Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990                   TAG: 9005250384
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

'EMANCIPATION' FOR DISABLED HAS ITS PRICES

"You can't go in," Carl, who is 21 and was born with cerebral palsy, remembers being told. "Move out of the way," the woman added.

The theater owner was just as blunt when Vickie Franke, Carl's mother, called her about the incident. "She can't even open the goddamn door," Franke says the woman told her. "I don't want her in here, and I don't have to let her in."

The theater owner stood her ground, Franke complained to the local human-rights commission, and two years later, Carl still can't go to the theater around the corner from her home. But after a congressional conference committee puts the finishing touches on a disability rights bill that passed the House this week, there will be no more question: Carl will get in or the theater owner will be paying her attorney's fees.

The bill, which has already passed the Senate and has the strong backing of President Bush, will not only protect Lisa Carl from blatant acts of discrimination like the incident which she told a congressional committee left her "crying inside."

It will also help her when she goes to look for the word-processing job for which she is training. It will increase her access to stores, banks, and restaurants. And eventually, it will enable her to get on every public bus and train.

For an estimated 43 million disabled individuals - one-sixth of the population - the Americans with Disabilities Act is a long overdue "Emancipation Proclamation" that extends to them the legal protections granted racial minorities and women 26 years ago. For many of the four million businesses it will affect, it is a source of trepidation.

"I can't give you any numbers, but it will impose substantial costs," said Fred Krebs of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "There's a very real fear of the potential for litigation and the obligations it will impose."

The bill's impact will be measured not so much in ramps and grab bars, but in how employers, stores, banks, and other private businesses think about and treat the disabled.

The legislation, considered the most significant civil rights bill since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, envisions a degree of "accommodation" of the disabled well beyond what society has been willing to show.

Exactly how much accommodation is required is a question that even the bill's proponents acknowledge will be partly decided in the courts. The legislation states only that whatever constitutes an "undue burden" on a business or an employer is too much. That standard, the bill says, will vary depending on the size and nature of the business.

A grocery store wouldn't have to label its items in Braille but would be expected to train its employees to help the blind find what they need, according to drafters of the legislation.

A bank probably wouldn't have to hire an interpreter to communicate with deaf customers but employees would be expected to write notes. And if the teller windows are too high, the bank would be expected to station an officer at a separate table to serve those in wheelchairs.

Taxi cab drivers would be required to treat a wheelchair like a piece of luggage to put in the trunk. Hotels would have to find ways to alert deaf and blind customers of an emergency. Car rental agencies would have to equip a car with hand controls. And restaurants would be required to rearrange tables rather than simply adopting the policy: "we don't serve wheelchairs."

"When they tell me that, I tell them, `Good, I wasn't planning on ordering one,' " says Patrisha Wright, a lobbyist for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

Under a special provision for the deaf, phone companies will be required to provide a nationwide "relay" service that will use operators to translate written messages from deaf people who will use special phones with keyboards. AT&T Co. estimates the service will add three to five cents a month to everyone's phone bill.

The bill's effect on the work place may be even more dramatic. Though the discrimination might be impossible to prove, the legislation would make it illegal for a clothing store or beauty salon to deny someone a job on the basis of a facial disfigurement.