[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 161 (Thursday, September 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S5704]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REMEMBERING THOMAS KANE GILHOOL

 Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, today I rise to recognize and pay 
tribute to Thomas Kane Gilhool, who championed the rights of inclusion 
for children and adults with disabilities and changed public policy in 
our country for all people with disabilities. His work was pivotal in 
affirming the constitutional right of children with disabilities to a 
public education, increasing community-based services for people with 
developmental disabilities, and creating a pathway for people with 
autism and other developmental disabilities to leave institutions and 
live with neighbors, friends, and family.
  Tom Gilhool was an originating member of Philadelphia's Community 
Legal Services. At the start of his career, he helped to organize, 
train, and then represented the Philadelphia Welfare Rights 
Organization and the Residents Advisory Board, as well as other 
organizations representing residents in low-income neighborhoods. The 
recognition agreements he secured empowered those organizations to 
effectively represent welfare recipients and public housing tenants and 
served as models that were replicated throughout the country.
  Tom Gilhool's seminal accomplishment was his groundbreaking 
representation of plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania Association for 
Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the 
Nation's first civil rights case brought on behalf of children with 
disabilities. Kate Fialkowski, sister of two boys represented in the 
case, remembers Tom as ``an intellectual giant, lawyer, and legal 
historian,'' someone ``who used his gifts not for self-aggrandizement, 
but instead to raise up the lives of others, including those with 
intellectual and developmental disabilities.'' Prior to this case, 
children with disabilities were all but excluded from attending public 
schools. The decree of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania in 1972 paved the way for the 1975 passage of the 
Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now known as the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act--IDEA--which affirmed every 
child's right to a free and appropriate public education in the least 
restrictive environment.
  Tom Gilhool's work on PARC v. Pennsylvania led to another landmark 
case on behalf of people with disabilities. In Pennhurst State School 
and Hospital v. Halderman, 1981, Tom Gilhool was lead counsel for 
residents of Pennhurst State School and Hospital, the residential home 
to almost 3,000 people with intellectual and developmental 
disabilities. By 1968, Pennhurst was exposed as an overcrowded, 
violent, and abusive setting. Through Tom's work, the right to 
habilitation in non-segregated settings was established. The ruling in 
Pennhurst v. Halderman was the forerunner of the 1999 Olmstead v. LC 
Supreme Court decision, establishing the right to treatment and 
services in community-based settings. Since that case, nearly 200,000 
people have moved from abusive, segregated settings where they had been 
deprived of dignity, respect, and their basic needs. Tom Gilhool's work 
made it possible for millions of children and adults with intellectual 
and developmental disabilities to avoid such places.
  The cases Tom Gilhool argued laid much of the foundation for the 
passage of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Judith Gran, a 
long-time colleague of Tom Gilhool at the Public Interest Law Center 
said, ``Tom was the most effective civil rights lawyer of his 
generation. Without his vision and strategic gifts, [people with 
disabilities] might not have the right to education and the right to 
live in the community.''
  In 2012, Pennhurst v. Halderman was cited by Chief Justice John 
Roberts in upholding the constitutionality of key provisions of the 
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the National Federation 
of Independent Business v. Sebelius.
  When my father was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1986, he asked 
Tom to serve as Secretary of Education. Tom worked hard for the 
children of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1989.
  Thomas Gilhool's tremendous contributions to the lives and rights of 
people with disabilities and their families are immeasurable. His 
accomplishments will continue to benefit all people with disabilities 
and inspire all who continue to work to protect the rights and freedoms 
of people with disabilities.

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