Section 504 Passed
America takes its first steps toward inclusion for disabled people
Image Description: Symbol for equal rights of persons with disabilities. Man, disability person on real white speech bubble paper cut and equal sign on wooden cube blocks with blue background
Today is a very important day in American disability history - it’s the day that Section 504 of the Rehabilitiation Act was passed in 1973. Why is this important?
It was the first civil rights legislaton in America that addressed the needs of disabled people.
It paved the way for additional legislation protecting the rights of disabled of Americans, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It covers “any program or activity receiving federal financial support”, including schools and their extracurricular activities, libraries, and airports.
Section 504 was intended to reduce systemic ableism - discrimination based on disability. It states:
“No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States shall, solely by reason of his or her disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service.”
The Fight to Pass Section 504
Section 504’s focus on disability using the social model as opposed to the medical model didn’t sit well with some lawmakers. Senator Hubert Humphrey had proposed amending the Civil Rights Act to extend to disability, but some polititicians feared the implications of extending said legislation to include other forms of discrimination. So Humphrey’s proposal was added to the Rehabilitation Act. Nixon then vetoed it twice, as he didn’t support the idea that these funds should go to independent living centers for disabled people.
The 504 Sit Ins
Disabled Americans soon discovered that getting facilities and programs to implement the changes required of them because of Section 504 being made law was a whole other story. It’s one that leads to the infamous 504 Sit Ins of 1977, in Health, Education and Welfare offices across America.
We’ll definitely be talking these in more detail later, but the largest of these sit ins by America’s disabled people was in San Fransisco. It lasted for 25 days, with almost 120 disability activists occupying the building. It’s a truly amazing story - you can learn more about it in this YouTube video created by PotsieSpoons:
And the late Judith Heumann, who was one of the protesters, tells the story in detail in her book, Being Heumann.
Perhaps take a moment of silence today to remember those people who fought so hard to get us to where we are in 2024. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than it was.