Hi everybody. On behalf of the SE ADA Center at the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, and the ADA National Network, I want to welcome you to 504 and 50. I'm Barry Whaley. I'm the project director of the SE ADA Center. Section 504 50 is a special oral history project created in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In our series, we speak with leaders of the disability rights movement who advance the cause of equal rights through their tireless work. Today, we're delighted to talk with Paul Grossman. He's the former chief regional civil rights attorney with the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. Paul is also a member of the West Coast advisory board and Disability Rights Advocates. for over 30 years Paul Grossman was the chief Regional Attorney for the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in San Francisco. In both Washington and San Francisco, Paul worked on every type of education discrimination matter, under Title six, Title Nine, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. For nearly 20 years, Paul provided an internal disability law training program for the Office of Civil Rights staff and he continues to provide that training today. In addition to his work at OCR, he was an adjunct professor of disability law at Hastings College of Law at the University of California. Paul is a much sought after keynote speaker at education and law conferences, including the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Association for Higher Education and Disability or ahead, and its regional chapters in the National Association of ADA coordinators. And children and adults with ADHD. Paul also provides consulting services to institutions of higher ed. Paul identifies as someone with disability. So we'll discuss his experience as a person with disabilities and how they shaped his life and work as a disability rights advocate, lawyer, Professor, speaker, the list goes on author consultant in name at all. So Paul, it is truly an honor to have you with us today.
Thank you very much, Barry. And I feel very honored to be associated with any project of the Burton Blatt Institute.
We appreciate that. Paul, let's let's start with maybe a little background, if you can tell us about your career path and how you chose to be a disability rights attorney.
Thank you, Barry. I think in giving my resume you might have overlooked the most significant part, which is that I was a college dropout. And I was a college dropout, because I'm an individual with pretty profound dyslexia. And indeed, when I was in high school, my guidance counselor told me I was not going to be college material. And I essentially dropped out because I had attempted to go without sleep for several weeks, trying to get a handle on all my academic challenges, particularly in foreign language. If you know anything about dyslexia, you know that it is a language processing disorder, and therefore trying to learn a second language is nearly impossible for people with dyslexia. So I dropped out, and I stayed out for about a year, and I went back to campus to try to get a refund. And there I learned the secret to academic success, which was that if I joined the Italian club, I could get the exam questions the night before. With that one barrier out of my way, I became a straight A student. And it's lucky that I was a straight A student because when I took my law school admissions test, I think I did worse than random. In part, as often happens to individuals with dyslexia, you're one bubble off when you're doing the scoring sheet. But because I had good grades, I was able to get into the University of Wisconsin Madison, where I graduated in the upper 5% of my class. I was a member of the Law Review, and several years later also went to Oxford University in England, studying philosophy of law where I did get a first and Mike I learned a lesson about what means to have a barrier removed from you. It can be a life changing experience. I think I'd probably be a darn good car salesperson. I'm happy that I was able to be a lawyer. I had a Ford Foundation fellowship to work for the Oakland Police Department on what today is known as Black Lives Matter. I worked on that every summer while going to law school. And after I graduated from law school, I had to pay off my fellowship. So I went to work for the Oakland Police Department. Fortunately for me, I was fired within about six weeks, the police department paid off my fellowship. So I didn't wasn't encumbered to them and immediately went to Washington DC to work for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in their office for civil rights. And at the time, the big focus was school desegregation. The Supreme Court had issued its all deliberate speed decision. They wanted to desegregate the school districts, particularly in the south, and I was assigned to desegregate a school in Arkansas. I flew actually into a government owned airport, a military airport in Tennessee, was met by a Catholic priest, who then introduced me to the community witnesses. And we went out to a holler where nobody could find us, including the Klan, and started discussing how to present the segregation case or the desegregation case. And that was a really important point for me in my career, because I was facing and working with people who were at least risking their jobs and more likely their lives, to be witnesses. And I learned a lot about the sacrifices that people were willing to make to get their civil rights. And at the time, even though I was an individual with a, you know, significant disability, I had no concept of disability rights, I had no concept that there would be a law protecting me as it was protecting people from race discrimination. And after working in that area, I worked with a brand new Secretary of Education when he W was split up and Department of Ed was one of its spin off, so to speak. I work with the brand new Secretary of Education judge, Shirley Hostetler, and we went around the country together, taking testimony from largely Mexican Americans about how the school systems weren't educating their children, particularly their children who were non or limited English speaking. And I worked very hard on that issue, when working particularly with the Chicago Public Schools, and then the Los Angeles Public Schools for what I think was the largest remedies that was ever obtained on those issues. And following that work, I was looking for a job at another agency and just jokingly said to the Department of Ed General Counsel, I'm thinking about going to Department of Labor unless there's some offer you can make me. And the offer that he made me was to transfer me to San Francisco, and it doesn't get sweeter than that. Right. So I went to San Francisco. And I worked in the general counsel's office. And I think I was there maybe four or five years, when I competed for the vacancy as an attorney for that office. And that was the job that I occupied for 30 years. So that office, that building was the old Federal Building at 50 United Nations Plaza, which is where of course the famous 504 occupation. 26 days took place.
