few people in the business world took the ADA seriously at first. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, broke ground on a new basketball arena (The Rose Garden) in 1993, ignoring warnings from the disability community that his plans were not in ADA compliance. Two years later he faced a DOJ lawsuit and another lawsuit from Independent Living Resources of Portland.  The DOJ wimped out, approving a consent decree that allowed the project's architectural firm to skate on the Rose Garden as long as future projects were in compliance. ILR, led by attorney Bob Pike, a wheelchair user who couldn't get a decent seat in Allen's new arena, was not as nice. They forced Allen into a multi-million dollar remodel that included 101 newly-elevated seats for wheelchair users to replace the 33 "wheelchair ghetto" seats Allen had provided in the first place. 

Many wealthy businessmen snubbed their noses at the ADA. Everyone knows about Clint Eastwood's anti-ADA crusade, but few realize that one of the world's richest investment companies, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, owned Regal Cinemas, which refused to cooperate with Oregon Advocacy Center on inaccessible stadium seating talks. KKR/Regal eventually lost a legal battle that cost them hundreds of millions in retrofitting costs.

These were hard-fought victories scattered amongst numerous disastrous Supreme Court rulings. Now we are considering a watered down version of the ADA Restoration Act with the business community? Since when did civil rights become negotiable?