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- June, 2010
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Controversial Rotenberg Center back in spotlight
June 30th, 2010
A 30-minute brawl erupted in a Canton group home run by the controversial Judge Rotenberg Educational Center on Friday, sending three of its eight teenage residents to the hospital, police said.
Canton police Lieutenant Patty Sherrill said her department may press criminal charges in this altercation, which involved students as well as a half-dozen staff members, some of whom had donned helmets.
Five officers were sent to control the fight that erupted inside the home at 198 Turnpike St. around 9:20 p.m. after a student called 911. “In my 17 years here, I’ve never seen anything like this,’’ said Sherrill, who was at the scene. At one point, she said, one of the teenage males turned to her and whispered: “Miss, you have to get me out of here. I fear for my safety.’’
The home’s residents attend classes at the Rotenberg Center.
The students’ injuries included a broken wrist, nose, and hip. Sherrill said the fight may have started when a student resisted bedtime instructions from a staff member, though details remain unclear. The center has video cameras running round-the-clock at all its facilities, and Sherrill said she will be requesting the tapes from Friday’s altercation.
For nearly four decades, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center has generated nationwide controversy for disciplining students with electrical skin shocks, but center officials and police said such shocks were not involved in Friday’s incident.
Ernie Corrigan, Rotenberg spokesman, said none of the students at the Canton group home have state-approved plans allowing this behavioral-control method. Corrigan said administrators believe staff acted “appropriately’’ in the situation, and had put on helmets for their safety. He said the home serves “emotionally disturbed’’ adolescents and he does not yet know what triggered the fight.
The center’s main campus is also located in Canton, while group homes are scattered there and in nearby communities. Most of the center’s 200 students have behavioral disorders, autism, or intellectual disabilities. Under state-sanctioned procedures, roughly half wear electrodes attached to their skin, and staff members can remotely trigger 2-second shocks through a hand-held device.
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Eleven years ago Olmstead v. L.C. was passed
June 23rd, 2010
Today is June 22, 2010. Eleven years ago, on this day, the United States Supreme Court held in Olmstead v. L.C. that the unnecessary segregation of individuals with disabilities in institutions constitutes discrimination based on disability.
This was a momentous event in American and disability history, and because the Court interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in this way, Olmstead has played an integral role in how disability policy language is written and understood ever since.
Let’s begin with some background. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most people believed that individuals with mental disabilities were “degenerates” and “unfit to live.” This attitude caused segregation to be broadly accepted on the grounds that it was beneficial for both the community at-large and for people with disabilities. Why? Because people with disabilities were thought to be “unsuitable for companionship, a blight on mankind and whose mingling with society was a most baneful evil.” (Source: http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/garrett/community.htm ).
In 1990, when the ADA was passed, language in Title II of the Act read: “…no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.”
This language in the Act is often referred to as the ADA’s “integration mandate” and represented in statute and attitude a movement away from the prejudicial attitudes of the past.
In 1995, however, Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, (L.C. and E.W. in the trial), two women with mental health disabilities, filed a lawsuit against the State of Georgia. According to court records, Curtis was diagnosed with schizophrenia and Wilson with a personality disorder. Both women had a long history of periodic institutionalization. Though they had completed their medical treatment and were deemed medically ready to return to their communities, attitudes about individuals with mental health disabilities kept them imprisoned in an institution.
In May 1992, Curtis was voluntarily admitted to Georgia Regional Hospital at Atlanta (GRH), where she was confined for treatment in a psychiatric unit. By May 1993, her psychiatric condition had stabilized, and her treatment team at the hospital agreed that she would be well-served in one of the community-based programs the state supported. Despite this evaluation, she remained institutionalized until February 1996, when the state placed her in a community-based treatment program.
Wilson was voluntarily admitted to Georgia Regional Hospital in February 1995; like Curtis, she was treated in the psychiatric unit. In March 1995, the hospital tried to discharge her to a homeless shelter, but abandoned that plan after her attorney filed an administrative complaint. By 1996, Wilson’s treating psychiatrist concluded that she could be treated appropriately in a community-based setting. However, she remained institutionalized until 1997.
The women simply wanted the opportunity to live in their community. The core of the lawsuit turned on the question of “[w]hether the public services portion of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act REQUIRED the state to provide treatment and habilitation for people with mental disabilities in a community placement, when appropriate treatment and habilitation can also be provided to them in a State mental institution.”
