Key players in the conflict over civil rights 185Protections for the Disabled and for Gay Rights Yet another important piece of
civil rights legislation was the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which provided
strong federal protections for the 45 million disabled Americans to prevent workplace
discrimination and to provide access to public facilities. This law produced curb cuts in
sidewalks, access for wheelchairs on public buses and trains, special seating in sports
stadiums, and many other changes that make the daily lives of the disabled a little easier
and that provide them with an equal opportunity to participate more fully in society.^95
Congress’s track record in protecting gay rights has not been as strong. In fact, most
of the steps taken by Congress have been to restrict rather than expand gay rights. In
1996, Congress passed DOMA to avert the possibility that some liberal states such as
Hawaii would allow gay marriage. This act defined marriage as only between a man and
woman and barred couples in same-sex marriages from receiving federal insurance or
Social Security spousal benefits and from filing joint federal tax returns. Nonetheless,
as we have noted, the part of the law depriving same-sex spouses of federal benefits was
struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013 and the entire law was overturned in 2015.
In what may represent a change of course, in October 2009 Congress passed the
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This legislation
expanded the previous hate-crime laws based on race, color, religion, or national origin
to include attacks based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or mental or
physical disability. The law also lifted a requirement that a victim had to be attacked
while engaged in a federally protected activity, such as attending school, for it to be
a federal hate crime. In signing the bill, President Obama said, “After more than a
decade of opposition and delay, we’ve passed inclusive hate-crimes legislation to help
protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they
pray or who they are.”^96 The law commemorates the horrific murders of James Byrd Jr.,
who in 1998 was dragged behind a pickup truck by white supremacists for three miles
until his head and right arm were severed, and Matthew Shepard, a gay teenager who in
1998 was beaten by two men, tied to a fence, and left to die. Also, the Employment Non-
Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination in employment based on
sexual orientation, has been proposed in nearly every Congress since 1994. A version of
the bill passed the House in 2007 but died in the Senate.While many people imagine Title IX
as primarily affecting equal funding
for college women’s sports teams, it
also provides important protections
for survivors of sexual violence on
college campuses. Here, students
protest the Education Department’s
efforts to revise these provisions in
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