The Disability Community has lost one of its icons.

Yesterday I received the news that Thomas K. Gilhool has died.

Tom was a major figure in the fight to open the public schools to children with disabilities, and thereby close the massive and hideous "state schools and hospitals" where people were incarcerated, sometimes for life, for the "crime" of having a disability.

Tom was the lead litigator in PARC v. Pennsylvania. PARC, that time called the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children, took the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to federal court. The resulting consent decree, handed down in 1972, ended the practice--common at the time--of denying children with disabilities their right to a public school education. Together with Mills v. Board of Education--brought at about the same time--the PARC litigation has been called "The Brown v. Board of Education" of the disability rights movement. It was the catalyst that led to the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (since renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or the IDEA).

The legal strategy he crafted in PARC, "the double barreled approach" argued that denying children the right to a public school education purely because of their disability was violation of their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection and due process under the law, and became a model for similar litigation all across the country. If you are a person with a disability who went to public school after PARC, or are the parent of a child with a disability, you might want to thank Thomas Gilhool for fighting for your right to do so.

Tom went on to argue a host of other disability rights cases, most notably the "Haldeman cases" which led to the closing of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital, which was notorious for its neglect and brutal treatment of children and adults with disabilities. He argued before the US Supreme Court on multiple occasions.

He was for many years an attorney at and eventually the director of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP) which fights for the civil and human rights of marginalized people.

I knew Tom as an amazing resource, always willing to take the time to advise and encourage aspiring activists, litigators and scholars.

He will be sorely missed.