President Confers with Disability Leaders

                           THE WHITE HOUSE
 
                    Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                               July 26, 1995
 
 
 
                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                         IN OPENING REMARKS
          TO THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ROUNDTABLE
 
 
                            U.S. Treasury
 
 
 
10:22 A.M. EDT
 
 
      THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  Secretary Rubin,
Attorney General Reno; to the distinguished members of this panel,
Senator Harkin and Congressman Hoyer, Chairman Coehlo, Dr. Hitt, Gil
Casellas, Marca Bristo; the members of the administration who are
here -- I see Reed Hunt and Patsy Fleming out there -- I thank all of
you for being here to celebrate this fifth anniversary of the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
 
      Five years ago, when the ADA became law, we became the
first nation in the world to commit ourselves to equal rights and
equal opportunities for all citizens with disabilities.  Because of
the ADA, our country is stronger today.  Our fellow citizens are
being judged by their ability to contribute, not by their
disabilities.  Now, all of you, and millions of others all across
this country have an opportunity they never had before to make the
most of their own lives.
 
      That opportunity is critical to what we have to do as a
nation to meet the great challenges we face and to move forward into
the next century.  In many ways, the ADA is the perfect example of
what I mean when I talk about our job is to create more opportunity
and demand more responsibility from all of our citizens.
 
      The ADA has meant more opportunity for 49 million
Americans with disabilities to their part to make us a stronger and
better country.  It has meant that more people could go to work and
participate in community life, and do things that most Americans take
for granted, like helping to take care of their families or getting a
good education or registering and voting.  It's also a perfect
example of what I have meant in recent weeks when I have urged the
American people to come together to find common ground in order to
move forward together as a nation.
 
      That was true across party lines.  Members of both
parties, including three who are here today -- Senators Harkin,
Representative Hoyer and former Congressman Tony Coehlo -- fought for
the ADA in the Congress.  And President Bush signed it into law.  The
ADA became law because Americans like so many of you worked together
in the best interest of everyone, putting party behind country.
There was a realization that the best way to keep our country moving
forward was to allow every American, regardless of whether he or she
used a wheelchair, was blind, had a mental disability or was HIV
positive, to live up to his or her God-given potential.
 
      And today, even as we celebrate the rights gained under
the ADA, the budget cuts proposed by the congressional majority would
sharply reduce the services and the supports that enable people to
effectively exercise the rights granted by the ADA.  Under the
proposed cuts, states would be forced to drop 1.4 million people with
disabilities from Medicaid rolls, and 4 million disabled Americans on
Medicare would have to pay more every year for the same health care.
They also have proposed eliminating funds for training special
education teachers.
 
      Now, we have to join together to maintain our commitment
and our common ground.  I will vigorously implement and enforce the
ADA through the Cabinet and the administration.  We will not allow
Americans with disabilities to be kept from realizing their dreams by
closed doors or narrowed minds.
 
      We should also celebrate, all of us, this fifth
anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the best way
possible:  By all, each of us, rededicating ourselves to creating a
society of equal access and equal rights for all.  That is the best
kind of affirmative action for all the American people.
 
      Thank you very much.  (Applause.)
 
 
                          END                          10:26 A.M. (EDT)
 
 
 
 
 
PRESIDENT CLINTON PARTICIPATES IN ROUNDTABLE ON THE 5TH
 
ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT
 
July 26, 1995
 
     President Clinton will commemorate the five-year anniversary
of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by
participating in a roundtable discussion with 12 distinguished
Americans, including Miss America 1995, Heather Whitestone.
 
     The event will open with remarks by the President, which
will be open to pool coverage. The President will then
participate in a private roundtable discussion with these 12
Americans, Attorney General Janet Reno, Chairman Gilbert Casellas
of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Chair Marca
Bristo of the National Council on Disability, Chair Scott Hitt of
the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and Tony Coehlo,
Chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of People
with Disabilities and author of the original Americans with
Disabilities Act.   Senator Harkin and Congressman Hoyer will
also participate.  A list of the roundtable participants is
attached, as is a schedule of other administration events
commemorating the ADA's 5th anniversary.
 
     The audience for the roundtable discussion will be comprised
of approximately 75 disability rights activists from around the
country, heads of national disability organizations, and senior
appointees with disabilities, or those who work closely with the
disability community implementing and enforcing the ADA.
 
     In his remarks, the President will restate his support of
the ADA and his commitment to fight attempts to weaken the law.
 
Background on The ADA
 
     July 26 marks the fifth anniversary of the signing of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, landmark civil rights
legislation that prohibits discrimination against people with
disabilities in employment, services rendered by state and local
governments, places of public accommodation, transportation, and
telecommunications.
 
     Passage of the ADA was driven by a growing realization that
government is spending far too much on custodial, medical and
income support in ways that perpetuated the isolation and
dependency of people with disabilities, while spending far too
little on measures that would enable people with disabilities to
live productively and independently.
 
     Five years later, although there has been much progress
under the ADA, people with disabilities and their families
acknowledge that much remains to be done in order to achieve
economic independence for people with disabilities: eliminating
physical and attitudinal barriers that obstruct people with
disabilities from getting jobs or accessing goods and services;
empowering students with disabilities; and training adults of all
ages for productive lives.
                          
 
PARTICIPANTS
Julie Clark; Springfield, Virginia:  She recently filed and won a
suit (now appealed) against the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners
to bar a mental health inquiry that violated the ADA on the law
license application in Virginia.  She now works at Bazelon Center
for Mental Health Law in Washington D.C.
 
