People with mental disabilities and those who advocate on their behalf are awaiting with considerable trepidation a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that could eviscerate—or reinforce—the strong antidiscrimination protections of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

On October 11 the high court heard arguments in a case in which two physically disabled individuals sued the state of Alabama over actions by two state agencies that the plaintiffs allege illegally discriminated against them based solely on their disabilities.

The state maintains that the U.S. Constitution does not permit citizens to sue states in federal court for violating federal law, in this case the federal law being the ADA. The Supreme Court and the lower courts have made it clear that in this case, University of Alabama v. Garrett, the critical issue centers around states’ rights, not the legality of the ADA’s requirements and provisions.

With the Supreme Court giving precedence to states’ rights, however, in several other cases over the last few years, usually in 5-4 decisions, advocates for disabled individuals have reason to be concerned about the justices’ forthcoming decision in Garrett. (The case began as two separate lawsuits that were merged into one by the trial court that first heard it because the grounds of the two suits were so similar.)

Patricia Garrett was the director of women’s services at the University of Alabama Medical Center. After being treated for breast cancer at the facility, during which time she took leave to have chemotherapy, she was demoted and then transferred, which she attributed to her supervisor’s dislike of "sick people." She sued the state university for ADA violations, claiming that these job actions were taken as a result of her developing a disabling illness.

The other original plaintiff, Milton Ash, filed suit against his employer, the state’s youth corrections facility, after administrators there refused to make changes to accommodate Ash’s asthma. He had asked them to enforce the agency’s no-smoking policy and service cars he was required to drive so they would not spew fumes that aggravated his asthma. The ADA, which Congress passed in 1990, requires public agencies and other employers to make "reasonable accommodation" to the needs of disabled workers and members of the public.

Garrett and Ash filed their suits against the state in federal courts since they were alleging violations of federal law.

The trial court judge found in favor of Alabama, ruling that the state could not be sued for damages in a federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit reversed that ruling, however, and the state then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The trial and appeals courts based the substantial portions of their reasoning on different amendments to the Constitution, a pattern attorneys for the two sides relied on as well in their arguments before the high court.

The trial court and attorneys for the state insist that the 11th Amendment’s prohibition against private citizens suing a state in federal court means the case has no grounds to proceed. The appellate court and attorneys representing Garrett and Ash contend that the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all citizens both equal protection of the law and due process, takes precedence in ADA-based cases. That amendment was enacted after the Civil War and is the basis of several civil rights laws.

Supreme Court justices have been using a two-part test to evaluate whether Congress has the power to enact a civil rights law, such as the ADA, under the 14th Amendment that is binding on the states. The first looks at whether a significant discrimination problem existed when Congress passed a statute to outlaw such bias. The second issue is whether the antidiscrimination law’s requirements impose reasonable and proportionate remedies for the problem.

What has disability rights advocates particularly worried is that the high court recently ruled in an age-discrimination case known as Kimel v. Florida that the law failed the test of proving that a problem of age discrimination by the states or in general was so pervasive it warranted the federal legislative remedy that Congress had endorsed. Since they decided the case did not meet the standards for a federal civil rights law, the justices turned to the 11th Amendment’s lawsuit prohibition and ruled by a one-vote margin that citizens could not sue a state for alleged violations of a federal statute barring age-based discrimination.

In the Garrett case, attorneys for the plaintiffs and a host of organizations and individuals who have submitted amicus curiae briefs supporting the right to sue states argued that disability-based discrimination is so pervasive in this country that Congress’s passage of the ADA was well within the requirements for civil rights protections set in the 14th Amendment. As a result the law should override the prohibition against suing a state for violations of federal law.

Among the diverse collection of organizations submitting briefs on behalf of Garrett and Ash are the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, Disability Rights Education Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, American Civil Liberties Union, American Cancer Society, National Association of People With AIDS, AARP, and the Anti-Defamation League. Many of the organizations are concerned that an unfavorable ruling could lead to weakening of other antidiscrimination laws.

Former President George Bush, who signed the ADA into law, also submitted a brief explaining how the pervasive nature of disability discrimination and the "patchwork quilt" of laws to protect the disabled convinced him to support the ADA. Seven current or past members of Congress also submitted a brief, as did the attorney general of Minnesota on behalf of 14 states.

The Bazelon Center issued a press release prior to the high court’s hearing of oral arguments warning that among the most troubling outcomes if the Court accepts Alabama’s argument are that "states would no longer have to comply with the ADA’s integration mandate as upheld last year by the Supreme Court in the Olmstead decision," and states would be allowed "to refuse to hire people with physical or mental disabilities and to fire them at will, and would no longer have to provide reasonable accommodations in the workplace."

[Garrett v. Alabama, 193F.3d 1214 (11th Cir. 1999)]