Yeah, we definitely want to cover that because you've got a story to tell. Just so I understand kind of the context. When you're talking about your time going to Arkansas, what's that time period? What year are we talking about? Paul?
I think that would have been 1973. Okay, so
we're talking about 73 74. The the the desegregation of schools, especially in the south, certainly Boston comes to mind in that time period. Louisville, comes to mind in that time period, as well.
So I can tell you that the Boston School case took up more OCI resources than I think any other case in its history. It was a full time team. Effort. Right.
And emotions were running high. Very even in the Northeast.
Very.
So for those of us Paul, who grew up in an age before 504, before the ADA, there were tremendous barriers to inclusion. You mentioned a little bit about college and law school and your dyslexia that a diagnosis
you knew about. It was not. That's what I thought, yeah. Tell me about that. So
I didn't learn that I by an objective measure had dyslexia and till I was a great deal older, I think I was about 33 34, somewhere in that range, by then had come to meet many disabled student services directors. And one of those disabled students services directors was a Harvard graduate in learning disabilities, and assessment. And she performed a formal assessment on me. And then I learned what my strengths and weaknesses were, you know, I wish everybody actually could get a psycho educational evaluation because everybody needs to learn their strengths and weaknesses. Nobody is equally strong in every area of thinking, every kind of writing every kind of reading, and to learn, this is my strength. This is my weakness is a very valuable experience.
As you mentioned, you have just an impressive professional career and protecting civil rights people with disabilities, remarkable 41 years, the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, you've worked on many important disability rights cases, we're sure we're going to talk about more as we go on, including claims under 504. 504, of course, being a federal law that prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified people with disabilities and programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance or are conducted by a federal agency. So polar, there's some important 504 cases that you want to bring to our attention.
I do Barry, but I'm wondering if I can bring some before 504, please. I kind of hit the American civil rights history, both its social justice history, and it's legal history, at the right moment, walked in just about at the beginning. And now I'm sad to say I see some reversals, some undercutting of our rights. So to me civil rights, if you're talking about social justice, or if you're talking about the law is a continuum. When we were doing school desegregation cases, we were really talking about what lawyers call disparate treatment. disparate treatment means that directly or by inference, you can establish that people are the victims of intentional discrimination. kids went to black schools and white schools separately, not by accident. But because it was the law, or because it was the result of practices, which were intended to have that outcome. Disability Law can include that concept, that paradigm, hostile environment and the basis of disability, refusal to admit somebody who's academically qualified to graduate school, because the psych school knows that they have bipolar disorder, something of that kind. But that's generally not how disability law works. Generally how disability law works, actually, is over concepts of benign neglect of ignorance. And sometimes we don't want equal treatment, we want different treatment. And that concept had to develop in the law. So the next big stage in law, also largely about race is called disparate impact. And disparate impact essentially says, if there is an unnecessary, I'm underlining the word unnecessary three times unnecessary barrier unnecessary headwind to equal opportunity. Even if it's not intentional, it may be illegal. So for example, if an employer uses a selection criteria tool that's not actually predictive of success. And African American males do much more poorly on that criterion. It's an unnecessary headwind. And because it's not predictive of success, you can't maintain it. And the important thing to understand here is intent is not necessary. You don't have to have chosen that testing selection tool, because you want it to exclude African Americans. It's merely that you have selected it and you're