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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRT

THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2006 (202) 514-2007


WWW.USDOJ.GOV TDD (202) 514-1888

Civil Rights Division Commemorates


Anniversary of the
Americans with Disabilities Act
WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Justice celebrates the 16th anniversary
of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a historic piece of legislation that
was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on July 26, 1990. The ADA
provides a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of
discrimination against individuals with disabilities and has had great success in
expanding opportunity for citizens with disabilities. By reducing barriers and
opening doors, the ADA has increased participation in community life.

Throughout the Administration, the Civil Rights Division has made the vigorous
enforcement of the ADA a major priority and has continued to make strides to
ensure implementation of and compliance with the ADA in all 50 states. The Justice
Department has shown its continued commitment to Project Civic Access, a
nationwide initiative to enhance access to community facilities by working with
cities, towns, villages and counties. “In the 16 years since the passage of the ADA,
the Civil Rights Division has made the enforcement of this landmark law a top
priority,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights
Division. “Our enforcement efforts underscore our commitment to ensuring the full
participation in society of the millions of Americans with disabilities.” During this
Administration, the Civil Rights Division has achieved unprecedented results for
people with disabilities through numerous lawsuits, settlement agreements, letters of
resolution and successful mediations. Some of the Division’s notable successes
include:

The Department’s Project Civic Access (PCA) initiative to ensure that towns and
cities across America comply with the ADA. To date, we have signed 147
agreements with 139 communities to make public programs and facilities accessible.
The goal of Project Civic Access is to ensure that people with disabilities have an
equal opportunity to participate in civic life. Recently, the Justice Department
reached an agreement with the City of Waukegan, Ill. The City of Waukegan agreed
to make structural changes in its newly constructed and altered facilities, including
the municipal hall, the police station, fire stations, and the public library. The
agreement also addresses curb cuts, effective communication, municipal parking, the
city’s Web sites, grievance procedures, and the accessibility of city programs
operated at lakefront facilities, the animal shelter, and the public works building.

In fiscal year 2005 alone the Justice Department achieved favorable action for
persons with disabilities in 367 cases and matters, including 112 formal settlements,
53 informal resolutions of complaints, 184 successful mediations, eight consent
decrees, and 10 favorable court decisions. These matters provided injunctive relief
and compensatory damages for people with disabilities across the country and set
major ADA precedents in a number of important areas.

In June 2005, the Department secured a successful ruling from the Supreme Court
confirming that the ADA covers foreign-flagged cruise ships within U.S. waters. In
Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., the Supreme Court agreed with the position
of the United States that Title III of the ADA generally applies to all cruise ships
within the waters of the United States, including those with foreign-flags.

The Department has recently negotiated nationwide consent decrees with the
country’s largest movie theater chains to provide “comparable lines of sight” for
patrons who use wheelchairs at stadium style movie theaters. As a result of these
agreements, wheelchair seating in all future construction must be located near the
middle of the auditorium or farther back in areas where most other patrons choose
to sit, and within existing theaters, many auditoriums will be modified with new or
additional ramps and other improvements that will permit location of wheelchair
seats in the stadium section or on the aisle at the back of the traditional seating
section. Agreements were entered with Cinemark USA, Inc. (Dec. 2004), Regal
Cinemas (June 2005), and National Amusements (Jan. 2006). On Jan. 10, 2006, the
district court in United States v. AMC Entertainment, Inc. entered summary
judgment in favor of the United States requiring AMC to remedy ADA violations at
theaters across that chain, although the Order does not include theaters formerly
owned by Loews Theaters that were recently acquired by AMC in a merger. The
AMC ruling obligates AMC to add ramps at 350 auditoriums and improve nearly
1300 other auditoriums by moving wheelchair locations farther back.

A settlement reached last week with the University of Chicago will make the
campus more accessible to students, faculty and visitors with disabilities. To ensure
the campus is in compliance with the ADA and its Standards for Accessible Design,
the University will implement plans within the next four years to make facilities,
including classrooms, residences and libraries, accessible to those with disabilities.
The University has also agreed to alter campus transportation systems, such as buses
and vans, so they meet ADA requirements by Oct.1, 2006.

On July 18, 2006, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern
District of Michigan, the Department entered into a nationwide agreement covering
all 840 Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts stores in the United States to make the stores
accessible to wheelchair users. The Agreement covers entrances, the size of aisles,
merchandise display areas, fabric cutting areas, check out counters, and other spaces
and elements at new and existing stores.

In June 2006, the Justice Department signed an agreement with TestMasters, one of
the largest providers of preparatory courses for graduate school admissions tests.
Under the terms of the settlement, TestMasters agreed to provide auxiliary aids to
students who need them as required by Title III of the ADA. Steps towards
compliance include providing sign language interpreters and note-taking services for
individuals enrolled in TestMasters courses who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Justice Department achieved a comprehensive ADA settlement concerning


access to health care to date in November 2005 with the Washington Hospital
Center. Under the terms of the agreement, the health care providers agreed to create
a minimum of 35 ADA-accessible patient rooms, to review hospital policies and
train staff to address the needs of individuals with disabilities and to appoint an
ADA officer to oversee implementation of the agreement. The settlement agreement
marked an important step in the Department’s initiative to improve access to health
care services and medical equipment for individuals with disabilities.

Also in November of 2005, the Justice Department announced a settlement


agreement with the city of Detroit that resolved a discrimination lawsuit against the
city’s Department of Transportation (DDOT) regarding fixed route public bus
systems. The Department of Justice’s complaint alleged that DDOT engaged in
discriminatory practices by using buses with inoperable wheelchair lifts and failing
to ensure that buses with working lifts would be available. This lack of functioning
lifts forced many individuals who use wheelchairs to wait for long periods of time
before boarding a bus with a functioning wheelchair lift and, in some cases, to seek
alternate methods of transportation or abandon their trips. Under the agreement,
Detroit agreed to establish systems for promptly identifying, removing from service,
and repairing buses with malfunctioning wheelchair lifts, including daily
maintenance checks and service logs for each bus.

In November 2005, the Department also resolved a lawsuit alleging that the city of
Royal Oak, Mich., violated the ADA by denying Easter Seals a land use permit
needed to relocate a day facility that provides support services for adults with severe
and persistent mental illness. The Department intervened in a private lawsuit and
alleged that the city denied the permit after vocal opposition from community
members, many of whom expressed unfounded fears of individuals with mental
illness walking in their neighborhood and of a possible negative effect on property
values. Under the settlement agreement, the city of Royal Oak will permit Easter
Seals to open the day facility at the requested location, pay $300,000 in monetary
damages to the private plaintiffs, and city personnel will receive training on their
obligations under the ADA.

Anyone interested in finding out more about the ADA can call the Department’s
toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (voice) or 800-514-0383 (TTY) or
can access the ADA Web site at http://www.ada.gov.

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