The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, charges state officials with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act by confining individuals with disabilities to segregated settings where they have little – if any – interaction with non-disabled peers. Moreover, they are paid far below the state’s minimum wage of $8.80 for doing rote tasks that offer no training, no skills, and no advancement.
For more than a decade, lead plaintiff Paula Lane, 48, has had the same request: “Find me an outside job.” Instead, she and 137 other people with disabilities package gloves or put parts into boxes on assembly lines in a noisy and crowded sheltered workshop in Beaverton. Despite her request for competitive employment and her high performance scores, her individualized service plan has no goals related to employment. She lives in an apartment with staff support, and would like to go to a country music concert or attend an Upward Bound camp, but her resources are limited. Over a 12-month period in 2010-11, she made a high of 66 cents an hour.