This disability rights timeline lists events relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities in the United States of America, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
18th century 1776 – Following the Revolutionary War, servicemen who had significant injuries or were unable to provide for their household were financially supported by the first pension law, which was enacted by the Continental Congress on August 26, 1776. The Continental Congress enacted the first pension law under which half pay for life or during disability was extended to every officer, soldier or sailor losing a limb in any engagement, or being so disabled in the service of the United States as to render him incapable of earning a living. The resolution allowed for proportionate relief to those who were partially disabled from earning a living. Without the power to raise money to fund the law, however, Congress was dependent on each State to execute the law.
19th century 1817 – The American School for the Deaf was founded in Hartford, Connecticut. This was the first school for children with disabilities anywhere in the western hemisphere. 1840s – The M'Naghten rule (pronounced and sometimes spelled, "McNaughton") is any variant of the 1840s jury instruction in a criminal case when there is a defense of insanity: "that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and... that to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong." The rules so formulated as M'Naghten's Case 1843 10 C & F 200 have been a standard test for criminal liability in relation to mentally disordered defendants in common law jurisdictions ever since, with some minor adjustments. When the tests set out by the Rules are satisfied, the accused may be adjudged "not guilty by reason of insanity" or "guilty but insane" and the sentence may be a mandatory or discretionary (but usually indeterminate) period of treatment in a secure hospital facility, or otherwise at the discretion of the court (depending on the country and the offence charged) instead of a punitive disposal. The insanity defence is recognized in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and most U.S. states with the exception of Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Utah, and Vermont but not all of these jurisdictions still use the M'Naghten Rules. 1850s – When Illinois opened its first hospital for the mentally ill in 1851, the state legislature passed a law that within two years of its passage was amended to require a public hearing before a person could be committed against his or her will. There was one exception, however: a husband could have his wife committed without either a public hearing or her consent. 1864 – The U.S. Congress authorized the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to confer college degrees, and President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. Edward Miner Gallaudet was made president of the entire corporation, including the college. It was the first college in the world established for people with disabilities and is now known as Gallaudet University. Late 1800s – 1970s: From the late 1800s until the 1970s, some American cities had unsightly beggar ordinances known colloquially as ugly laws. These laws deemed it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself to public view." 1867 - The first American ordinance pertaining to preventing people with disabilities from appearing in public was one passed in 1867 in San Francisco, California. This ordinance had to do with the broader topic of begging. The wording in the San Francisco ordinance indicates violators will be sent to the almshouse. This connects with the Victorian Era poor law policy. 1867 – The first recorded arrest pertaining to ugly laws was Martin Oates in San Francisco, California in July 1867. Oates was a former Union soldier during the American Civil War. 1867 – In 1867, the State of Illinois passed a "Bill for the Protection of Personal Liberty" which guaranteed all people accused of insanity, including wives, had the right to a public hearing. 1869 – State v. Pike, 49 N.h. 399 (1869), is a criminal case which articulated a product test for an insanity defense. The court in Durham v. United States used it as the basis for what came to be known as the Durham rule. 1880 – America's National Association of the Deaf was established. 1881 – Portland, Oregon enacted an ugly law. 1881 – A Chicago ordinance of 1881 read as follows:Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, or an improper person to be allowed in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares, or public places in the city, shall not therein or thereon expose himself to public view, under the penalty of a fine of $1 for each offense (Chicago City Code 1881) The fine of $1 equates to more than $20 in 2018. 1881–1890 – At some time from 1881 to 1890 an ugly law was enacted in Omaha, Nebraska. 1887 – The graphic depiction of conditions at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island in Nellie Bly's book Ten Days in a Mad-House caused a sensation, which brought Bly lasting fame and prompted a grand jury to launch its own investigation, with Bly assisting. The jury's report resulted in an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. The grand jury also made sure that future examinations were more thorough so that only the seriously ill went to the asylum. 1889 – Ugly laws were enacted in Denver, Colorado and Lincoln, Nebraska in 1889. 1894 – An ugly law was enacted in Columbus, Ohio in 1894. 1891 – An ugly law was enacted for the state of Pennsylvania in 1891. This law contained language applying to cognitive disability as well as physical disability.
