[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 47 (Thursday, March 19, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1658-S1659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING WILLIAM DAVID ROTH

 Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to speak today in 
remembrance of William David Roth, who passed away on March 17, 2015.
  William ``Bill'' David Roth, 71, of Albany, NY, lived an 
extraordinary life and made major contributions to U.S. public policy. 
He was the son of Dr. Oscar Roth and Dr. Stefanie Zeimer Roth, refugees 
from Vienna who arrived in the United States just prior to the onset of 
World War II. Bill graduated magna cum laude from Yale University in 
1964 after majoring in mathematics, economics, and politics. This is 
all the more remarkable given the fact that a neuromuscular disorder 
from the age of 8 left him unable to write. He performed complex 
mathematical equations and logical formulae in his head. He was also a 
formidable presence at Yale and later at the University of California, 
Berkley, where he received his Ph.D. in 1970. He was that rare person 
who was both a man of thought and action and who inspired others by 
overcoming great odds and obstacles. From 1971 to 1972 he taught 
political science at the University of Vermont. He very well may have 
averted a Kent State tragedy in 1972 by permitting himself to be 
arrested at the Federal building in downtown Burlington during a 
nonviolent student protest against the Vietnam war. While Roth was 
offered immediate release because of his disability, he chose instead 
to remain until all the students had been released from the Burlington 
city jail. In this way he showed one of the virtues of civil 
disobedience, conducted with dignity and without violence, thus serving 
as an example and inspiration to others.
  Subsequently, he went to work on the Carnegie Council on Children in 
Connecticut. He coauthored a landmark book that dealt searchingly with 
children with disabilities. His first major work was called ``The 
Unexpected Minority: Handicapped Children in America.'' He also 
coauthored ``The Grand Illusion: Stigma, Role-expectations, and 
Communication.'' These are widely acknowledged as providing the 
analytical basis for the disability rights movement as well as 
fostering a new academic discipline, disability studies.
  Bill's work emphasized the disability movement's core vision: the 
most socially incapacitating aspects of disability are not the 
inescapable consequence of biology but the result of countless social 
decisions that do not acknowledge the needs of people with different 
bodies and, indeed, discriminate against people whose bodies are 
different. Bill went on to pioneer the use of computer technology for 
people with disabilities and in 1984 founded the Center for Computing 
and Disability at SUNY, Albany, one of the first such centers in the 
Nation. Bill was widely acknowledged through his scholarly research, 
technological

[[Page S1659]]

imagination, and progressive politics, as one of the founders of 
America's disability rights movement. He helped establish the framework 
for the Federal Disabilities Act and his work over the years addressed 
the architectural, transportation, and technological barriers to living 
with a disability in the United States.
  As a longtime professor at the University at SUNY School of Social 
Welfare he taught courses in social policy and disability studies. In 
recent years, Bill's research and writing focused on illuminating the 
damage done in the aggressive pursuit of dismantling of the U.S. 
welfare state. His book, ``The Assault on Social Policy,'' Columbia UP, 
is now in its second edition. It is recommended reading for all of my 
colleagues. Bill Roth fought not only with issues in disability but 
with his own neuromuscular disorder. He was a little like the phoenix--
the bird that kept coming back. He was one of the most courageous 
people I have ever known. He was brilliant, imaginative, inventive, and 
utterly fearless. Bill inspired those of us who had the good fortune to 
know him. As Senator Joe Lieberman noted upon hearing of Bill Roth's 
death:

       Bill was an extraordinary person--gifted, strong, funny, 
     inspiring. We were blessed to know him.

  As lawmakers, we have benefited from his many contributions to public 
policy and discourse. We remember and honor him for these 
accomplishments. Bill Roth overcame serious illnesses as well as 
disabilities. He served as a courageous example to his family, friends, 
colleagues, and students.

                          ____________________