The Supreme Court ruled that under Title II of the ADA the women had the right to receive care in the most integrated setting appropriate and that their unnecessary institutionalization was discriminatory and violated the ADA. In essence, the Olmstead case acts as a judicial guarantee that individuals cannot be imprisoned in institutions and hospitals just because people are uncomfortable, or have unfounded biases and prejudices about persons with disabilities. Olmstead is now the cornerstone for advocacy efforts relating to integration.
So what has happened since the Supreme Court’s ruling? To help states comply with Olmstead, the federal government has issued guidance based on the Court’s opinion. It has also provided ongoing policy guidance encouraging review and development of state long-term care and Olmstead plans, and promoted the increased use of existing policy options for Home and Community Based Services.
The anniversary of this landmark decision is a reminder of the importance of individual advocacy as well as the need for legislation to better address two core problems for individuals with disabilities which the Olmstead case highlighted and that continue to this day
- Lack of an overall national policy framework for community integration of people with disabilities, and
- Inadequate changes in long-term services and support systems to eliminate unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities.
As far as changing prejudicial attitudes about individuals with disabilities, that work also continues. But today we celebrate the decision reached eleven years ago, in which the United States Supreme Court held in Olmstead v. L.C. that the unnecessary segregation of individuals with disabilities in institutions constitutes discrimination based on disability.
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Schools struggle on how to best educate people with severe disabilities
June 22nd, 2010
By Sharon Otteman, NYTimes.com
Donovan Forde was dozing when the teacher came around to his end of the table. Pale winter light filtered in through the grated classroom window, and the warm room filled softly with jazz. It fell to his teacher’s aide to wake him up from his mid-morning nap.
She shined a small flashlight back and forth in his eyes like a dockworker signaling a ship, and called his name. Then she put her hand on his cheek, steering his head forward as he focused his eyes.
The teacher, Ricardo Torres, placed a red apple against Donovan’s closed left hand, and then held it near his nose so he could smell it. “Donovan, the fruit holds the seeds of the plant,” he said.
Then Mr. Torres held a plastic container of apple seeds to Donovan’s ear, shaking it, and placed Donovan’s hand inside so he could feel them. “And these are the seeds,” Mr. Torres said.
He watched Donovan’s eyes and face for a sign he had understood, a smile, nod, a noise. Donovan gently pulled his hand away. No one knew if he had grasped it.
At a time when his peers are enrolled in college or earning money at jobs, Donovan, a handsome 20-year-old with a sliver of a mustache, is still in public school, being taught the most basic of facts. His vocabulary for this science unit, which lasted about two weeks, was three words: seeds, fruit and juice.
And yet, because of his cognitive disabilities brought on by a traumatic brain injury at nearly 6 months old, it is almost impossible to know what he comprehends and retains. After 15 years in the New York City school system, he is less reserved and more social, but otherwise has shown almost no progress, his mother said.
Once predominantly isolated in institutions, severely disabled students have been guaranteed a free, appropriate public education like all children since the passage of federal legislation in 1975. In the years since, school districts across the country have struggled to find a balance between instruction in functional skills and academics while providing basic custodial care.
Donovan is part of a fraction of a fraction, classified as having “multiple disabilities,” a broad category under the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act that refers to children who have at least two disabilities and severe educational needs.
There are 132,000 such students in the United States, out of more than 6.5 million now receiving some kind of special education service at an estimated cost of $74 billion a year.
Students with multiple disabilities, like Donovan and his schoolmates, can have a wide range of diagnoses, including cerebral palsy, rare genetic disorders and problems that stem from conditions in utero or at birth, some of which have no name.
For many of these students, the post-school future holds day residential programs, nursing facilities or group homes, not college or jobs. The concepts of educational reform and standardized assessment have little meaning for them; they are among the most costly to educate and the least understood.
Donovan recognizes familiar voices, and can mimic their intonations. He communicates some needs; at lunch, he pulls off his bib to show when he is finished. When happy, he sings fragmented notes, his scratchy voice rising in triplets and quads.
But he cannot walk, does not speak and cannot feed himself or see much beyond shapes and shadows. On standardized assessments, he has trouble with tasks most children master in infancy, like opening and closing his eyes on command. Occupied much of the time by his own inner world, he does not respond consistently to his own name.
One year before he is to leave the school system, educating Donovan remains a search for ways to reach him.
A Question of Goals
Donovan’s mother, Michelle Forde, likes his special education high school, Public School 79, the Horan School, in East Harlem, where she feels he is welcome and cared for. But she wishes his teachers would spend more time working on his practical challenges, like his self-abusive habit of hitting himself in the face so hard that he has to wear thick white cotton mitts most of the time, even when he sleeps.