maintaining it. And if you think about how this comes up in disability law, well how many colleges and universities select a digital platform or digital courseware or web tools that are inaccessible to students who are blind, low vision deaf or hard of hearing what we call under the law people with sensory impairments. So my thesis here, Berry is if there was not developments in race discrimination law, we would have no disability law, that continuum had to move Move to certain points before we could even get to 504. So let's now talk about what's probably the most important case in my life. That's incredibly important to five, a four. And it had nothing to do with disability well, not in the immediate sense. And that was a case that concern, the rights of monolingual Mandarin and Cantonese speaking children in the San Francisco Public Schools. Lau V. Nichols. Right. And I think flowers heard and 79 I'm sorry, I should go back and check that. So what happened in Laos is a very interesting conflict. The San Francisco School Board was certainly a, quote, liberal unquote, school board. And it was very, very careful to see to it that the students who were going to it's poor schools, such as Chinatown, San Francisco, got the exact same amount of money per student, or maybe even more, their library was just as big, their teachers were just as experienced. And so when the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in San Francisco, accused them of discrimination, they were like, What are you talking about? We're one of the few, maybe the only school district in the country that purposely ensures that the students who are attending the poorest schools get at least as much support and maybe even more, but we said, Wait a minute, you're not taking into account the fact that these students are coming to the starting line with a different skill set. And unless you understand, take into account and address that skill set, you are still discriminating on the basis of national origin. And they took us all the way to the Supreme Court. And I'm proud to say my small moment in history was that I helped prepare the Solicitor General of the United States for his argument before the Supreme Court in that case, and I was there to watch the argument. What the Supreme Court said was, what San Francisco is doing is not a constitutional violation. It is not denying these students their rights under the 14th and Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, but US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, if in your administrative experience and expertise, you believe that these students are not getting an equal educational opportunity, unless you address their language differences. You have the authority and power to do it. Boom. And the reason I say boom is I was right there in OCR is in Washington, DC, that moment, when John lodash, who was the father of the 504 regs, said, now we have our authority to go ahead and talk about things like reasonable accommodation. Reasonable Accommodation is not identical treatment. Right? It's not just the removal of a barrier. It's an affirmative step. And without Lowry Nichols, we could not take that affirmative step. And so you can see now there's this continuum. And as a lawyer, that's how we got to this. So Barry, you know, you read 504, and I think I've counted it, I think it's 36 words, Allah of 36 words is pretty darn naked. Right? So you could use 504 to address a school district that said, we're not going to admit kids with disabilities, right, that obvious clear violation. But if you're talking about ramps, bathrooms, extra time, on exams, you name it, there's nothing there in 504 for you, you must have the regulations. And so that's, I think, where your next questions come from? I'll stop at that point.
You bet I that was a perfect setup. So what an amazing event that you were witness to. And what I'm talking about, and as you've already alluded to, is the the 26 day occupation of the federal building in San Francisco, by Judy Huemann, and others, so tell us about them.
So once again, I'm embarrassed to admit that when I saw this huge demonstration, outside my place of work, I was fascinated by it. I went to it. I attended it. I heard every single speaker I stayed late, but I had no idea what it was for. And it tells you something bad or sad that here I am Chief Attorney in San Francisco, and I had no idea about these unsigned rakes. I was naive. But so was my whole staff. And we had a reasonable way. Right. So
you, you were unaware that California had not had refused to implement.
