[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 51 (Tuesday, March 21, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S857]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING JUDY HEUMANN

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in honoring 
the life of Judy Heumann, one of the most important disability and 
civil rights leaders of our time.
  While Judy spent most of her childhood and early adult life in New 
York, she is a native Pennsylvanian, born in Philadelphia in 1947. She 
was an advocate for disability equality and access to education from an 
early age. When her mother attempted to enroll her in public 
kindergarten, the school principal denied her admission because Judy's 
wheelchair was determined to be ``a fire hazard.'' That determination 
wasn't by any official means; it was only in the opinion of a principal 
who had the power to bar her from receiving an education. It took over 
4 years for Judy's parents to find a school where she could enroll, 
starting regular attendance at school at the age of 9.
  At the start of her adult life, Judy experienced similar 
discrimination when the New York City schools denied her a job as a 
teacher, despite having passed all requirements but one, the physical 
examination. Judy sued the New York City Public Schools and won her 
case and was hired as the first teacher with a disability in the New 
York City schools. That was 1970.
  One year later, partly inspired by the successful advocacy of Judy, 
Pennsylvania parents of children with intellectual disabilities filed 
suit to secure enrollment of their children in Pennsylvania public 
schools. That successful case, known as PARC v. Pennsylvania, was the 
foundation for the 1975 Education of All Handicapped Children Act, now 
known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
  After many years of advocacy, that included the development and 
passage of IDEA and the Americans with Disabilities Act, Judy was 
appointed by President Clinton to be the Assistant Secretary of Special 
Education and Rehabilitation Services in the Department of Education, a 
position she held from 1993 to 2001.
  With that appointment, Judy had come full circle, from being barred 
from attending public school as a kindergartener, to being responsible 
for ensuring public schools across the country were accessible to and 
educating all children with disabilities.
  Successfully advocating for such groundbreaking change in education 
of children with disabilities would have been enough for one life, but 
Judy did much more than advocate to secure access to education for 
children with disabilities. Her work included implementation of section 
504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which requires all governments and 
public entities that receive Federal funding to ensure their services 
and settings are accessible to people with disabilities. She was a key 
partner with Democrats and Republicans in the writing and 
implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the 
Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments in 2008.
  Judy's work was not limited to the United States. In 1983, Judy, 
along with Ed Roberts, one of the fathers of the disability rights 
movement, established the World Institute on Disability. She felt that 
the disability rights achieved in America needed to be spread 
throughout the world. Judy became the first Advisor on Disability and 
Development at the World Bank in 2002. And in 2010, President Obama 
appointed her to the position of Special Advisor on International 
Disability Rights at the State Department, a role she filled until 
2017.
  Along the way, Judy rarely forgot that she was working for individual 
people with disabilities. When visiting countries, she made it a point 
to seek out young people with disabilities and encourage them to speak 
out and to become leaders in their own towns, districts, States, and 
countries. She knew the power of policy to change lives and the 
importance of individuals to implement that change.
  Judy Heumann changed the world in big and small ways for people with 
disabilities and all of us.

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