1900–1939 1908 – Clifford Whittingham Beers founded the "Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene", now named Mental Health Connecticut. 1909 – Clifford Whittingham Beers founded the "National Committee for Mental Hygiene", now named "Mental Health America", to reform the treatment of the mentally ill. 1910 – State v. Strasburg, 110 P. 1020 (Wash. 1910), was a case decided by the Washington Supreme Court that held that a statute eliminating the insanity defense was unconstitutional. The court likened the exclusion of evidence of insanity to a denial of trial by jury. 1914 – Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 105 N.E. 92 (N.Y. 1914), was a decision issued by the New York Court of Appeals in 1914 which established principles of informed consent and respondeat superior in United States law. 1915 – Harry Haiselden was the Chief Surgeon at the German-American Hospital in Chicago, and in 1915 he refused to perform needed surgery for children born with severe birth defects and allowed them to die, in an act of eugenics. Children he denied surgery included John Bollinger, the child of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Werder, the child of William and Eva Meter, and Paul Hodzima. All except Paul Hodzima are known to have died due to lack of medical treatment; Paul's fate is unknown (in addition to lack of medical treatment, Haiselden prescribed a narcotic to ease and speed Paul's death, but Paul's mother stopped administering the drugs, being under pressure from the public to stop.) Eventually the Chicago Medical Society threatened Haiselden with expulsion for his decision to allow John Bollinger to die. He was acquitted by a trial jury, but eventually thrown out of practice by the Chicago Medical Board for his lecture series on eugenics and shameless promotion of The Black Stork, a 1917 silent movie that dramatized the events of the Bollinger case. 1918 - The first Cleveland Cripple Survey was published; one of the first accurate disability censuses, that measured the social and economic conditions of individuals considered. 1918 – The Smith-Sears Veterans Rehabilitation Act became law, and provided for the promotion of vocational rehabilitation and return to civil employment of disabled persons discharged from the U.S. military. 1920s: Psychiatrist Henry Cotton worked at Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. He became convinced that insanity was fundamentally a toxic disorder and in the 1920s he surgically removed body parts to try to improve mental health. This often began with the removal of teeth and tonsils:
An 18-year-old girl with agitated depression successively had her upper and lower molars extracted, a tonsillectomy, sinus drainage, treatment for an infected cervix, removal of intestinal adhesions—all without effecting improvement in her psychiatric condition. Then the remainder of her teeth were removed and she was sent home, pronounced cured.
Andrew Scull argues that Cotton's obsession with focal sepsis as the root cause of mental illness "persisted in spite of all evidence to the contrary and the frightening incidence of death and harm from the operations he initiated". Cotton's approach attracted some detractors, but the medical establishment of the day did not effectively renounce or discipline him.
1924 – The Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 provided for compulsory sterilization of persons deemed to be "feeble-minded," including the "insane, idiotic, imbecile, or epileptic." This Sterilization Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927). In 1979, Virginia's Assembly repealed the Act. In 2001, the legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill (HJ607ER) to express the assembly's profound regret for its role in the eugenics movement. On May 2, 2002, Governor Mark R. Warner issued a statement also expressing "profound regret for the commonwealth's role in the eugenics movement," specifically naming Virginia's 1924 compulsory sterilization legislation, which includes though is not limited to the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924. 1927 – Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve the human race by eliminating "defectives" from the gene pool. The Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell. 1931 – The Pratt–Smoot Act became law. The act provided $100,000, to be administered by the Library of Congress, to provide blind adults with books. The program, which is known as Books for the Blind, has been heavily amended and expanded over the years, and remains in place today. 1933–1945 – The White House became one of the first wheelchair-accessible government buildings in Washington when modifications were made during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used a wheelchair because of his paralytic illness. 1935 – The League of the Physically Handicapped in New York City was formed in May 1935 to protest discrimination by the Works Progress Administration. 1935 – The Social Security Act became U.S. law; it provided federally funded old-age benefits and funds to states for assistance to blind individuals and disabled children. The Act also extended existing vocational rehabilitation programs. 1936 – The Randolph-Sheppard Act, 20 U.S.C. § 107 et seq., a federal law which mandates a priority to blind persons to operate vending facilities on federal property, became law in the U.S. It was amended and updated significantly in 1974. 1937 - 1960: A 1937 U.S. policy titled "Law 116" stated that, in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, those who were "feeble-minded" and "diseased" could be permanently sterilized. Lawmakers believed that these individuals were inept in making decisions about their reproductive abilities. They also did not want the mentally ill to pass on their genetic traits to their offspring. The United States used this reasoning as justification for the sterilizations previously performed as well as for future sterilization procedures. Law 116 was repealed in 1960. 1938 – The Wagner-O'Day Act, enacted in 1938, mandated that U.S. federal agencies purchase products from workshops for the blind meeting specific qualifications.
