C. Boyden Gray: A Conservative Champion for Those With Disabilities

C. Boyden Gray, who recently passed away at the age of 80, was known for many things. After witnessing the disastrous Carter administration, the lifelong Democrat converted to conservatism and became White House counsel to President George H.W. Bush and later U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. He was a founding partner of the D.C.-based law firm Boyden Gray & Associates LLP, which is one of two firms representing us in our current lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the legal action we took this week against Target.

Many of those who wrote posthumous remembrances of Gray left out an important achievement: he played a pivotal role in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.

Melissa Ortiz

Melissa Ortiz

In an American Thinker commentary, Melissa Ortiz with our Able Americans Project trumpeted this overlooked accomplishment:

Today’s activists tend to forget it was not a liberal White House that made the ADA a reality, and they often refuse to acknowledge that the independent living principles of the disability movement are championed by conservative ideology.

President George H.W. Bush made the promise to pass a civil rights legislation for disabled people as soon as he could when entering the White House, building on his work as vice president to modernize section 504 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  He had two “secret weapons” in the mission to better the lives of disabled Americans: Evan Kemp and C. Boyden Gray….

Gray, whom Senator Ted Cruz eulogized as a champion of “rein[ing] in the regulatory state,” urged the passage of the ADA because he understood that it would mean more independence for people with disabilities — in all areas of their lives — by giving them easier access to public bathrooms, elevators in new and retrofitted buildings, sign language interpreters at live arts performances, and equal footing in educational settings without limitation.

As Gray noted on the 30th anniversary of the ADA, Bush and his team sought “to liberate, in effect, to empower … this largest civil rights group in America, to empower them to live out their lives without barriers where possible.”

Read Melissa’s commentary in full here.