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Arc action alert: call Sentators Warner & Webb to protect FMAP
June 16th, 2010
The clock is ticking on extending the increase in the federal government’s share of Medicaid (known as the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP)). The U.S. Senate still hasn’t voted on the Tax Extenders bill, which would provide a 6 month extension of the enhanced Federal Medicaid Match (FMAP). Without the swift enactment of FMAP, several major cuts to services will take place in Virginia this year:
- 250 new ID Waivers for individuals/families on the ID Waiver waiting list will be eliminated. These Waivers would otherwise be available on 7/1/10.
- There will be 5% cut in all Waiver reimbursement rates, affecting all HCBS Waiver services (except skilled nursing in the Tech Waiver)-including residential, day support, employment, personal care, skilled nursing, companion and respite supports. This cut will take effect 7/1/10. A DMAS memo has already been sent to providers about the cut.
- There will be 2/3 cut in respite services for all HCBS Waivers (reduced from 720 hour/year to 240 hour/year), beginning 1/1/11.
- Medicaid podiatry and optometry services would be eliminated, beginning 1/1/11.
- Monthly income for HCBS Waiver eligibility would be reduced from 300% SSI to 250% SSI beginning 1/1/11.
- Environmental modification and assistive technology limits reduced from $5,000 per year to $3,000 per year. $15,000/year lifetime limit established, beginning 1/1/11.
We need your help to save these services! It’s time to kick the advocacy efforts up a notch!
What can you do (before Thursday) to advocate for the passage of FMAP?
1. Call Senator Warner and Senator Webb ASAP
The Senate is tentatively scheduled to vote on the tax extenders bill this Thursday, though it is unclear if it will have the 60 votes needed to move forward. While the majority of Senators have previously voted for the extension (including Senator Warner and Senator Webb), negotiations continue as the Senate tries to find enough votes to avoid a filibuster and pass the bill. If you have not already done so, please call Senator Warner (202-224-2023) and Senator Webb (202-224-4024) as soon as possible, urging them to pass FMAP this week!
Sample message: Thank you for your past support of the FMAP Extension. I urge you to pass the Tax Extenders Bill, with the FMAP extenstion, this week! Vital services for Virginians with developmental disabilities will be cut or eliminated if FMAP is not passed soon. My family and thousands of other Virginians are counting on you!
Remember: Share your personal story, let Senator Warner and Senator Webb know that YOU are affected by this issue!
2. Call your state Delegate and Senator-ask them to stand up for Virginia’s families!
During the 2010 session, the Virginia General Assembly restored almost all cuts to services for people with developmental disabilities, using the FMAP extension.
At the time Virginia’s budget was passed, advocates and elected officials believed that passage of the FMAP extension was fairly certain. While the General Assembly could have used the revenue anticipated from FMAP for other things, like transportation, they passed budget language using FMAP funds to maintain critical services for people with developmental disabilities, keeping the community-based system in tact.
We urge everyone to call your state Delegate and Senator before Thursday about the FMAP issue. Click here for their phone numbers (enter in your zip code). Thank them for their decision to restore critical services for Virginians with developmental disabilities in the state budget and ask for their help to get the FMAP extension passed!
Sample Message: As a constituent, I want to thank you for restoring critical services for people with developmental disabilities and their families this past General Assembly session. As you know, these restorations are dependent on the FMAP extension-which has not been passed yet. I’m calling to ask for your help to protect these critical community-based services. Please advocate on our behalf to Virginia’s Congressional Delegation, urging them to pass FMAP as soon as possible.
Thank you for taking action and supporting “A life like yours.”
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Burt and Barbara: a love story
June 15th, 2010
By Elise G. McIntosh, SiLive.com
Burt Petrone, 88, and the former Barbara LaRoy, 72, celebrated their 25th anniversary Tuesday. It should have been their 30th anniversary, but it took five years for the state of New York to grant them a marriage license.
This is not your typical love story.
Burt and Barbara, both born with developmental disabilities, were institutionalized as adolescents in the former Willowbrook State School, where they suffered intolerable conditions for a combined total of 43 years.
When they left the facility — which eventually was shut down due to blatant mistreatment of its patients — in the late ‘70s, the two were transferred to facilities operated by Volunteers of America (VOA), a nonprofit, human services organization. It wasn’t until a few years later that they met at a day program run by United Cerebral Palsy of New York City in Port Richmond.