1940s 1940s - Kalamazoo, Michigan installed curb cuts in the 1940s as a pilot project to aid employment of veterans with disabilities. 1940 – The National Federation of the Blind was formed in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by Jacobus Broek and others. They advocated for white cane laws, input by blind people for programs for blind clients and other reforms. 1940 – The American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, founded in 1940 by Paul Strachan, was the first cross-disability national political organization to urge an end to job discrimination, lobby for passage of related legislation, and call for a National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, as well as other initiatives. 1943 – The La Follette-Barden Vocational Rehabilitation Act became law in the U.S., and it added physical rehabilitation to the goals of federally funded vocational rehabilitation programs and provided funding for certain care services. 1945 – PL-176 became law in the U.S., and it declared the first week in October each year would be National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. In 1962 the word "physically" was removed to acknowledge the employment needs and contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities. In 1988, Congress expanded the week to a month (October) and changed the name to "National Disability Employment Awareness Month". 1946 – President Truman signed the National Mental Health Act (1946), which called for the establishment of a National Institute of Mental Health. 1946 – The Hill-Burton Act (also known as the Hospital Survey and Construction Act) became law in the U.S., and it authorized federal grants to states for the construction of hospitals, public centers and health facilities for rehabilitation of people with disabilities. 1946 – The National Mental Health Foundation was founded by American conscientious objectors from WWII who served as attendants at state mental institutions rather than serving in the war. The Foundation exposed the abusive conditions at these facilities and became an impetus toward deinstitutionalization. 1946 – The Paralyzed Veterans of America organization was created. 1946–1953: From 1946 to 1953, researchers from Quaker Oats Company, MIT and Harvard University carried out experiments at the Walter E. Fernald State School to determine how the minerals from cereals were metabolized. Parents of mentally disabled children were asked for permission to let their children be members of a Science Club and participate in research. Being a member of the Science Club gave the children special privileges. The parents were told that the children would be fed with a diet high in nutrients. However, they were not told (and the consent form contained no information indicating) that the food their children were fed contained radioactive calcium and iron. The information obtained from the experiments was to be used as part of an advertising campaign. The company was later sued because of the experiments. The lawsuit was settled on 31 December 1997. 1947 – The President's Committee on National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week was held in Washington, D.C. Publicity campaigns, coordinated by state and local committees, emphasized the competence of people with disabilities and used movie trailers, billboards, radio and television ads to convince the public that it was good business to hire disabled people. 1948 – The National Paraplegia Foundation, founded by members of the Paralyzed Veterans of America as the civilian arm of their growing movement, took a leading role in advocating for disability rights. 1948 – The University of Illinois at Galesburg disabled students' program was officially founded, and was directed by Timothy Nugent. The program moved to the campus at Urbana-Champaign where it became a prototype for disabled student programs and independent living centers across the country. 1948 – We Are Not Alone (WANA), a mental patients' self-help group, was organized at the Rockland State Hospital in Rockland County, New York. 1949 – Mental Health Awareness Month (also referred to as "Mental Health Month") has been observed in May in the United States since 1949. Mental Health Awareness Month was started in the United States in 1949 by the Mental Health America organization (then known as the National Association for Mental Health).
