The Argument Against Lifeboats

Why is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying organization for American businesses, opposed to the ADA Restoration Act currently being debated on Capitol Hill?

What is the ADA Restoration Act all about, and why should Americans who do not have disabilities be concerned with these questions?

(FYI the ADA Restoration Act has received bi-partisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives. However the bill faces greater opposition in the Senate.)

The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is generally heralded as the most successful bi-partisan legislation ever enacted in the United States. Disability affects everyone regardless of political affiliation.

The ADA became the law of the land because Congress did its homework. The Congressional Record shows that the 1990 act remains the most thoroughly researched and carefully vetted legislation ever adopted in the United States.

The aim of the ADA is to give people with disabilities civil rights by opening the doors to all areas of civic life in this country.

Because the ADA is civil rights legislation that guarantees
employment rights for people with disabilities it should be no surprise
that the ADA became a substantial vehicle for employment discrimination
lawsuits in the years that followed its passage.

During this same period a rightward leaning U.S. Supreme Court
routinely overturned findings of disability discrimination by the lower
federal courts, in some cases declaring that states are not required to
make special accommodations for the disabled in the provision of
employment.

In other words: according to the Supreme Court, Congress doesn’t
have the authority to pass civil rights legislation that affects the
states. This is a novel argument because in point of fact the Federal
government does indeed have the authority to protect the nation’s
citizens from discrimination. In effect, the Supreme Court has
routinely ruled that businesses can discriminate against people with
disabilities (along with women and the elderly) merely by arguing that
Congress doesn’t have the authority to tell the states what to do.

This is why the ADA Restoration Act is important to all Americans.
Congress is literally asserting its right to protect our nation’s
citizens from discrimination on the basis of physical difference.
Individual states do not have the right to ignore the civil rights of
our nation’s citizens.

The general argument by opponents of disability rights is that
having to make a business or work place accessible puts a damper on
profits.

And this is true. It costs money to make a bathroom accessible; it
costs something to put in a wheelchair ramp; it costs my own employer,
the University of Iowa a few thousand dollars extra to provide me with
a couple of talking computers so I can work at home or in my office.

In general it’s fair to say that these investments pay off. When you
make your business "disability friendly" you are not only opening your
doors to some 54 million potential customers, but you also make
yourself attractive to the friends and families of those customers.

But the resistance to disability rights is entirely caught in the mediocre logic of simple profitability.

In short: any regulation that inhibits maximum profits must be defeated

This position is perhaps most famously represented by the problem of
lifeboats on the Titanic. Allow me to quote from the book "The Night
Lives On" by Walter lord:

"Surely, all the regulators everywhere couldn’t have been asleep. There had to be a better explanation.

There was. The problem was not somnolence; it was subservience. The
members of the Board of Trade itself knew little about ships or safety
at sea. They were mostly decorative luminaries like the Archbishop of
Canterbury. On nautical matters they deferred to the professional staff
of the Board’s Marine Department. But these men were bureaucrats-better
at carrying out policy than making it. When it came to such questions
as whether ships should provide lifeboats for all on board, these men
deferred to the Department’s Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee. This
group was dominated by the ship-owners themselves, and they were only
too happy to make policy. They knew exactly where they stood, and they
did not want boats for all.

In the luxury trade, "boats for all" meant less room on the upper
decks for the suites, the games and sports, the verandahs and palm
courts, and the glass-enclosed observation lounges that lured the
wealthy travelers from the competition. On the Titanic, for instance,
it would sacrifice that vast play area amidships and instead clutter
the Boat Deck with (of all things) boats.

In steerage, the other place where there was big money to be made,
"boats for all" would be even more costly. In calculating the number of
lifeboats needed, the Board of Trade used a simple rule of thumb: each
person took up ten cubic feet of space. Hence 1,134 steerage
passengers-the number the Titanic was certified to carry-would require
11,340 cubic feet of space. This translated into 19 lifeboats required
for steerage alone . . . or nearly 60 boats, counting everybody. Almost
any owner would prefer to use most of this space in some
revenue-producing way-if he could persuade himself that the boats
weren’t really necessary.

This proved easy to do. The new superliners could easily ride out
the storms and heavy seas that sometimes engulfed steamers of the past.
Increased compartmentalization seemed safer, since no one could imagine
anyThing worse than being rammed at the point where two compartments
joined. The development of wireless should end the days when ships
simply disappeared. In the future, lifeboats would only be used to
ferry passengers and crew to the gathering fleet of rescue ships, and
nobody needed "boats for all" to do that.

It didn’t take long for the owners to convince themselves that the
concept was positively dangerous. Piling all that gear on the upper
decks would make a vessel top-heavy, or "tender," as nautical men put
it. Also, the top decks would be so congested that the crew would have
no room to work, if it did indeed become necessary to abandon ship.

Finally, there was the weather. The stormy Atlantic was no place to
float the 50 to 60 lifeboats required for a ship the size of the
Titanic, if "boats for all" was the rule. Nineteen times out of 20,
estimated White Star’s general manager Harold Sanderson, the boats
could not be lowered safely. Once afloat, passengers would be subject
to additional dangers as they bobbed around waiting for rescue. "They
could avoid all this by drowning at once," dryly observed the magazine
Fairplay, when Sanderson persisted in his views even after the
disaster."

Sound familiar?

We are again in the Edwardian age of strident arguments for total
profitability. The current Supreme Court would easily argue that
mandating lifeboats for all would be compromising to the rules of free
trade. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce would be comfortable keeping those
lifeboats strictly optional.

The same people would like very much to keep the United States free
from universal health care. Sure, we lead the industrialized world in
infant mortality, but that’s the way it should be. Health care for all
could conceivably prevent someone from building a glass walled
boutique.

I wish I was exaggerating.

I urge everyone to write their Senators and tell them to stand for the ADA Restoration Act.

S.K.