Standard Accommodations

The road to universal disability

Walter Olson from the February 1999 issue

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A Philadelphia investment manager and political independent appointed to the CRC in 1990, Redenbaugh brings an unusual degree of personal experience to bear on the issue, being the only disabled member to serve on the commission since it was set up in 1957. (He was blinded and lost most of the use of his hands in an explosion when he was 17.) As a business person, he's also familiar with the hiring process. So it's worth paying attention when he says he thinks one of the ways the ADA has backfired is by forbidding employers from asking questions "likely to elicit information about a disability" at any stage of a job interview before an offer is made: "My own fear is that the ADA implementing regulations can have a chilling effect on the hiring of the disabled."

Provocatively, Redenbaugh's dissent includes a list of 16 extreme or remarkable ADA cases that have reached courts around the country, many of which, he writes, "defy credulity and are absolutely not what we intended when we passed the law."

That's exactly the sort of thing that drives the other side crazy: Disabled-rights advocates have virtually tagged it as a hate crime to trade "horror stories" about the statute, as some of us have been known to do from time to time. It must take a certain quiet courage for this seemingly mild-mannered public figure to risk the kind of vilification he could face if the disabled-rights community--which, to put it mildly, does not have a record of taking criticism gracefully--identifies him as the equivalent of a "disabled Tom Sowell."

Even if the civil rights establishment resists the temptation to go after Redenbaugh personally, they're almost certain to tune out his message. In doing so, they'll put themselves in the role of the husband stepping on the gas pedal in the old joke. "But, Harold," his wife objects, "aren't we headed in the wrong direction?" "Who cares?" Harold replies. "We're making great time."