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• Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Americans with Disabilities Act 

Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems released the following:

On Wednesday, October 11, 2000, the United States Supreme Court will hear a case that could overturn the federal ban on discrimination against people with disabilities in access to public services such as education, health and mental health care. The case, University of Alabama v. Garrett, challenges the constitutionality of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The case began as two lawsuits, combined by the trial court. Patricia Garrett, 54, was director of women's services at the state university's medical center in Birmingham when she was treated for breast cancer. After being demoted and then transferred, apparently because her supervisor didn't like ``sick people,'' Garrett sued the hospital. Milton Ash, 56, a corrections officer with asthma, sued the state youth corrections agency for its failure to enforce the agency's no-smoking rule and to service the cars he had to drive so they wouldn't emit noxious fumes. . .

In both suits, the state argued that Congress does not have the power to enact legislation requiring states to pay money damages. The trial court accepted Alabama's argument, but last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the decision, finding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the authority to pass such a law in order to enforce the guarantee of equal protection and due process of law.

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