[nfb-talk] National Federation of the Blind to Present Third Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium

[Freeh, Jessica]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



CONTACT:

Chris Danielsen

Director of Public Relations

National Federation of the Blind

(410) 659-9314, extension 2330

(410) 262-1281 (Cell)

<mailto:cdanielsen at nfb.org>cdanielsen at nfb.org




National Federation of the Blind to Present
Third Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium




Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez and
Former Congressman Tony Coelho to be Keynote Speakers







Baltimore, Maryland (April 13, 2010): The 
National Federation of the Blind (NFB) will 
present the third Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law 
Symposium on April 15–16, 2010, at the NFB 
Jernigan Institute in Baltimore.  The symposium, 
entitled “Equality, Difference, and The Right to 
Live in the World” and named for NFB founder and 
pioneering legal scholar Dr. Jacobus tenBroek 
(1911–1968), will gather public officials, legal 
scholars, and disability rights advocates for a 
two-day seminar on the state of disability law in 
the United States and the world, and will discuss 
how disability rights may be advanced in the 
future.  Tom Perez, assistant attorney general 
for the civil rights division of the U.S. 
Department of Justice, and Tony Coelho, former 
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/>California congressman and current chairman of 
the board of the American Association of People 
with Disabilities, will be the keynote speakers.

“Our first two Jacobus tenBroek symposiums were 
extraordinary events, and we are looking forward 
to once again hosting leading players and 
thinkers in the disability community,” said Dr. 
Marc Maurer, an attorney and President of the 
National Federation of the Blind.   “Disability 
law is rapidly changing at the national and 
international level, and this forum will provide 
an opportunity for everyone to assess 
developments and plan strategies in this dynamic 
and critically-important field.”



Other presenters at the 2010 symposium include 
the Honorable Richard Brown, chief judge of the 
Wisconsin Court of Appeals; Mark Weber, Vincent 
DePaul Professor of Law at DePaul University 
College of Law; and Dan Brock, director of the 
division of medical ethics at Harvard Medical School.



Dr. Jacobus tenBroek was a constitutional law 
scholar, a blind professor at Berkeley, and an 
author of treatises on the Fourteenth Amendment 
and social welfare.  Dr. tenBroek created the 
concept that civil rights should apply to 
disabled Americans, and he published extensively 
on the application of the law to those with 
disabilities.  His efforts to advance civil 
rights for the blind and others with disabilities 
included drafting the model White Cane Law, which 
has had a profound influence on the development 
of civil rights laws for the disabled throughout 
the United States, and publishing authoritative 
articles like “The Right to Live in the World: 
The Disabled in the Law of Torts.”



The proceedings of the symposium will be 
published in the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.



For more information about the National 
Federation of the Blind, please visit <http://www.nfb.org/>www.nfb.org.





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About the National Federation of the Blind



With more than 50,000 members, the National 
Federation of the Blind is the largest and most 
influential membership organization of blind 
people in the United States.  The NFB improves 
blind people’s lives through advocacy, education, 
research, technology, and programs encouraging 
independence and self-confidence.  It is the 
leading force in the blindness field today and 
the voice of the nation's blind.  In January 2004 
the NFB opened the National Federation of the 
Blind Jernigan Institute, the first research and 
training center in the United States for the blind led by the blind.