1950s 1950 – Mary Switzer was appointed the Director of the U.S. Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, where she emphasized independent living as a quality of life issue. 1950 – Social Security Amendments established a federal-state program to aid permanently and totally disabled persons in America. 1953 – The President's Committee on National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week became the President's Committee on Employment of the Physically Handicapped, a permanent organization reporting to the President and Congress. 1954 – Public Law 565 amended the Vocational Rehabilitation Act; specifically, it increased the 50–50 matched funding from the federal government to 3 federal dollars for every 2 state dollars, and expanded services to those with intellectual disabilities. 1954 – Mary Switzer, Director of the U.S. Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, authorized funds for more than 100 university-based rehabilitation-related programs. 1954 – The Social Security Act of 1935 was amended by PL 83-761 to include a freeze provision for workers who were forced by disability to leave the workforce. This protected their benefits by freezing their retirement benefits at their pre-disability level. 1954 – Durham v. United States, 214 F.2d 862 (D.C. Cir. 1954), is a criminal case articulating what became known as the Durham rule for juries to find a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity, that "an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect". It was to enable psychiatrists to "inform the jury of the character of [the defendant's mental disease" so that a jury could be "guided by wider horizons of knowledge concerning mental life"; so that juries could make determinations based on expert testimony about the disease. It was patterned on State v. Pike. It was adopted by only two states, for a short time, but has and continues to be influential on debate over legal insanity. The decision was criticized for leaving a jury with no standard to judge impairment of reason or control, did not define mental disease, and left the jury dependent on expert testimony. 1956 – The Social Security Amendments of 1956 created the Social Security Disability (SSDI) program for disabled workers aged 50 to 64 in America. 1956 – The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-830) was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. The Act succeeded in its initial aim of establishing a mental health care system for Alaska, funded by income from lands allocated to a mental health trust. However, during the 1970s and early 1980s, Alaskan politicians systematically stripped the trust of its lands, transferring the most valuable land to private individuals and state agencies. The asset stripping was eventually ruled to be illegal following several years of litigation, and a reconstituted mental health trust was established in the mid-1980s. 1958 – The Social Security Amendments of 1958 extended Social Security Disability benefits to dependents of disabled workers in America. 1958 – PL 85-905, which authorized loan services for captioned films for the deaf, became law in the U.S. 1958 – PL 85-926, which provided federal support for training teachers for children with intellectual disability, became law in the U.S. 1958 – The Rehabilitation Gazette (formerly known as the Toomeyville Gazette), edited by Gini Laurie, was founded. It was an American grassroots publication which became an early voice for disability rights, independent living, and cross-disability organizing. It featured articles by writers with disabilities.
1960s 1937 - 1960: A 1937 U.S. policy titled "Law 116" stated that, in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, those who were "feeble-minded" and "diseased" could be permanently sterilized. Lawmakers believed that these individuals were inept in making decisions about their reproductive abilities. They also did not want the mentally ill to pass on their genetic traits to their offspring. The United States used this reasoning as justification for the sterilizations previously performed as well as for future sterilization procedures. Law 116 was repealed in 1960. 1960 – The National Association for Down Syndrome (originally incorporated as the Mongoloid Development Council), the oldest Down syndrome parent organization in the States, was founded by Kathryn McGee, whose daughter Tricia had Down syndrome. 1960 – The Social Security Amendments of 1960 eliminated the restriction that disabled workers receiving Social Security Disability benefits must be 50 or older. 1960 – Morton Birnbaum's seminal paper on "The Right To Treatment" appeared in 1960 in the American Bar Association Journal, marking the first published use of the term sanism in reference to the mentally ill. 1960 – Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court affirmed a defendant's right to have a competency evaluation before proceeding to trial. This case set the current standard for adjudicative competence in the United States. Although the statutes addressing competency vary from state to state in the United States, the two elements outlined in the Dusky v. United States decision are held in common: The defendant must understand the charges against him or her and must have the ability to aid his or her attorney in his or her own defense, although see Felthous (2011), who argues that many state statutes—and the federal statute—do not incorporate the rationality standard enunciated in Dusky). 1961 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy appointed a President's Panel on Mental Retardation. 1961 – The American National Standard Institute, Inc. (ANSI) published American Standard Specifications for Making Buildings Accessible to, and Usable by, the Physically Handicapped (the A117.1 Barrier Free Standard). This landmark document, produced by the University of Illinois, became the basis for subsequent architectural access codes. 1962 – The President's Committee on Employment of the Physically Handicapped was renamed the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, reflecting increased interest in employment issues affecting people with cognitive disabilities and mental illness. 