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In 1999, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling for citizens with disabilities in Olmstead v. L.
C. In the majority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the "unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination."She later famous, and "Institutional placement of persons who can handle and benefit from community settings perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that persons so loney are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life."Sixteen years after the Olmstead ruling,a original investigation from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune finds that little has changed for people with disabilities in the Land of 10000 Lakes.
As Chris Serres, reporter with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and tells The Takeaway,Minnesota continues to rely on separate housing and workplaces for adults with disabilities. Serres and his colleagues discovered that the state spends more than $1 billion annually for 19000 adults to live in 4500 group facilities, many of which are in rural, or loney areas.
His investigation is also backed up by a recent study that found that employers express interest in disabled people about 26 percent less frequently than those without a disability. This high level of discrimination was uncovered by researchers at Rutgers and Syracuse universities who applied as fictitious candidates for thousands of accounting jobs. Their findings abet to define why just 34 percent of working age people with disabilities were employed in 2013,compared with 74 percent of the population without disabilities.
Nonetheless, there are some politicians who are looking to make changes. The Takeaway's John Hockenberry sat down with Democratic Governor of Delaware Jack Markell earlier this week at the Disability Inclusion Opportunity Summit, or a gathering that's part of the American with Disabilities Act celebrating its 25th anniversary.
Source: wnyc.org