The case involved Patricia Garrett, a nurse for 24 years and Director of Women's Services with the University of Alabama's medical center. During her employment, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. When she returned from a four-month, stress-related leave, she was asked to quit or take a lower-paying job. She took the job in which she made $13,000 a year less so that she would still have health insurance. She sued the state under the provisions of the ADA alleging disability discrimination. She won in the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals. But the five Supreme Court justices said the lower court was wrong in allowing Garrett to sue the state for her discrimination. It didn't matter that she could still perform her job with her disability.

Time will tell what the implications of this recent ruling will have for disabled persons working for state agencies. With President Bush most likely able to name more conservative judges to the Court during his term, the five-member majority can look forward to increasing their ideological companionship.

Ironically, it was George W's father who signed the ADA in 1990. At the time the elder Bush said that the ADA let disabled persons "pass through once-closed doors into a bright new era of equality, independence and freedom." The recent Court ruling attempts to shut those doors.

But "doors" that have been shut for many disabled persons for some time are the portal openings that lead to the World Wide Web.

To understand what I'm talking about, here's an exercise you can try at home in front of your computer. Next time you want to find some news or information, buy a present for a loved one, or take a course online through the World Wide Web, try doing it with your eyes closed. What you will discover rather quickly is that many websites are not designed to accommodate those with disabilities. Without sight, for example, you won't be able to tell pictures from words or be able to click a button for another link. Now, imagine you need to use the Web for your job or to get a promotion but you can't because the door is closed.

Just as architectural and transportation barriers can thwart an individual from participating freely and equally, barriers to the World Wide Web can be just as prohibiting. In the US and Canada there are about 200 million Web users. And with about 30 million Americans with physical disabilities, poor design techniques make websites as inaccessible to those with physical disabilities as a curb on a sidewalk or a bus without a wheelchair lift.

When the needs of disabled persons are not considered in website design, there is a significant and important percentage of the population that is being left out of the benefits that can be found from the information superhighway.

And increasingly, one of the most popular features of the online world is taking advantage of educational opportunities. Web-based courses are the distance learning preference for hundreds of universities throughout the world. From individual course offerings to whole degree programs, online learning is the fastest growing field in education today. Online courses can be asynchronous, in which students take "stand-alone" courses at anytime, sort of similar to a mail order course. They can be synchronous, in which students use a virtual classroom and have a chat with the instructor at a specified time. And they can contain elements of both asynchronous and synchronous learning.

The Practical Ethics Center and the Center for Continuing Education on the campus of the University of Montana are working to develop totally online courses that are designed so that those with disabilities can enjoy equal access with anyone else taking the courses no matter where they are in the world. Through research grants the Centers will not only develop online courses and websites accessible to all, but offer workshops for educators and Web designers so that their sites can enable the disabled as well.

It is the right thing for all of us to try to eliminate discrimination in all its forms in all of society, whether private, federal, or state-based. And it is also the right thing to design websites that give those with physical disabilities equal access. Supreme Court or any other rulings should have no effect upon this important work.

writings