Okay. Am I embarrassing myself? Of course I am. But I'm, I'm also telling you what kind of barrier Judy Huemann and Ed Roberts faced to get the world to even think about this issue and understand this issue and come to support them on this issue. What a huge while that was the scale, right, but a huge barrier. And we had a regional administrator, a lovely man, he was a social worker from Guam. And he was in charge of access to the building. He was in charge of what took place there. I think he had the, because he had a big heart. He cared about the demonstrators. But he too, had no flippin idea what they were there for. He learned I learned, right, but no one knew. And let's remember that this demonstration was one of I believe, 12 around the country. It's the only one where people occupied the building. But that, you know, it was a concerted, organized attack. Right. So looking back on this now, Barry, I think there were a number of factors that came together, that led to that huge event. And if you were there on the plaza at the time, one of the things I want you to know is there were many, many people there with canes, there were many people there with interpreters. There were many medically fragile people there. There are many people on scooters and wheelchairs, there were famous leftist, anti war organizers there. I mean, it was a big deal. And I'm going to talk about that actually. Because I want you to know that's not urban folklore. And I'm going to actually name names and give you examples of how that happened. So, but let's talk for a minute about where we are in history, because I think there are things that contributed to the 504 city that I don't hear talked about very often, but they were critically important. So I think issue number one was the war in Vietnam, the war in Vietnam for two very different reasons. One is the war in Vietnam taught a lot of people a lot of organizing skills. And due to human learned organizing skills, both as a matter of the race, equality movement, I have a picture of a Judy human sitting next to Brad Lomax who founded the DC Black Panther Party. And she's not there on disability issues. She's there aren't race issues. But I think the war in Vietnam really taught people organizing skills, the power of organizing gay people faith in the possibility of what organizing could do. But at the same time, we had 1000s, and 1000s and 1000s of young men and women who had lost their legs or lost their arms, or had been blinded in that war. And some of them were what sociologists call loaded with fire in their belly. And I've even had people tell me, I have fire in my belly, from my experiences, as a dyslexic individual, due to human most definitely had fire in her belly. So that was really important. So another thing that I don't think gets recognized, but it's very important is the Holocaust. So I'll just remind you, not only was Judy, an Orthodox Jew, but Judy was the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. And there were several other people in that demonstration as leaders, who were sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors. I don't know how many people know their Holocaust history. But the first people to go we're not the Jews. The first people to go were people with disabilities. The German state learned how to efficiently and inexpensively get rid of people on the disabled. You know, there's a very, very natural tie in to these two events. And I do believe that this is very important to Judy's own values in life. She was a practicing Orthodox Jew, and so were her as several of her allies. So I think that was important. And then I think what was important is what I would call the Berkeley incubator. So you know, we have this term, an incubator in Silicon Valley, you put together a certain number of People who are excited about one issue, and they get together and they exchange ideas, and all of a sudden emerges the solution. Well, Cal Berkeley had been admitting students with disabilities for quite a while, but not graduate students, and particularly not medically fragile graduate students. And so they took a floor of the Student hospital and turned it into a dorm. So that people who needed to be sectioned or fed or bathed or toileted, they could all go to graduate school. And at the time, I think that was an amazing conceptual breakthrough. Today, I hope every school does it, but at the time, it was an amazing breakthrough. And so you had in that incubator, at that time, all these people who didn't know about 504 didn't know that the regs needed to be signed, and for a better word conspired together to get it done. And one other factor is the Bay Area Rapid Transit Bart, the BART line from Berkley to 50 United Nations Plaza had just been completed. And you could now ride one of America's at that time, few accessible transit systems, straight from Berkley to 59 Nation's Plaza. The elevator comes right up into the plaza. So it made a big difference. And there's one other factor I'd like to raise we had at the Department of Ed in the Office for Civil Rights, a number of disabled individuals, the original administrator made a point of hiring disabled individuals, those individuals during the sit in, were very good at educating the staff and the employees at 50 un Plaza, about what the issue was about what was going on. And as a result, even the guards at 50 UN Plaza, kind of overtime were won over by Judy and her band 100 employees at that building, that's most of the employees signed a petition to the Secretary of Ed, begging him to get the regs signed. So he couldn't sit there and say, Oh, the employees lives are disrupted, and it's so inconvenient for them and they're going to quit is like nope, to the contrary, the opposite is the case. Right? So all these factors came together for that sit in.
I think that's just fascinating. And a couple of things, as you were talking, I thought about is that, yeah, Berkeley became, you know, an incubator for disability rights. But we need to keep in mind that Ed Robertson first was denied admissions wasn't exactly a cakewalk for them to come around to to a different way of thinking.
