State program for
disabled rights cut for budget
By RUTH PADAWER,
northjersey.com Posted May 20, 2007, From the Web, May 22, 2007
A state program devoted exclusively
to protecting the rights of disabled people has become another victim of
Trenton's belt-tightening.
With layoffs and budget cuts since January, state Division on Civil Rights
Director Frank Vespa-Papaleo concluded he had little choice but to consolidate
forces. By month's end, instead of six investigators focusing exclusively
on disability-related discrimination, five people will form the Major Case Unit
to investigate employers and public accommodations that engage in a "systemic
pattern of discrimination" of any kind -- disability or otherwise.
"Unfortunately, we have to make do with what we're given," Vespa-Papaleo said.
"This agency used to have 150 employees, and now there are only 78. At the
same time, the law we enforce has grown. We'll have to try to do more with
less -- substantially less."
Disability rights groups were dismayed by the news.
"It's tragic," said Eileen Goff, head of Heightened Independence and Progress,
an advocacy group serving Bergen and Hudson counties. "We can try to
provoke people to do what they're supposed to do both on a moral and legal
basis, but we also need agencies with enforcement powers that are devoted to
protecting our civil rights."
Some 15 percent to 19 percent of New Jersey residents -- about 1.3 million
people -- have disabilities, said Norman Reim, spokesman at the state Council on
Developmental Disabilities.
The Disabilities Unit, begun in 2004, had been remarkably successful in its
short life, prompting a surge in disability-related discrimination complaints
and putting New Jersey in the forefront of the fight to protect a historically
ignored minority.
The shift was so marked that for the last two years, complaints in New Jersey
based on disability actually outpaced the longtime leading source of contention:
race. By 2005, the number of disability-related complaints reached 437, a jump
of 75 percent from just two years earlier. The number has since dropped,
but remains higher than that for race. Complaints are investigated to see
if they violate the state's Law Against Discrimination, one of the nation's most
far-reaching anti-discrimination laws.
Thirty percent of complaints filed with the state Division on Civil Rights in
2006 alleged discrimination against disabled people in housing, employment or
public accommodation, up from 22 percent in 2002. The state's up tick in
disability cases came even as the number of discrimination complaints based on
race, age and national origin have dropped over the last few years. Those
based on sex dipped slightly in 2005 and rose slightly in 2006.
But with the shrinking staff, investigations and outreach will have to be
curtailed, be it for disability or any other kind of discrimination.
The division's outreach to disabled people began shortly after Vespa-Papaleo
became director in 2002. Within the first year, he was approached by two state
agencies for people with disabilities, which needed help because they lacked
enforcement ability. Others -- including an employee of his who uses a
wheelchair -- introduced him to a world where access to services and programs
was frequently limited. And they all pointed out how little the division had
done to assist them.
The first changes were within the agency itself, including installing
push-button door openers at its offices and issuing agency publications in
Braille. In 2004, Vespa-Papaleo formed a unit devoted exclusively to
disability discrimination. The six-member team, half of whom had physical
disabilities, began running free disability-law conferences to spread the word
that state statutes offer staunch protection of both physically and mentally
disabled people.
Following a complaint from deaf citizens, the unit inspected movie theaters
across New Jersey, and found that only three movie screens in the state offered
closed captioning, even though 9 percent of New Jersey's residents have some
level of hearing loss.
With the help of the attorney general, the division pressed the state's four
major multiplex theater chains into legal promises to install closed captioning
equipment. The division and attorney general sued a fifth for violating the law,
and eventually won an agreement from it too.
The settlement agreements established New Jersey as the first state in the
nation to obtain formal commitments from theater chains to accommodate
hard-of-hearing movie-goers. Soon after, attorneys general from around the
country were calling the division to copy its initiative.
Next up were the shopping malls. Inspectors surveyed the state's largest malls
and found entrance doors too narrow to accommodate wheelchairs or lacking the
required power-assisted openers. At others, entrance doors were accessible, but
on the opposite side of the mall from handicapped parking. After meetings with
the state, each mall agreed to abide by the law.
The division also investigated polling sites, ultimately concluding that two in
five sites were inaccessible to disabled voters over the past three years, a
violation of state and federal law. Officials say the survey is the most
sweeping state government initiative of its kind, involving more than 1,700
inspections through seven major elections.
E-mail:
padawer@northjersey.com
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