1962 – Edward Roberts successfully sued to gain admission to the University of California, Berkeley, making him the first student with severe disabilities to attend that school. 1963 – Public Law 88-164, also called the Community Mental Health Act, became law in the U.S., and it authorized funding for developmental research centers in university affiliated facilities and community facilities for people with intellectual disability; it was the first federal law directed to help people with developmental disabilities. 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy called for a reduction "over a number of years and by hundreds of thousands, (in the number) of persons confined" to residential institutions and asked that methods be found "to retain in and return to the community the mentally ill and mentally retarded, and thereto restore and revitalize their lives through better health programs and strengthened educational and rehabilitation services." This resulted in deinstitutionalization and increased community services. 1963 – South Carolina passed the first statewide architectural access code in America. 1964 – On October 6, 1964, a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, H.R. 753 was signed into law as Pub. L. 88–628, and codified at 36 U.S.C. § 142. This resolution authorized the President of the United States to proclaim October 15 of each year as "White Cane Safety Day". President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the first White Cane Safety Day proclamation within hours of the passage of the joint resolution. 1965 – Medicare and Medicaid were established through passage of the Social Security Amendments of 1965, providing federally subsidized health care to disabled and elderly Americans covered by the Social Security program. These amendments changed the definition of disability under Social Security Disability program from "of long continued and indefinite duration" to "expected to last for not less than 12 months." 1965 – The Vocational Rehabilitation Amendments of 1965 were passed authorizing federal funds for construction of rehabilitation centers, expansion of existing vocational rehabilitation programs and the creation of the National Commission on Architectural Barriers to Rehabilitation of the Handicapped. 1965 – The National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, was established by the U.S. Congress. 1965 – The Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law in the U.S., and in addition to providing sweeping protections for minority voting rights, it allowed those with various disabilities to receive assistance "by a person of the voter's choice", as long as that person was not the disabled voter's boss or union agent. 1966 – In Pate v. Robinson, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a hearing about competency to stand trial is required under the due process clause of the Constitution of the United States. 1966 – In Rouse v. Cameron, 373 F.2d 451 (D.C. Cir. 1966), Charles Rouse had been tried for carrying a weapon without a license, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed without a hearing to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. The maximum sentence was one year on the criminal charge. Years later, still in the hospital, Rouse filed a petition for habeas corpus challenging his confinement. Judge David Bazelon, writing for the court in Rouse, became the first appellate judge to say that civilly committed mental patients had a "right to treatment." 1966 – The President's Committee on Mental Retardation was established by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. 1966 – "Christmas in Purgatory," by Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan, was published; it documented conditions at American state institutions for people with developmental disabilities. 1967 – The Lanterman–Petris–Short (LPS) Act (Chapter 1667 of the 1967 California Statutes, codified as Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.) regulates involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the state of California. The Act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It went into full effect on July 1, 1972. The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and those who were "gravely disabled", defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing. 1967 – The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution dealing with issues related to presidential succession and disability is ratified. It clarifies that the vice president becomes president (as opposed to acting president) if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office; and establishes procedures for filling a vacancy in the office of the vice president and for responding to presidential disabilities. The Twenty-fifth Amendment was submitted to the states on July 6, 1965, by the 89th Congress and was adopted on February 10, 1967. 1968 – The Architectural Barriers Act became law in the U.S., and required all federally owned or leased buildings to be accessible to disabled people. Among other things, it required provision of disabled-access toilet facilities. 1968 - When a rehabilitation counselor threatened two of the Rolling Quads of the University of California, Berkeley with eviction from the Cowell Residence, the Rolling Quads organized a successful "revolt" that led to the counselor's transfer. 1968 – The California legislature guaranteed that the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) would be the first rapid transit system in the U.S. to accommodate wheelchair users. 1969 – Wolf Wolfensberger's seminal work The Origin and Nature of Our Institutional Models was published. This book posited that society characterizes people with disabilities as deviant, sub-human and burdens of charity, resulting in the adoption of that "deviant" role. 1969 - The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 provided compensation for miners who were totally and permanently disabled by the progressive respiratory disease caused by the inhalation of fine coal dust - pneumoconiosis or "black lung". Before the 1970s – Before the 1970s, several US states had banned the procedure of lobotomy.