Justin Dart; Washington D.C.:  He is former Chair of the
President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities
under Presidents Clinton and Bush.
 
Danny Delcambre; Seattle, Washington:   Mr. Delcambre owns the
Ragin' Cajun restaurant in Seattle and recently participated in
the Pacific Rim Economic Conference in Portland.  In 1994 he won
an Employer of the Year Award from the President's Committee on
Employment of People with Disabilities.
 
Anthony Jones, Prince Frederick, Maryland:  Mr. Jones, who is
mentally retarded works for Dorsey Gray, a car dealership,
cleaning cars, transporting customers home and doing general
custodial work.  He receives support services through The Arc of
Southern Maryland.
 
Diane Lipton; Richmond, California:   Lipton is the parent of a
23-year old woman with cerebral palsy.  She has been a lawyer at
the Disability Rights Education Defense Fund since 1985, where
she directs The Children with Disabilities and Family Advocacy
Program.  She became a lawyer in order to advocate more
effectively for her daughter.
 
Laurie Powers, Ph.D.; Hanover, New Hampshire:  Dr. Powers is
Associate Director of the Hood Center for Family Support at
Dartmouth Medical School and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
and Adolescent Medicine.
 
Ronnie Pulliam; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Pulliam is an
Americorps volunteer who graduated from Temple University this
year, and was accepted into graduate school for sports
administration.  He is active with "The Rolling Owls," Temple
University's wheelchair basketball team.
 
H. Rutherford (Rudd) Turnbull; Lawrence, Kansas: Co-Director of
the Beach Center on Families and Disability and Professor of
Special Education and Courtesy Professor of Law at the University
of Kansas.  He is the father of a 27-year old man with mental
retardation and autism.
 
Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995; Birmingham, Alabama:  In
addition to being Miss America 1995, she is also an accounting
student at Jacksonville State University in Alabama and an
Executive Member of the President's Committee on Employment of
 
People with Disabilities. She serves as the national spokesperson
for the public service campaign aimed at early identification of
hearing loss, created by Alexander Graham Bell Association for
the Deaf and the Miss America Organization.
 
Pat Yates; Little Rock, Arkansas: Yates is a special education
teacher at Hall High School in Little Rock.
 
OTHER ADMINISTRATION EVENTS COMMEMORATING ADA
 
In addition to the President's event, other activities include:
 
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE:
 
The Attorney General will participate in "Voices of Freedom:
America Speaks Out on ADA" with Dick Thornburgh, former Attorney
General under President Bush, at the National Press Club in
Washington D.C.   The National Council on Disability has
organized this forum to celebrate the 5th Anniversary of the ADA
and to release the report of their findings from their 50 state
tour of town hall meetings on the ADA.
 
The Attorney General will also participate in the President's
roundtable discussion.
 
Deval Patrick, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, will
attend and deliver remarks at a reception co-chaired by Tony
Coehlo and Senator Bob Dole to celebrate the ADA and to announce
the formation of a new, national, non-partisan membership
organization called the American Association of People with
Disabilities.
 
The Department of Justice has also issued a special fifth
anniversary status report on Enforcing the ADA, that included a
message from Deval Patrick and other enforcement and technical
assistance highlights.
 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:
 
Secretary Riley celebrated the 5th Anniversary of the ADA in
Tallahassee, Florida with Governor Chiles on Monday, July 24th.
Together they symbolically etched the date the ADA was signed
into law into the commemorative wall in Tallahassee which marks
all of the civil rights milestone events and dates besides the
ADA.  Judy Heumann, Assistant Secretary of Education for the
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services,
accompanied the
Secretary.
 
Judy Heumann attended and delivered remarks at a Disability
Independence Day Rally at Orange Pavilion near San Diego on
Saturday, July 22.
 
Judy Heumann will also deliver remarks at the reception for the
American Association of People with Disabilities.
 
DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY:
 
On Wednesday, July 26, Deputy Secretary Frank Newman and U.S.
Treasurer Mary Ellen Withrow will conduct an accessible tour of
the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.  Participants will include
guests at the President's roundtable earlier in the day.
 
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION:
 
Secretary Pena:  On July 25, in Atlanta, Secretary Pena announced
a $13 million grant to the city for operation and maintenance of
buses to be used in transporting athletes and visitors during the
Olympics and to support the special services of the Paralympics
Transportation system.
 
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA):
The FTA is sponsoring a two-day "paratransit forum" in Washington
on July 27 and 28, co-hosted by the National Easter Seal Society
Project ACTION.
 
They are also hosting a 5th Anniversary ADA Reception on
Wednesday evening July 26.
 
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION:
 
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and Miss America 1995, Heather
Whitestone, will kick off a campaign to increase public awareness
of the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) at a press
conference on Wednesday, July 26.  They will conduct a live
telephone call through a TRS operator with Chairman Hundt on one
phone and Ms. Whitestone at a second phone using TTY text
telephone device.
 
VETERANS AFFAIRS:
 
The Under Secretary of Health distributed to each VA Medical
Center copies of several publications from the President's
Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities that address
advancement of employment opportunities under the ADA.
 
The Under Secretary for Benefits issued a notice advising all VA
Regional Offices of the ADA anniversary, encouraging
participation in local activities.
 
The Under Secretary for Benefits will recognize ADA and its
importance in his remarks at the Disabled American Veterans
Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada this week.
 
Please note that this is not meant to be a comprehensive account
of all administration activities.
 
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