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[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.
____________________