On March 8, 1979, a Thursday, they officially became “boyfriend and girlfriend.” On Dec. 19, 1980, a Friday, they got engaged. On June 8, 1985, a Saturday, Burt, then 63, and Barbara, 47, exchanged nuptial vows at El Bethel Assembly of God Church in Westerleigh.
Burt rattles off the days and dates effortlessly. He has total recall of dates and weather reports for historical and personal events, according to Anthony DiSalvo, founder of Sprout, a nonprofit organization that assists individuals with developmental disabilities with travel excursions.
Di Salvo met the Petrones on their delayed honeymoon — the couple’s first vacation — in 1986, when he and two other Sprout leaders escorted a group of 10 adults with developmental disabilities on a cruise to Mexico.
Of the trip, Di Salvo remembers Burt was a hit with the other tourists.
“I put him in the talent show as the musical savant,” he said, adding that Burt also is a self-taught musician and composer.
DiSalvo instructed the audience to give Burt a special date — a birthday or anniversary — including the year. Burt would give them the day of the week it landed on and then play a song.
“The rest of the cruise, they [the tourists] loved him,” Di Salvo remarked.
Burt’s abilities made an impression on Di Salvo, who decided to star him and Barbara, the quiet one in the relationship who mimics what her husband says, in a documentary filmed in 2001.
Di Salvo said it took a while before he was granted permission to film “Burt” due to rules protecting residents released from Willowbrook State School. Rules, he imagines, played a role in the state’s delay in granting the couple a marriage license.
Florine Ugwoke, a resident manager with VOA, however, believes the delay was because marriages between people with developmental disabilities weren’t really being done at the time.
“It took a lot of people to get involved, including assemblymen,” to petition on the Petrones’ behalf, she said.
There also was the issue of consensual sex. At Willowbrook State School many instances of sexual abuse were discovered where staff members and higher-functioning residents took advantage of lower-functioning patients. Even today, Ms. Ugwoke said, therapists must work with developmentally disabled couples to ensure they “know everything about an intimate relationship, physically.
“It took a lot of doctors, a lot of paperwork, a lot of things to make sure [the Petrones] could live together, and if they were truly having a physical, intimate relationship, that she [Barbara] was not going to turn around and say, ‘He touched me in an inappropriate way,’¤” Ms. Ugwoke said.
Volunteers of America, which provides the couple round-the-clock assistance at their apartment in Bridgeview Senior Citizens Housing in Port Richmond, was unable to track down anyone directly involved with the case to verify whether this was the reason for the delay.
What is undeniable is the tenderness that exists between Burt and Barbara, said their care worker for the past 17 years, Sheila Leverette, observing, “They’re really, really close.”
Often spotted holding hands, the couple does everything together.
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School administrator steals designated for special education
June 14th, 2010
By Kathleen McGrory and David Ovalle, Miami Herald
A Miami-Dade schools administrator who oversees special-education programs used public money intended for disabled children to pay for her own children’s tuition at a Broward private school, investigators said Tuesday.
Deborah Swirsky-Nuñez is charged with taking $19,000 in John McKay scholarship money, which is funded by the state to help offset the costs of private schools for children with disabilities, and using the money to pay for her son and daughter to attend a private school in Broward County, according to an arrest affidavit.
Swirsky-Nuñez falsified information on the applications, including the extent of her children’s disabilities, forged signatures and asked schools employees to doctor records, according to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and the Miami-Dade School Board Inspector General.
“It is sad to think that a high-ranking public school administrator . . . would seek to pay her private school bills by using public monies intended to benefit the disabled,” State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said. “This is not a singular error of judgment. It is an act of arrogance and greed.”
Swirsky-Nuñez is married to George Nuñez, a region superintendent who was on the shortlist of employees considered to replace former Superintendent Rudy Crew in 2008.
Together, the couple are paid more than $225,000 a year, according to records.
In order to obtain a McKay Scholarship, a child must have spent at least one year in a public school before applying to a participating private school.
The child must also undergo an Exceptional Student Education evaluation, and have his or her disabilities documented. The extent of the disabilities determines how much money the child is eligible to receive toward private-school tuition.
According to the arrest affidavit, in 2008 Swirsky-Nuñez used an Aventura address to enroll her 14-year-old daughter at Michael Krop Senior High School, where her husband had previously been principal.
