Forum on former state
institution is held at College of Staten Island
It's important never to forget the degrading
conditions developmentally disabled children were forced to live
under at the former Willowbrook State School, panelists said at a
forum held last night at the College of Staten Island.
About 25 lawyers, human service advocates and
families of former Willowbrook students gathered in the school's
library for a two-hour discussion titled "Willowbrook 1972-2003, The
Case Continues. The Status of the Willowbrook Consent Judgment."
"This is a part of our history that is so
significant and can't be forgotten," said Katie Meskell, whose
sister, Patti-Ann, was admitted to the facility when she was 14
months old.
Ms. Meskell, executive director of United Cerebral
Palsy of Westchester, sat on a four-member panel with Beth Haroules,
an attorney with the Civil Liberties Union, Ann Nehrbauer, whose
son, Stephen, was a Willowbrook student for 16 years, and Ronnie
Cohn, an independent evaluator for the Willowbrook Class.
In 1975, then-Gov. Hugh Carey signed the Willowbrook
Consent Decree -- a civil rights law that obligated New York state
to provide appropriate housing and programs for more than 6,000 of
the school's students, known as the Willowbrook Class.
Eighteen years later, a permanent injunction was
signed, securing the rights for the duration of those students'
lives.
Young people must pick up the baton and keep
fighting for the rights of the mentally ill to avoid a return to the
conditions seen at the school in the 1960s and '70s, panel members
said.
"We need people to follow us," Ms. Meskell said.
"We're getting tired and need a group to come behind us to make sure
what's been put into place continues and improves."
Though legislation is in place for the Willowbrook
Class, it's important to fight for measures that assure all mentally
disabled residents equal rights to education, housing and
integrating with the community, said Mrs. Nehrbauer.
"The value that the world puts on people who are
different, or don't have the smarts, is very little," she said. "The
value of that individual has to be brought out. They bring a
compassion, concern and a love that would be hard for others to
understand."
About 3,600 students who attended the school are
still alive today.
Ms. Haroules, who represents them and their families
to make sure the consent decree is upheld, said it's crucial for
people to stand up and demand that every person's civil rights are
honored.
"One of the messages that needs to be made clear is
that everyone should ask to be treated equally," she said. "People
need to get out there and fight and be observant. Don't think this
case is over," she said.
Conditions are "clearly better" now than they were
31 years ago, when the legislation was signed, Ms. Cohn said. But
there is still much that can be done and people need to "get excited
about it" and try to make a difference, she added.
"Unless we have programs like this to show that
institutions like Willowbrook can exist again, we run the risk of it
existing again in fact," said David Goode, coordinator of CSI's
disability studies program. "By showing people what can happen if we
don't have enough money, maybe we can prevent that from happening
again."