No. And while you're talking about Ed Roberts, you know, one of the things I want to mention is the degree to which not only did we learn from the war in Vietnam, organizing tactics and issues, but we also learned from the African American civil rights experience. Ed Roberts had a mentor, Donald Galway. So Donald Galloway was a blind, African American Graduate, social work student. And I think Donald may be one of the people who pushed at to be persistent about this issue. I think he helped add to learn by organizing tactics, and Galloway himself was excluded from a jury in Alameda County, he got a jury service notice he showed up this I was blind and they excluded him. And he immediately turned around and sued for a denial of his constitutional rights, not his disability rights, his constitutional rights, and he prevailed. And you know, Judy, human, also had suffered exclusion, exclusion, initially from public school, right. And then from getting a job in the New York public schools, and in both instances, the excuse was, she would be a fire hazard, because she was be there in her wheelchair. And Judy brought what I believe to be and I kind of follow this or the law carefully, the very first disability rights case, and it was not under 504, the ADEA because they didn't exist. It was a constitutional claim. Historically, the Supreme Court has not been very helpful and constitutional claims with regard to disability. But in those two instances, those two individuals prevailed and good for them. And one other factor that was very obvious was Judy wanted as inclusive and as an alliance building and as intersectional movement as she could get. And I think when Judy was placed in a basement with kids who are deaf and blind and intellectually disabled and on the spectrum for her New York public school, All education. I think that's where she learned how intersectional the disability rights movement had to be. I'm telling you somebody was there. It was very diverse with regard to race, color, national origin, organized labor. We had all these different groups that most certainly included the Black Panther Party of Oakland, California, it most certainly include the Mission Street rebels. It included a gay organization that protected people from violence against gay people in the Castro. And let's remember how few openly gay people there were right. But they were there and they were open and they were taking positions of leadership. So that
was post Stonewall. So it was certainly an emboldened movement by 1977. Right. True. Before we go on, I want to say how much I appreciate you mentioning Brad Lomax because he's kind of one of the unsung heroes of the occupation and of the disability rights movement, because now Brad Lomax and arranging for food to be brought in the occupation would have failed
completely. And not only was their food they had to get in medicine. Yeah, they had to get in medical devices. All of that had to go on. And if I can mention one more Panther, I don't know if Dennis Billups has ever come to your attention. I am not aware of him. No. Okay, so Dennis Billups was a reporter for the Black Panther newspaper. And there were only two sources of news from the inside. And one of them was a man by the name of Evan white. So Dennis Billups is working for the Black Panther Paper, which at the time, actually, many people read. And I know that the major broadcasters in San Francisco read that paper because they wanted to know what was going on in that demonstration. And I'm going to read you what Dennis Billups wrote, because I think it's like, incredibly important. So this is Dennis Billings. Now, Dennis is that blind Panther reporter, and Dennis wrote, and I read this in all my historical presentations to my brothers and sisters that are black and that are handicapped. Get out there. We need you. Come here. We need you. So is here is 50 United Nations Plaza, wherever you are, we need you. Get out of your bed, get into your wheelchair, get out of your crutches, get into your canes. If you can't walk, call somebody, talk to somebody over the telephone. If you can't talk, right. If you can't write you sign language, use any method of communication that is all. All of it is open. Doesn't get more eloquent than that. More powerful. Yes, I agree. So Evan White is our local primary evening news when we only had three news channels in San Francisco. And Evan got caught up in the story he just did. And he pretty much lived right outside of the United Nations Plaza. He made sure there was something on the evening news every night about what was going on. And Evan, talk about not being objective. Evan helped arrange to get the 34 people who went from 50 United Nations clouds it to Washington, DC. So I'd like to talk about that for a second if I can. You know, at that time in history, there were no jetways airplanes were entirely inaccessible. So a Judy, I think with some help from Evan made a connection with the American Association of machinists. It's a union, right? They had trucks that had lifts on them. They had a Tommy lifted the back, they had a scissor truck, like you see loading food onto an airplane, right? They put people with wheelchairs going from San Francisco to Washington DC, into those trucks, loaded them onto the plane. And then when the plane landed in Washington, DC, another mechanism association of machinists truck was there to pick them up. And because there was no Metro, no accessible Metro, no accessible DC buses. That truck was used throughout the course of the protest in Washington. In that sense, you know, we've come a long way. I
do recall Judy mentioning the truck in some sort of conversation with our I can
show you the truck. I have a picture of the truck. I have a picture of Julie rolling off the truck.
