Asst Dean Kivlighan in Today's Diamondback

As part of Disability Awareness Month, our Assistant Dean Mary Kivlighan appears in today's edition of The Diamondback, sharing her thoughts on the Americans with Disabilities Act and the challenges of disabled students. Here's an excerpt discussing her thoughts on the rights of disabled individuals:

Our Constitution serves two purposes when it comes to helping to create the conditions for a healthy public. It mandates to the states police powers and those police powers are simply regulatory powers. ... Agencies like the Health Department, the State Health Department, the Sanitation Department allow [the] government to look at the common good and to put programs in place that support the common good.

However, our Constitution also has amendments to it that are our Bill of Rights. In those amendments, individuals are protected against government interference in terms of privacy, freedom of choice, freedom of religion, procedural due process - which means we have to know if the government takes something from us, what do we get in return. People with disabilities have rights given to them by these regulations.

Prof Kivlighan will do a presentation entitled "ADA: Healthy Public Policy or Ethical Dilemma?" on Tuesday, October, 14 at 4:30 in SPH Room 0308.

For more, read the interview here. For more information on Disabilities Awareness Month, visit this Web site.