1970s 1970 - In 1970, while living in a nursing home, Max Starkloff founded Paraquad. The goal of the company was to help people with disabilities live independently. 1970 – The Urban Mass Transportation Act became law, and it required all new American mass transit vehicles be equipped with wheelchair lifts. APTA delayed implementation for 20 years. Regulations were finally issued in 1990. 1970 – Disabled in Action was founded by Judith Heumann and her friends Denise McQuade, Bobbi Linn, Frieda Tankas, Fred Francis, Pat Figueroa, possibly Larry Weissberger, Susan Marcus, Jimmy Lynch and Roni Stier (all of whom were disabled). A number of chapters were also started in various other American cities. 1970 – The American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization (AAAIMH) was an organization founded in 1970 by Thomas Szasz, George Alexander, and Erving Goffman for the purpose of abolishing involuntary psychiatric intervention, particularly involuntary commitment, against individuals. The founding of the AAAIMH was announced by Szasz in 1971 in the American Journal of Public Health and American Journal of Psychiatry. The association provided legal help to psychiatric patients and published a journal, The Abolitionist. The organization was dissolved in 1980. 1970 – The Rolling Quads organization was started by Edward Roberts at UC Berkeley in California. 1970 – Developmental Disabilities Services and Facilities Construction Amendments became law in the U.S. These Amendments contained the first legal definition of developmental disabilities. They also authorized grants for services and facilities for the rehabilitation of people with developmental disabilities and state DD Councils. 1970 – The Physically Disabled Students Program (PDSP) was founded by Edward Roberts, John Hessler, Hale Zukas, and others at UC Berkeley. With its focus on community living, political advocacy and personal assistance services, it became the nucleus for the first Center for Independent Living, founded in 1972. 1971 – The Javits–Wagner–O'Day Act, 41 U.S.C. § 46 et seq., a U.S. federal law requiring that all federal agencies purchase specified supplies and services from nonprofit agencies employing persons who are blind or have other significant disabilities, was passed by the 92nd United States Congress in 1971. It was an expansion of the Wagner-O'Day Act of 1938 (see above). 1971 – The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) published American Standard Specifications for Making Buildings Accessible to, and Usable by, the Physically Handicapped (the A117.1 Barrier Free Standard). This landmark document, produced by the University of Illinois, became the basis for subsequent architectural access codes. 1971 – The National Center for Law and the Handicapped was founded at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. It became the first legal advocacy center for people with disabilities in the U. S. 1971 – The U.S. District Court, Middle District of Alabama, decided in Wyatt v. Stickney that people in residential state schools and institutions had a constitutional right "to receive such individual treatment as (would) give them a realistic opportunity to be cured or to improve his or her mental condition." Disabled people were no longer to be locked away in custodial institutions without treatment or education. 1971 – The Mental Patients' Liberation Project was initiated in New York City. 1971 – The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was amended to bring people with disabilities (other than blindness) into the sheltered workshop system. 1971 – Richardson v. Perales, 402 U.S. 389 (1971), was a case heard by the United States Supreme Court to determine and delineate several questions concerning administrative procedure in Social Security disability cases. In the case the Supreme Court ruled that: 1.) Written reports submitted by physicians in the treatment and evaluation of patients are admissible, and should be considered substantial evidence in disability hearings under the Social Security Act, even though by their nature, they are 'hearsay." 2.) Hearsay evidence is admissible up to the point of relevancy in such hearings. 3.) Subpoena of witnesses is within the jurisdiction and allowable under the rules of procedure in Social Security disability hearings. 4.) Reliance on "stacked hearsay" – where written records are reviewed by others who have not examined the patient, but issue reports based on their review, which then are followed by more generation of reports by individuals who have reviewed the record – should be discouraged. 5.) It is within the jurisdiction of administrative law judges to hire outside case consultants or advisors to review the issues of the case and offer reports and testimony in the furtherance of resolution. This is a practice that is advisable, in particular in those cases where the medical records and testimony are conflicting, or the medical issues are not clear. 