That's great. Speaking of Judy, I don't want to get away from A more recent case that you are a Geun Hye in vert pyin. Is that correct?
Pay on Right, right pay on and put dia Mason,
can you tell us a little bit about that? This is recess.
Let me go back just a little bit. The first time I saw Judy is on the plaza 50 un Plaza, and she gave a very eloquent speech. And certainly I recognized in her a leader, I recognized in her a certain eloquence I recognized in her a certain degree of being able to harness her anger, the fire in her belly. And then I saw Judy in the building of frequently because it was being occupied. I was chief attorney. And I saw Judy's interchange with the two US congressman, for which she is so famous. And was she scared me when she did it, which was, she was giving a speech, Ed Roberts was the opening speaker. And holy crap was that guy articulate, and that he did it between breaths on his portable iron lung, made it all the more effective. Judy was giving her speech. And she was being very eloquent. And these two members of Congress were shaking their head. And, you know, to be honest, they were, you know, nice liberal guys, who knew they didn't know much about this, but they were trying to, you know, be supportive. And Judy says, Stop shaking your head as if you know what I'm talking about. Because you don't right now and who is this person? Right, talk about let's but so then I talked to Judy several times, I don't think we got off on the right foot at the start, because, you know, I worked for the enemy. I worked for the Department of Education. But over the years, I would meet Judy at event after event after event and we kind of softened up to one another. So this takes me to the peon case. So I want to be clear, I was not roid peons attorney. And instead, my role in peon was more of a social activist, which the older I get, the less I'm a lawyer, the more I'm a social activist, all the way back in 2015 peon and Mason through the NFB, who's incredibly skillful group of lawyers, filed a claim against the Los Angeles Community College District, that it was not accessible to people who were blind or low vision. And they raised a number of issues. So there were web access issues, there was academic software issues, there was alternate media production, there was just all kinds of failures on their part. And plus edges can be caused district is huge as 220,000 students, there are 300 blind students in this one a campus district. So being inaccessible to blind students like a big deal there. So like, it's not just one student who's getting screwed. It's a lot of students. I don't know if you remember the second kind of paradigm, I mentioned disparate impact. So disparate impact is a really important tool in disability rights for this reason. A lot of times a lot of cases are what's called a failure to accommodate case. So a student says, Yeah, I'm flunking out. But the reason I'm blanking out is you refuse to give me the accommodations to which I was entitled, or you promised me sign language interpreters, but they never showed up or you sent us finger, a finger, speller, you know, something of that nature? Well, that's good if you have an individual student with an individual injustice. But what if you have a systemic problem? Like, the websites aren't accessible? What if you have a systemic problem like nobody produces alternate media, then you don't want to do a denial of accommodation case? You want to do a disparate impact case? A because you're seeking a class wide remedy? You're seeking to change how the school does business. Important tool. So the Los Angeles Community College Districts, I think it's their insurance provider decided after getting smacked down in federal district court in trial in the ninth circuit, we gotta go for broke. And so they decided that they were going to seek sorcerer ri, meaning they're going to seek an audience a hearing before the Supreme Court of the United States arguing that disparate impact is not an authorized tool under Section 504 or the ADEA. And so, this is a really scary proposition because I fear that there are six justices that would agree with that. proposition, in which case, we're really going to get kicked hard. There was a similar case brought against CVS by individuals with AIDS. When CVS gave notice that they were going to take this tactic, Judy human, and these aids individuals organized to convince CVS to not pick up that tool. And CVS voluntarily agreed. I thought, well, maybe we got to do the same thing with the Los Angeles Community College District. And I organized a couple of digital teachings to borrow a term from the war in Vietnam. days, I worked with the Association for higher education disability, I worked with their California affiliate, we did the teachings, and a lot of students were invited by disabled student services directors to come to those teachings. And they got for one of a better word riled up. Roy, who is himself, I think, a potential disability rights leader, and I and the LA Human Rights Commission. And all these students showed up for hearing with the board. I think the people who were the most powerful witnesses were the most severely disabled individuals. So some people who were medically fragile, were there. And they all ask the question, which I opened our testimony with, which is, what is the point of educating students with disabilities, if you're going to take away their rights, once they're in the workplace, if you're going to take away their rights once they're trying to become self sufficient, independent adults? So the board heard us, they were courteous. I know, we didn't have them unanimously, for sure. But I didn't know you know, it's like counting justices, it's not so easy to count board members. So anyway, they went into executive session. And I sat there waiting for a decision, and I was there with a reporter from one of the Los Angeles papers. And we sat there and we sat there, and we sat there. And finally I called Judy, and I said, Judy, it's 11 o'clock at night, and I just don't know how it's going to come out. And Judy said to me, Pom, if they go the wrong way, don't leave that building. Stay there. Talk about a circle of history.
