A new threat to the ADA [View all]

I posted this in General Discussion and am cross-posting it here.

This case could essentially gut federal civil rights protections for people with disabilities.
Last Thursday night activist Judy Heumann, in a presentation about ableism in higher education, stressed that appealing this to the US Supreme Court will have a devastating impact on enforcement of the ADA and Section 504.

https://edsource.org/2021/unintentional-discrimination-at-the-heart-of-disability-lawsuit-against-california-community-college-district/665076

As described in the article, to allow an entity to weasel out of providing access by saying it "didn't intend to discriminate" will make it almost impossible to enforce access requirements.

IMHO, for this college district to appeal this case to this Supreme Court, especially given its years-long callous disregard of access requirements for its blind students, is telling about whether or not it intended to discriminate. The problems these students encountered could have been addressed at any point along the way, but instead the school chose and is choosing to fight it out to the bitter end, counting on the 6-3 Republican court to side with it despite the law and the evidence.

Fifty years of hard-won gains for the disability rights movement is about to be undone.

Conservatives have wanted to repeal or gut the ADA since the day it was signed into law. It looks as though they're about to have their dream--our nightmare--come true.