Monday Autism News Potpourri

categories: Advocacy, Education, Policy, social justice

Published July 27, 2009 @ 10:38AM PT

Thumbs Up: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed on Friday as planned. Here's print coverage from USA Today and (ironically non-captioned) video coverage from CSPAN. The CSPAN video is of the actual signing ceremony, and it starts off with a nice little speech by Hilary Clinton.

Thumbs ? : The motivation for the ADA-AA came from issues with the way the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had decided to implement the ADA. The original intent for the ADA is as a civil rights law, and the ADA-AA was to restore that original intent. Now debates about EEOC implementation seem to be intent on leeching the power from the amendment. Will the fate of the ADA-AA be to restore the ADA as powerful civil rights legislation, or will we end up back at square one?

Thumbs Down: As the CCA remains off the legislative agenda, CCA rallies continue with confronted the Democratic National Convention. Adapt has set up a sweet action campaign page, complete with (also transcribed) video.

Not all news on the CCA front is bad; some legislators have signed onto it. Check the list for your legislators--if you see their name on it, send them a thank you; if you don't see their name on it, ask them to please sign on!

Thumbs Up!: On a non-policy note of special interests and the path to college successes, here's a lovely article about Cole Kingsbury, geologist and going to college in Alaska. (Side note: volcanoes--YAY!!! Definitely, IMO as well, a perk of living in Oregon!)

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Comments (2)

As I tweeted, the White House video of the ceremony wasn't initially captioned either-- but they seem to have fixed that not long after I complained:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1qmAGEIAs4

Posted by Cody Boisclair on 07/27/2009 @ 12:28PM PT
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Note that Article 19 of the CRPD guarantees people with disabilities the right to live in their own communities. Why, then, the foot-dragging on the CCA?

Posted by Mark Romoser on 07/28/2009 @ 01:44PM PT
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Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.