That's right. Right. That's brilliant. It
is, but I've got a little bit more than tell you. So anyway, someone from the board sticks their head out and says, Paul, it's gonna be worth your staying. And so we stayed. I think the board ended like one in the morning, the report and I went in, they handed us the resolution from the board, and it was unambiguous. It was we're not going to go to the Supreme Court on this issue. But we are going to continue to fight for what we think is right. And we're hoping that means mediation. And we'll get to that in a second. But I want to finish the story. First. I have a room at Motel Six by the airport. And I go there and I'm I go to sleep like two in the morning, three in the morning. My phone is ringing. You know, so tired. I first I can't find it. I find that struggle through the dark. I find my phone. I say hello. And there's a voice on the other end, and I can't figure out. I know this person. This is a woman who the heck is it? And all of a sudden they go oh, it's Judy. Right? And Judy says, So Paul, did we win? I said, Yes, Judy, we won it, she says, Then I give you permission to go back to sleep. And that was my last conversation with Judy.
That's a great story. I do want to wrap up, I want to end by giving you the last word, because there's so many other things we can talk about, including the Department of Health and Human Services, taking a look at a rewrite of section 504. And I think probably the way to end this is what do you see is the future of the disability rights movement where where are our challenges? Where do we go from here?
If we can learn from Judy and the other brave people, including medically fragile people who sat in at 50 United Nations Plaza, there are two lessons I want us to hold on to. One is the importance of building alliances. And the other is the importance of diversity. And maybe I should add the importance of courage. If we hold on to those three things. I think we can defend ourselves. But we have a lot of defending to do, because as I follow and read the Supreme Court, I am very, very worried that the ADA will be weakened that 504 will be weakened. We're going to have to be vigilant we can't just rest on on our laurels, we can't just say mission accomplished. That's not true. And you know, one reason why I'm working largely pro bono 10 years after I suppose to have retired, is because I know this battle is going to go on. But I also know at my age, I have to mentor other people, I have to tell other people, you're gonna have to pick up the baton, because I'm going to go to Hawaii, whatever it is, I'm going to do in my remaining years, we need to keep this battle going. You know, I really salute the Burton Blatt Institute and this project, because I think that's part of inspiring people to you know, pick up the baton and keep up the good fight because it's got to be kept up.
Excellent words to close on. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Thanks again for being with us today and sharing this this history. It's just very rich, I really cannot thank you enough.
Thank you all.
listeners. Thank you for joining us for this episode of 504 At 50, our oral history series listeners, you can access this and other episodes in the 504 50 series with archived audio accessible transcripts and resources at our website, that section 504 at five zero.org. If you have questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act, you can use our online form at any time at ata live.org or you can contact your Regional ADA Center at 1-800-949-4232. Those calls are always free and they're confidential. 504 50 is an oral history interview series created by the SE ADA Center at the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, and the collaboration with the disability inclusive employment policy, rehabilitation research and training center. Our producer is Celestia Ohrazda with Cheri Hoffman, Mary Morder, Marsha Schwanke, Chase Coleman and me I'm Barry Whaley. Music for this episode comes from four wheel city the movement for improvement
