Today's New York Times has an interesting editorial on the toll conservative judges have taken on our nation’s civil rights laws. The point of the article is that while perhaps past Courts gave loose, law-making broad interpretations of legislation that provided more rights than Congress was willing to concede, today's Court is serving up cramped, law-breaking rulings that strip rights Congress most certainly intended to promulgate.

Examples in the editorial include the case of Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant who discovered that she made less money, and regularly received smaller raises, than the men she worked with. The Court blew off whether or not her case had any merit and instead found that she should have filed suit within 180 days of when her company began paying her less — even though she didn’t know it then. Justice Ruth Ginsberg wrote a blistering dissent pointing out that Ledbetter filed suit when she found out about the pay disparity and, to boot, the discrimination against Ledbetter still continues.

To fix rulings like the one against Ledbetter, Congress is considering bills like The Fair Pay Restoration Act that will make it yet even more clear that Congress doesn’t want men to be paid more than women who hold exactly the same position and do at least the same amount of work.

These types of ridiculously skewed rulings by the Supreme Court are exactly why our own community must continue to push HARD for the ADA Restoration Act. It’s no secret that since the Court’s tilt toward the right, our law has been undergoing a slow dismantling that pulls the teeth out of it incisor over molar. It’s gotten to the point where less than 5 percent of ADA employment cases are found for the plaintiff.

What can be done?

Support the efforts of groups like AAPD and ADA Watch that are stirring up Congress to save our ADA. Most recently, disability rights groups succeeded in getting the House Committee on Education and Labor to hold a hearing on the ADA Restoration Act. Let’s hope this hearing leads to a vote on the floor, and that Congress passes this legislation that, ironically, serves only to tell the Court, “when we said we want to end discrimination against people with disabilities we really really meant it.”

You are right on. Equality for all, whether that be people with disabilities, women, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people, or people of color, or people of differnent ethnicities or religions, or.... is a basis of our freedom. This court is tearing back the fabric of our culture and country. We need to have Congress and the people stand for for our rights for fair access to employment, education, housing, and public accommodations. Both Restoration acts mentioned in your blog do just that. Keep up the good work, and everyone who reads these comments, you too, speak out. Thank you!

Yes people with disabilities unite. If we all sit on the sidelines and expect the Supreme Court or Congress to do the right thing, we will still be as women before they could vote, or the Civil Rights Act. We need a We are disabled but not stupid Act. Many of us have worked 30 to 40 years, become disabled and become invisible. We need a national Health Care Plan. That's it. We are the richest nation in the world, bailing out the Worlds Fat Cats. I feel that we need to stop all these weapons programs. At least until we fix our social problems. We already have enough Nukes to blow up any country we want if we need to. Let's keep our Military strong, and allow the disabled, the poor, under educated citizen's to make a living. We need to re-build our infastructure, we need to build community homes for the elderly, community homes for the disabled. Allow us our dignity and especially our rights as citizens of the United States of America, we need the will of those in power.