Thirty years ago, the ADA became law, ensuring basic civil rights for people with disabilities in all areas of public life. Over the past few decades, the field of disability rights law has experienced rapid growth, as scholars, practitioners, and legislators alike have sought to advance the mission of the ADA to create a more fair, just, and equal world.

To that end, Syracuse University College of Law founded, in 2005, the award winning Disability Law and Policy Program, which has become the most extensive disability law program in the United States. DLPP faculty and students work on the front lines of domestic and international issues of paramount significance to people with disabilities all around the world.

ADA Symposium Poster

Volume 71 of Syracuse Law Review hopes to recognize, and continue, this progress with the publication of a Special Volume. This latest issue features scholarship that discusses both where we have been, and, perhaps more importantly, where we have yet to go in the field of disability rights law.

Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); the 15th anniversary of the Disability Law and Policy Program; and the Syracuse Law Review ADA Special Volume

AGENDA* Link

10:00 a.m. Arrival of Participants

10:05 a.m. Welcoming Remarks

Introductions

Speakers:

• Dean Craig M. Boise

• Arlene S. Kanter, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence and Director, Disability Law and Policy Program

• Lisa G. Liu, Syracuse Law Review Lead Articles Editor

• Michael D. Stoianoff, Syracuse Law Review Lead Articles Editor

10:15 a.m. Morning Keynote
Biden Administration Goals for Community Living and Disability Inclusion

Speaker:

• Alison Barkoff, Acting Administrator & Assistant Secretary for Aging, Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

10:30 a.m. Panel Discussion I
Presentations by Special Volume Contributors

Panelists:

• • Getting It: The ADA After Thirty Years
    Elizabeth F. Emens, Columbia Law School, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law

• • Centering Disability Justice
    Natalie M. Chin, City University of New York School of Law, Associate Professor of Law

• • Policing Under Disability Law (Stanford Law Review, Vol. 73, Forthcoming)
    Jamelia Morgan, University of Connecticut School of Law, Associate Professor of Law and Robert D. Glass Research Scholar

• The Future Is Here: The Right to Work Remotely Under Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act
  Professor Arlene Kanter

Moderator: Doron Dorfman, Associate Professor of Law

12:00 p.m. Roundtable Discussion

Informal Discussion on the ADA’s past and future with presenters and Mercedees Rees, President, Disability Law Society, and students from the Disability Law and Policy Program.

1:00 p.m. Afternoon Keynote
Overview of the ADA: The Past, Present, and Future

Speakers:

• Judy Heumann, International Disability Rights activist, author of Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist

• Arlene Mayerson Esq., Founding Directing Attorney Emerita, Of-counsel, DREDF

Moderator: Professor Arlene S. Kanter

1:30 p.m., Panel Discussion II
Presentations by Special Volume Contributors

Panelists:

• • Program Access Under Disability Discrimination Law
    Mark C. Weber, DePaul College of Law, Vincent de Paul Professor of Law
  • The ADA Constrained: How Federal Courts Entrench the Perpetrator Perspective in Prison Cases
    Prianka Nair, Brooklyn Law School, Assistant Professor of Clinical Law and Co-Director,  Disability and Civil Rights Clinic
  • The Commonality of Discrimination: Class Certification Under the ADA
    Steven Schwartz, Center for Public Representation, Litigation Director
    Kathryn Rucker, Center for Public Representation, Staff Attorney

• The ADA’s Imagined Future
  Professor Doron Dorfman

Moderator: Professor Arlene S. Kanter

2:30 p.m. Q&A Session
Special Volume Contributors and Speakers Panel

3:00 p.m. Closing Remarks

*Subject to alteration before April 23, 2021.

CART and sign language interpreters will be provided. Additional accommodation requests can be made on the registration form.