A Key Architect of the ABLE Act Recognized for Efforts to Advance Financial Capability for People with Disabilities

Originally News Released WASHINGTON – September 30, 2020 https://www.finra.org/media-center/newsreleases/2020/finra-foundation-awards-2020-ketchum-prize-michael-morris

The FINRA Investor Education Foundation (FINRA Foundation) today awarded Michael Morris the 2020 Ketchum Prize—its highest honor—for his extraordinary leadership in creating a better economic future for people with disabilities through advocacy, research and education. Continue Reading

Dr. Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, presented at Reed Smith’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summit his recent ground-breaking research regarding the lack of disability diversity in the legal profession. In a recent study commissioned by the ABA to focus on non-visible identities in law, he and his co-authors found that while a quarter of respondents said they had a health condition, impairment, or disability, only a third of those respondents identified as disabled. Continue Reading

BBI chairman Peter Blanck will be presenting the new NIDDLR GRANT Disability Inclusive Employment Policy Rehabilitation Research and Training Centers at ACLS’ National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) Virtual Event, October 28, 2020.

The panel: “Looking Forward After Looking Back”: Promising New Research Innovations in Disability Employment, is moderator by Leslie Caplan, Ph.D., Former Project Officer, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. Continue Reading

In recognition of important milestones this year, the Southeast ADA Center and the Burton Blatt Institute of Syracuse University will host a four-event Virtual Series: Disability Employment–Looking Back & Moving  Forward on each Wednesday in October starting at 1 p.m. [ET].

“Increasing Access and Opportunity” is the October 2020 theme for the annual National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). This year marks the 75th year of NDEAM lead by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). This year 2020 also celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the 100th anniversary of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR). Continue Reading

Today’s unprecedented health, social, and economic challenges raised by the coronavirus pandemic require a retrospective, present-day, and prospective view of U.S. employment policy for individuals with disabilities. Over the next five years, the goal of the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on “Disability Inclusive Employment Policy” (DIEP) will be to design and implement a series of studies that produce new data and evidence on policy levers to increase employment rates of persons with disabilities with the objective of informing current and future policy and program development. Continue Reading

Professor Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute and lead author of the study, said “the longer-term objective (of the study) is to help measurably enhance the professional lives of lawyers and others in the profession by understanding and mitigating pernicious sources of attitudinal stigma and structural bias.”

Lawyers who either identify as having disabilities or who identify as LGBTQ+ report experiencing both subtle and overt forms of discrimination at their workplaces, with common reports of subtle but unintentional biases. The findings come from a new national study released today by the American Bar Association, in collaboration with the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. Continue Reading

New York, NY: On Friday, September 25, at 4 p.m. the Disability Allied Law Students Association (DALSA) at the New York University School of Law virtually hosted Dr. Peter Blanck to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Dr. Blanck’s address  reflected on the current state of disability law in the U.S., with a particular focus on COVID-19, and intersections with criminal justice, poverty, and race.
Read the full address here
View the recordings here
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The shift to online instruction for schools across the United States has exposed troubling gaps in digital access and accessibility, especially for low income students and students with disabilities. Schools now face the difficult task of re-imagining what instruction will look like in the future. Continue Reading

What better way to celebrate the 30th ADA anniversary than with the “chief architect” of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lex Frieden.  Mr. Frieden is a well-known disability rights activist and a leader in the independent living movement.  He is a professor of biomedical informatics and rehabilitation at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He also directs the Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) program at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, home of the Southwest ADA Center, one of ten regional ADA centers in the ADA National Network.  From 2002 until 2006, he served by appointment of President George W. Bush as Chairman of the National Council on Disability (NCD). Continue Reading