The one of the many legislative accomplishments that Senator Kennedy worked so hard to pass was the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. That crucial part of the ADA was Section 504 which required colleges and universities, public and private, to provide accommodations and services for those with disabilities.
As a deaf person, Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act helped me get accommodations such as the CART (Communication Access RealTime Translation) which is a live captioning system that allows your classes to be captioned in person with an interpreter in the classroom or with a remote interpreter. I also had notetakers for my smaller classes since I could understand my peers in a small classroom setting than a large classroom setting that required the CART system, and my college was able to pay for CART and these notetakers (who were often college students) with federal funding.
It wasn’t easy for me to understand large classrooms without the CART system, which is why I will always be eternally grateful to Senator Kennedy in helping lead the fight for the passage of the ADA that enabled me to fully participate in large classrooms with accommodations such as CART. He made access to a college education equal for me in comparison to my hearing peers, and I am so incredibly thankful for that.
Because of the great work that Senator Kennedy did with the ADA, I graduated from Smith College in 2005 with a B.A. in Government, partly inspired by great leaders like him and members of my own family with the desire to serve people by working to help better their lives. It’s why I went off to work in Congress for three years, first as a legislative correspondent, then as a legislative assistant. I was one of the few deaf legislative staffers in Congress, and I gained a tremendous amount of experience from my time in working with constituents, lobbyists, and advocacy organizations on health care, disability issues, criminal justice, and other issues under my purview.
And to think that doctors told my mother when I was first diagnosed with deafness, to settle for whatever I could do, and that I wouldn’t amount to anything due to the severity of the deafness I have. Thanks to my mother’s stubbornness and equal communication access in higher education made possible by the work Senator Kennedy did with the ADA, that I am where I am today.
Thank you, Senator Kennedy.
And now for the action items today:
If you want to donate to our ActBlue heroes in memory of Senator Kennedy, please do so here.
- Go to these townhalls to THANK our progressive Democrats for saying that the public option is a necessary cost containment on making health insurance premiums affordable! Thank them for saying that the public option is the line in the sand for them, and show as much support as you can!
- Also bring a print-out of this diary (just click on the link to print out), and a link to Jacob Hacker's paper explaining why regional co-operatives are an unacceptable alternative to the public option! Print out as much as you can and take them with you to the Democratic townhalls to pass out to the audience and to your Representative.
- Use the FDL Recess Event Tracker Tool to find other townhall events near you. And if you know of a townhall event that's not listed on the FDL Recess Event Tracker, please enter in that information.
This is a list of all Democratic townhall events for this week alone.
- Report back to us at FDL about what happened at the event, and upload any videos or photos from that event. Also, if you go, don't forget to ask questions like these of our Democratic officials, and make the best case as you can as to why the public option is a necessary cost containment on insurance premiums, otherwise it'd be a mandated bailout of the murder-by-spreadsheet industry with no end in sight to your rising premiums.
- Read ShadowSD's diary for his excellent defense of the public option, and the rebuttals to the most common conservative talking points. Please bring a copy of his diary with you and your friends when you go to a townhall event.
And as I said yesterday, please let Senator Kennedy's death remind us of what is right--helping make health care affordable for millions of Americans by working to get the public option in the final bill.Otherwise we do the memory of Senator Kennedy a great disservice if all we get is coverage with no affordability for the middle class and low-income Americans that he worked so hard for his entire life.
PLEASE recommend this diary so others can see the townhall events of these brave health care heroes and thank them! Also don't forget to donate to our ActBlue page for our health care heroes!
And don't forget to donate to our public option fund at FDL since Nyceve, Jane, I, and others are working hard night and day on this issue for us all!