ADA Celebrates 16th Year
Keynote to Examine Recent Court Decisions
Wednesday, July 26,
2006
6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Radisson University Hotel
615 Washington Avenue SE, Minneapolis
Cash bar available and light refreshments served.
An evening celebration has
been planned in
honor of the 16th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA). The gala will include entertainment by locally known performers Kevin
Kling and Michael Deutsch. The keynote speaker will be Barry Taylor, legal advocacy
director, Equip for Equality, Inc., the Illinois Protection and Advocacy system.
Admission is free! Accommodation
requests must be received no later than July 12, 2006. Please RSVP
for the celebration and/or make accommodation requests to Betty at
bettyc@mcil-mn.org, or call
651-646-8342, TTY 651-602-2001. For more information visit www.adaminnesota.org
Sponsors of this event include:
ADA MN, Access Press, MN State Council on Disability, MCIL, UCP,
Institute on Community Integration, DOER, VSA arts of MN, MN Dept.
of Human Service/State Operated Services, Courage Center and Arc
Greater Twin Cities.
Illinois Attorney, Local
Performers to Headline ADA Celebration
About Barry Taylor
Illinois attorney Barry Taylor
will deliver the keynote address at this month’s ADA celebration
in downtown Minneapolis. He will discuss current Supreme Court
decisions and the state of the ADA today.
Since November 1996,
Taylor has been the Legal Advocacy Director at Equip for Equality,
Inc. (EEI), the Illinois Protection and Advocacy system, in which
he supervises the legal services, self-advocacy and training programs.
Taylor has also overseen many individual and systemic disability
discrimination cases, including successful federal ADA suits against
the National Board of Medical Examiners, the Chicago Police Department,
and the Chicago Transit Authority. He is currently counsel in a
class action on behalf of people with developmental disabilities
living in large private institutions who are seeking community
services. Taylor also oversees EEI’s self-advocacy
training project, which in its first eight years trained approximately
23,000 people with disabilities on the ADA, guardianship, transportation,
voting, employment and special education. Taylor has also given numerous
presentations on the ADA across the country to people with disabilities,
employers, service providers and advocacy organizations. Prior to
becoming Legal Advocacy Director, he was a Senior Attorney for EEI;
his primary focus was systemic litigation and education under the
ADA.
Prior to coming to EEI, Taylor
was the AIDS Project Attorney in the Midwest Regional Office of Lambda
Legal Defense and Education Fund working to advance the civil rights
for people living with HIV/AIDS. His caseload included a successful
challenge to discriminatory inquiries by the Chicago Public Schools
on teacher applications. His work at Lambda also included extensive
education work regarding HIV/AIDS and the ADA.
Taylor is an Adjunct
Professor at John Marshall Law School. In 2001, Chicago Magazine
named Taylor one of “40 Illinois Attorneys
Under 40 to Watch."
About Kevin Kling
Minnesota
storyteller, Kevin Kling, is frequently called upon to address conventions
and meetings with his unique Minnesota-based stories, many of which
have been heard on National Public Radio’s “All
Things Considered.” He has performed his one-person plays—“21A,” “Home
and Away,” “Fear and Loving in Minneapolis” and “The
Education of Walter Kauffmann” —in theaters across
the nation, including Actors Theater of Louisville, Seattle Rep,
The Goodman, Second State Theater (Off Broadway), Denver Center
Theater, the Jungle and Frank Theatre.
Kling is the author
of “Lloyd’s Prayer,” “7
Dwarfs,” “The Ice Fishing Play,” “Mississippi
Panorama,” “Gulliver, A Swift Journey,” several
Fringe Festival shows and other works. He collaborates regularly
on theater productions at Interact Center for Visual and Performing
Arts, is a proud member of the trio Bad Jazz, and has recorded several
CDs available at www.kevinkling.com
About Michael Deutsch
Minneapolis
piano player and vocalist Michael “The Hook” Deutsch
has played with Luther Allison, Lynwood Slim, Spider John Koerner,
Mojo Buford, Willie Murphy, Etta James, Albert King, Mick Sterling,
Dave Ray, Paul Metsa, and Big John Dickerson. Of his music, Deutsch
says, “The blues to me is a finely honed cross of technical
nuances and gut-level feelings of expression. [It enables] both heart
and soul … to blend together to create an artform of utmost
importance. My dedication is to original composing and the performance
of traditional blues music via the keyboards/ vocals, either in solo/group
settings or as a freelance studio sideman.”
Deutsch can be regularly
heard on weekends playing jazz and blues piano at Antoine’s
Creole Maison Restaurant on Hennepin and the Malt Shop at 50th
and Bryant. For more information: www.michaelthehookdeutsch.com
