The Argument Against Lifeboats

Why is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying organization for American businesses, opposed to the ADA Restoration Act currently being debated on Capitol Hill?

What is the ADA Restoration Act all about, and why should Americans who do not have disabilities be concerned with these questions?

(FYI the ADA Restoration Act has received bi-partisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives. However the bill faces greater opposition in the Senate.)

The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is generally heralded as the most successful bi-partisan legislation ever enacted in the United States. Disability affects everyone regardless of political affiliation.

The ADA became the law of the land because Congress did its homework. The Congressional Record shows that the 1990 act remains the most thoroughly researched and carefully vetted legislation ever adopted in the United States.

The aim of the ADA is to give people with disabilities civil rights by opening the doors to all areas of civic life in this country.

Because the ADA is civil rights legislation that guarantees employment rights for people with disabilities it should be no surprise that the ADA became a substantial vehicle for employment discrimination lawsuits in the years that followed its passage.

During this same period a rightward leaning U.S. Supreme Court routinely overturned findings of disability discrimination by the lower federal courts, in some cases declaring that states are not required to make special accommodations for the disabled in the provision of employment.

In other words: according to the Supreme Court, Congress doesn’t have the authority to pass civil rights legislation that affects the states. This is a novel argument because in point of fact the Federal government does indeed have the authority to protect the nation’s citizens from discrimination. In effect, the Supreme Court has routinely ruled that businesses can discriminate against people with disabilities (along with women and the elderly) merely by arguing that Congress doesn’t have the authority to tell the states what to do.

This is why the ADA Restoration Act is important to all Americans. Congress is literally asserting its right to protect our nation’s citizens from discrimination on the basis of physical difference. Individual states do not have the right to ignore the civil rights of our nation’s citizens.

The general argument by opponents of disability rights is that having to make a business or work place accessible puts a damper on profits.

And this is true. It costs money to make a bathroom accessible; it costs something to put in a wheelchair ramp; it costs my own employer, the University of Iowa a few thousand dollars extra to provide me with a couple of talking computers so I can work at home or in my office.

In general it’s fair to say that these investments pay off. When you make your business "disability friendly" you are not only opening your doors to some 54 million potential customers, but you also make yourself attractive to the friends and families of those customers.

But the resistance to disability rights is entirely caught in the mediocre logic of simple profitability.

In short: any regulation that inhibits maximum profits must be defeated

This position is perhaps most famously represented by the problem of lifeboats on the Titanic. Allow me to quote from the book "The Night Lives On" by Walter lord:

"Surely, all the regulators everywhere couldn't have been asleep. There had to be a better explanation.

There was. The problem was not somnolence; it was subservience. The members of the Board of Trade itself knew little about ships or safety at sea. They were mostly decorative luminaries like the Archbishop of Canterbury. On nautical matters they deferred to the professional staff of the Board's Marine Department. But these men were bureaucrats-better at carrying out policy than making it. When it came to such questions as whether ships should provide lifeboats for all on board, these men deferred to the Department's Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee. This group was dominated by the ship-owners themselves, and they were only too happy to make policy. They knew exactly where they stood, and they did not want boats for all.

In the luxury trade, "boats for all" meant less room on the upper decks for the suites, the games and sports, the verandahs and palm courts, and the glass-enclosed observation lounges that lured the wealthy travelers from the competition. On the Titanic, for instance, it would sacrifice that vast play area amidships and instead clutter the Boat Deck with (of all things) boats.

In steerage, the other place where there was big money to be made, "boats for all" would be even more costly. In calculating the number of lifeboats needed, the Board of Trade used a simple rule of thumb: each person took up ten cubic feet of space. Hence 1,134 steerage passengers-the number the Titanic was certified to carry-would require 11,340 cubic feet of space. This translated into 19 lifeboats required for steerage alone . . . or nearly 60 boats, counting everybody. Almost any owner would prefer to use most of this space in some revenue-producing way-if he could persuade himself that the boats weren't really necessary.

This proved easy to do. The new superliners could easily ride out the storms and heavy seas that sometimes engulfed steamers of the past. Increased compartmentalization seemed safer, since no one could imagine anyThing worse than being rammed at the point where two compartments joined. The development of wireless should end the days when ships simply disappeared. In the future, lifeboats would only be used to ferry passengers and crew to the gathering fleet of rescue ships, and nobody needed "boats for all" to do that.

It didn't take long for the owners to convince themselves that the concept was positively dangerous. Piling all that gear on the upper decks would make a vessel top-heavy, or "tender," as nautical men put it. Also, the top decks would be so congested that the crew would have no room to work, if it did indeed become necessary to abandon ship.

Finally, there was the weather. The stormy Atlantic was no place to float the 50 to 60 lifeboats required for a ship the size of the Titanic, if "boats for all" was the rule. Nineteen times out of 20, estimated White Star's general manager Harold Sanderson, the boats could not be lowered safely. Once afloat, passengers would be subject to additional dangers as they bobbed around waiting for rescue. "They could avoid all this by drowning at once," dryly observed the magazine Fairplay, when Sanderson persisted in his views even after the disaster."

Sound familiar?

We are again in the Edwardian age of strident arguments for total profitability. The current Supreme Court would easily argue that mandating lifeboats for all would be compromising to the rules of free trade. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce would be comfortable keeping those lifeboats strictly optional.

The same people would like very much to keep the United States free from universal health care. Sure, we lead the industrialized world in infant mortality, but that’s the way it should be. Health care for all could conceivably prevent someone from building a glass walled boutique.

I wish I was exaggerating.

I urge everyone to write their Senators and tell them to stand for the ADA Restoration Act.

S.K.

Comments

[Janet]

What a great analogy. Thanks Steve.

[Hypatia]

I'm afraid I disagree that the ADA ever really had or that it currently has bipartisan support. I think the ADA was passed and is still supported in name only because it sounds nice - it's helping the disabled and who could be against that? But I get so much across the board resistance from *everyone* when I try to get accommodations under this law, from small to large businesses, public and non-profit organizations, and especially from federal government offices and agencies (not to mention city and state offices) that I don't know who the few people are who actually support the thing or even know what it means. In my experience, people in general don't really get it or believe that I really consider myself an equal citizen and really want equality. It just doesn't seem reasonable. Not really. I think if the average person was presented with what they might be expected to do under the ADA, either at work or in relation to other public activities they participate in, to include *all* disabled people, I think they would say something like " well, in general I support the law but not that part of it."

I think the failure of the ADA lies mainly in people not really knowing what it means and in the various disability rights movements not managing to get the kind of press that would actually communicate what we really want. If we did, I think we would encounter a lot more public opposition but then we would at least all have our cards on the table

[Rob at Kintropy]

Very well-written and expressed.

As Hypatia suggests in her comment, ADA passage and consistent ADA compliance, particularly at the local level, are two different things. It will still be a struggle, at times, to get ADA compliance, but we need the law in place to help push for compliance.