6.) The Social Security Act is to be interpreted liberally in favor of the claimant. 7.) Social Security disability is different from welfare entitlements and does not require the same level of due process protections under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution as the court delineated in Goldberg v. Kelly. 1971 – The Florida Mental Health Act of 1971 (Florida Statute 394.451–394.47891 (2009 rev.)), commonly known as the "Baker Act," allows the involuntary institutionalization and examination of an individual in Florida. The Baker Act allows for involuntary examination (what some call emergency or involuntary commitment). It can be initiated by judges, law enforcement officials, physicians, or mental health professionals. There must be evidence that the person: possibly has a mental illness (as defined in the Baker Act). is a harm to self, harm to others, or self neglectful (as defined in the Baker Act). There must be evidence of recent behavior to justify the substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm in the near future. Moments in the past, when an individual may have considered harming themselves or another, do not qualify the individual as meeting the criteria. ("Near" means close, short, or draws near.) Examinations may last up to 72 hours after a person is deemed medically stable and occur in over 100 Florida Department of Children and Families-designated receiving facilities statewide. There are many possible outcomes following examination of the patient. This includes the release of the individual to the community (or other community placement), a petition for involuntary inpatient placement (what some call civil commitment), involuntary outpatient placement (what some call outpatient commitment or assisted treatment orders), or voluntary treatment (if the person is competent to consent to voluntary treatment and consents to voluntary treatment). The involuntary outpatient placement language in the Baker Act took effect as part of the Baker Act reform in 2005.
1971 – In Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 334 F. Supp. 1257 (E.D. Pa. 1971) the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, ruled that it was the obligation of the state of Pennsylvania to provide free public education to mentally disabled children, which it was not doing at that time. This decision struck down various state laws used to exclude disabled children from the public schools. Advocates cited this decision during public hearings that led to the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. 1972 – The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the sterilization of a seventeen-year-old mentally ill girl with a history of sexual and physical abuse by her family. The Court based its decision on the recommendation of the State Board of Social Protection and the testimony of a psychiatrist who stated that the patient would never be able to provide parental guidance and judgment, saying, "she would never be able to provide the parental guidance and judgment which a child requires even though she might be able to master the skills necessary to take physical care of herself and a child." The psychiatrist "based this conclusion on the girl's lack of emotional control, her consistent low scores in areas of judgment on psychological tests, and the likelihood that she would abuse a child." 1972 – United States v. Brawner, 471 F.2d 969 (D.C. Cir. 1972), is a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in which the Court held that a person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. The case relied on the Durham rule for determining whether a defendant was not guilty by reason of insanity. The Court ruled that the primary reason they were departing from the old test of insanity is that it put substantial dominance on the testimony of experts. The Court exhaustively examined the justification for the defense of insanity and the need to guide the jury with a specific framework for the insanity defense. The American Law Institute provided a better framework in the majority's opinion because it took part of the reliance on experts away and focused on the acts and mental state of a defendant at the time he committed the acts constituting the crime. It proposed a rule that was adopted as the American Law Institute Model Penal Code rule (ALI rule). 1972 – The Center for Independent Living was established by Edward Roberts and associates in Berkeley, California. It was established with funds from the Rehabilitation Administration, and it is recognized as the first center for independent living. This sparked the Independent Living Movement. 1972 – Mills v. Board of Education of District of Columbia, 348 F.Supp. 866 (D.D.C. 1972), was a lawsuit filed against the