
|
Armed
with only an assistive device to make himself heard,
13-year-old Kyle Glozier of New Freeport, Pennsylvania,
triumphed in a testimony showdown against Clint Eastwood at
a May 22 congressional hearing. (See his testimony,
below.)
Eastwood
spoke first at the hearing, in favor of the ADA
Notification Act, a proposed amendment to our primary civil
rights bill. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), would
have required that a ninety-day notice of intent to sue under the ADA
be given to inaccessible businesses. The hearings were held by the Judiciary
Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Eastwood,
whose Mission Ranch Hotel in Carmel, Calif., has been sued for ADA violations,
called its enforcement "a form of extortion."
Janine
Bertram-Kemp of the Disability Rights Center in Washington, D.C., said
that the disability community "came together powerfully and perfectly.
NCIL, Adapt, NAPAS, AAPD and others all worked together."
Bertram-Kemp
said that Eastwood may be "starting to feel he made the wrong choice.
I don't think he's used to being hissed at by a long line of folks with
disabilities." Activists from seven states packed the hearing room and
the congressional hallways.
Photographer
Tom Olin told Mouth that Glozier, who testified after Eastwood, "stole
the show. Like always, he's right to the point. You
could tell Eastwood wanted to pat him on the head. Kyle wouldn't let him
get that close."
Rep.
Foley, admitting he took "a public relations hit," proposes to amend his
amendment. He now describes a "potential new ADA Guidance Act" which would
"show people my heart is in the right place."
The
chair of the Subcommittee, Charles Canady (R-FL) called for "further investigation"
into the issue. Canady investigated national Right to Die legislation
after Not Dead Yet testified against it in hearings before his subcommittee
in 1998; he then voted against a measure which was to have given physicians
a legal right to kill people who are ill or disabled.
|

|
Kyle's testimony, as reported in Ragged
Edge:
When
my grandpa died last year
and I went to the funeral, I had to be carried up and down
the steps because the funeral home was not accessible. My
family talked with the funeral director and told him about
the ADA and how he was violating my civil rights by his
building not being accessible. He promised that he would
make it accessible.
My
grandma went and checked on this a few months later to make sure the funeral
director kept his word, and he did. He installed a lift so that other
people who use wheelchairs would not have to be carried up the steps.
I
feel that this bill that Mr. Eastwood is lobbying for is a bill that was
designed to weaken the ADA and take away the civil rights of people with
disabilities. Doesn't he understand that the ADA has been in place for
ten years and that if you renovate a building you must make it accessible
to people with disabilities?
He
failed to do that and now wants the Congress to support him in his failure
to comply with a law that is clearly written.
It's
already bad enough when I go on field trips with my school. I always have
to be segregated from my classmates to enter the building that we are
visiting. Why are people with disabilities singled out as the only class
required to give advance notification of the violation of their civil
rights?
I
am a member of the public and I have rights too!
To send
fan mail to Kyle Glozier for saving our ADA, address him
through the Center for Independent Living where his dad, Jim
Glozier, works. The address is
Kyle Glozier
c/o Jim Glozier
TRIPIL
69 East Beau Street
Washington PA 15301
|

Kyle, his mother Laura
(behind him, in the green blouse), Adapt and the media meet
Eastwood in a congressional corridor.

Marcie Roth of NCIL and Janine Bertram-Kemp of Adapt share a
hug with Kyle after his testimony. Photos by Tom
Olin.
|

|