Back some time in the early 70's, a little Down Syndrome girl from Minnesota walked to her neighborhood school with her mother to register for kindergarten. They were met at the door by the Principal who told them that the little girl couldn't possibly register for kindergarten because she was retarded. You can imagine how upset that mother was! So she went, tearfully, to tell her father the story. Her father happened to be the Senator from the great state of Minnesota, Hubert H. Humphrey. It was the time of the civil rights movement and Congress was in the throes of passing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This act was supposed to keep the physically handicapped veterans from Vietnam from being discriminated against. Senator Humphrey decided to throw in a section that would protect handicapped children from being discriminated against, too, as his granddaughter was. Originally, the Rehabilitation Act had some funding behind it to help defray the expenses employers and public facilities incurred in their efforts to not discriminate. OF course, there were those in Congress who didn't want the bill to pass because they didn't want to fund it. So a compromise was reached. Congress agreed to pass it, including the "no discrimination against handicapped kids in school" section, if it was stripped of its funding. So that is how that particular section -- Section 504 -- became a law, but also an unfunded mandate. It set the stage for IDEA to be passed as an EDUCATION law, instead of a Civil Rights Law, as part of an older education law that was partially funded and whose aim was to provide money for better education of the poor. To this day, IDEA supports are partially reimbursed to Districts whereas Section 504 supports are not. So, remember, without Vietnam our kids wouldn't have the rights they have today. God sure does work in mysterious ways.
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