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White House celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act
June 11th, 2010
Sunday night, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, kicked off the President’s and White House’s celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act while delivering remarks to over 2,000 people from around the World at the VSA International Festival at the Kennedy Center. Valerie’s remarks, which you can find below, noted the significance of this historic landmark civil rights legislation, highlighted some of the President’s initiatives thus far related to people with disabilities and previewed that senior administration officials will be commemorating this historic anniversary in the weeks to come with new policies and events.
2010 International VSA Festival Opening Ceremony June 6, 2010
Valerie Jarrett RemarksThank you, David for that very kind and generous introduction and for your new chairmanship of this extraordinary Center. We know your tenure will be marked with many accomplishments, and the support of you and your wonderful wife Alice as the principal underwriters for this evening is a wonderful start. We thank you, David. Let’s please give him a round of applause.
What an exciting night. I am having so much fun already, and it’s just beginning. It’s always an honor for me to be able to represent the President and First Lady of the United States who bring you greetings and wish they could be here with you this evening, and I can’t wait to report what a treat this has been. David recognized Soula Antoniou who-and I know she is up in the box, and I want to say just your passionate advocacy for people with disabilities and all that this conference stands for is just tremendous. So, one more round of applause for Soula, please.
David also mentioned Vicky, you grace us with your presence, and of course we want to recognize the contribution of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and the critical role that he played in the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. And throughout the course of his long career was a steadfast champion for people with disabilities, and we miss him dearly, and his impressive legacy and good works and service certainly continue, and he is here with us tonight.
I am honored to represent the White House and the President who is so deeply committed to honoring and enforcing the rights of all people with disabilities. But disability rights are human rights, and to be recognized and promoted from both here at home and certainly around the world and we should lead by example.
That’s why the President was so proud to add America to the list of 140 countries that signed onto the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This was the first new human rights treaty of the 21st Century.It’s also why president Obama lifted the ban on stem cell research.
It’s why he provided more than $12 billion in funding in the Recovery Act for individuals with disabilities education act.
It’s why he signed into law the Christopher and Dana Reeves Paralysis Act. And it’s why the President launched the Year of Community Living, to affirm the fundamental right of people with disabilities to live with dignity and respect wherever they choose, and we’re just beginning. This is just the beginning.
We will celebrate our successes, but we will not stop, and we will know that there is still lots of hard work ahead.
But tonight, I am so pleased to be able to kick off the administration’s recognition of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was a landmark civil rights legislation. It was a bill of rights for persons with disabilities, a formal acknowledgement that Americans with disabilities are Americans first and that they’re entitled to the same rights and freedoms as everybody else.So over the course of the upcoming weeks we will honor this commitment across the country, senior White House officials, cabinet members, members of our administration, and of course the general public will commemorate this historic anniversary through various events, new policy announcements, and other recognitions.
This festival and the ADA’s 20th anniversary are both an opportunity to recommit ourselves to making sure that we see those with disabilities for what they can do rather than for what they cannot. And that everyone has the right to pursue the American dream, everyone, just like everyone else.
And of course this has been the life’s work of tonight’s honoree, Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, VSA’s founder, and you will be hearing from her in a moment. But I would like to add our congratulations to the very important work that she’s done over the course of her lifetime for people with disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities, and her commitment to VSA. So thank you, Ambassador, for your hard work.
For more than 35 years, VSA has made the arts both accessible and enjoyable to people with disabilities. And in so doing, VSA has changed social attitudes and just as important, it has changed the lives of those it seeks to serve. Tonight we celebrate this incredible organization’s legacy, and just as important, we celebrate the artists, those who show us that with passion and hard work and incredible talent, absolutely anything is possible.
Although you will not be seeing me on that skateboard, I will say, we have already enjoyed the wonderful performance so far this evening, and I look forward to the rest of the evening and the duration of the festival. And again, we want to thank you for coming tonight for the support that you give this organization and this cause each and every day, and for being a part of this extraordinary celebration.
Thank you all, and enjoy the night.
Kareem Dale is Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy
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Ghent Bar Tour is on July 31st
June 11th, 2010
The 2010 Ghent Summer Bar Tour will be held on Saturday, July 31st from 4:00pm to 9:00pm. This is the 5th annual Ghent Summer Bar Tour and all proceeds will benefit Hope House Foundation. This event promises to be fun for everyone over the age of 21, with at least 12 locations serving discounted food and beverages, games at each location and an awards ceremony at the end of the evening awarding prizes to those who visited each location. Registration includes a t-shirt, commemorative Ghent Bar Tour cup and a wristband that entitles you to the discounts at each location. You must register online at www.ghentbartour.com in order to participate.
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Disability Rights Leader, Judy Heumann, joining State Department
June 7th, 2010
From United States International Council on Disabilities
Judith Heumann, an international leader in the disability rights movement and a governmental representative to the USICD Board of Directors, will be joining the U.S. Department of State as their Special Advisor for International Disability Rights.
This position was announced last summer, when President Obama and Secretary Clinton declared that the United States would sign the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Heumann resigned her position as Director of the Department on Disability Services for the District of Columbia, and will assume her new position at the Department of State on June 7, 2010.
“This is a significant step forward to the U.S. government’s capacity to include disability in our foreign policy.“ The knowledge Judy will bring to the State Department will be invaluable to international development programs, U.S. ratification of the CRPD, and our country’s approach to international engagement,” says USICD President Marca Bristo. “As longtime colleagues and friends of Judy, the USICD Board of Directors is elated with her appointment and we wish her all the best in her new role.”
Previously, Heumann was the Advisor on Disability and Development for the World Bank from 2002 – 2006, and served as President Clinton’s Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services from 1993 -2001. She was a cofounder of the World Institute on Disability in Oakland, California, and served there from 1982 -1993. She was also a cofounder of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living, serving as their Deputy Director from 1975 – 1981.
In March 2010, prior to her appointment to the State Department, the Minnesota-based nonprofit Courage Center announced that they will grant Heumann the 2010 Medtronic National Courage Award this September. Heumann was selected for the 2010 award in acknowledgment of her lifelong advocacy on behalf of children and adults with disabilities. Heumann was the first recipient of the Henry B. Betts Award in 1990.
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Minnesota apologizes for treatment of people with disabilities
June 4th, 2010
In a little-noticed action, the state Legislature passed a resolution in the waning days of the session, apologizing to thousands of Minnesotans with various mental and developmental disabilities for the treatment they received at the hands of the state dating to 1866.
“This is something that may not seem important to most,” said Rick Cardenas, who for 13 years diligently has pushed for the apology on behalf of voiceless people. “But it is very important to the people receiving the apology.”
Cardenas is co-director of Advocating for Change Together, an organization that pushes for civil rights for people with disabilities. ACT — and Cardenas — also has been at the forefront of Remembering With Dignity, a movement best known for putting names on the graves of the thousands of previously unknown Minnesotans who died in state hospitals.
Despite the brutal treatment those with mental disabilities received, it took 13 years for this simple apology to get the support of the Legislature.
And though Gov. Tim Pawlenty ended up signing the resolution, he felt that it was necessary to sort-of apologize for the apology.
“Today I have signed Resolution 4, House File 1680, which acknowledges the legacy of our State’s past institutionalization practices, and sometimes harsh or inappropriate treatment of this vulnerable population,” Pawlenty wrote to legislative leaders last week after signing the apology.
“However,” Pawlenty continued in his letter, “it is important to note this resolution also negatively paints with a very broad brush the actions of State employees who, in most cases, took actions based in good faith and the scientific understanding at that time.”
The governor’s struggle with signing the apology pretty much sums up why the process took so long, Cardenas said. These were the same concerns, raised in the past, by leadership of state employee unions. There were concerns that by admitting wrongdoing, the state could be held accountable in court for the way people were treated.
Stories of brutal care
But the simple fact is the treatment of people with disabilities was brutal.Luther Granquist, who as a Legal Aid Society attorney led the fight to close the state hospitals in the early 1970s, where people with disabilities were warehoused, is retired now, but he continues to do research on the treatment people received at the hands of the state.
In the 1940s, for example, a highly respected pediatrician at Mayo Clinic, C. Anderson Aldrich, for example, advised that mothers who gave birth to babies with Down syndrome should immediately be separated from their babies and that medical staff should work with the fathers, other relatives and clergy members to tell the mothers that “that the family would be better off” without a Mongoloid (the term at the time) child in the home. Granquist notes that even the baby boomers’ pediatrician, Benjamin Spock, agreed that institutionalizing Down babies was best for all concerned.
Forced sterilizations, lobotomies, punitive shock treatments and forced labor were all part of the “scientific” treatment of people in the past.
Still, an apology resolution, led by Rep. Karen Clark, DFL-Minneapolis, and Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, was a hugely difficult battle. Even after 13 years, the apology that passed was watered down. For example, a section of the resolution devoted to the practices of physicians and medical professionals was removed by the Legislature before passage.“They [the medical professionals] were the ones who were in control, they were the ones who established the policies, but they had to be removed [from the apology],” said Cardenas.