Kent State University Libraries presents:

The Limits of Disability Rights and the U.S. Constitution: Why the Americans with Disabilities Act was necessary and what’s next?

Featuring Disability Rights Attorney Katie Hunt Thomas of the Ability Center of Greater Toledo

America’s history concerning people with disabilities includes discrimination, institutionalization and bias. The U.S. Constitution has been largely ineffective in providing people with disabilities with equal protection under the law, instead offering limited, indirect and often underenforced protections for individuals with disabilities.

Kent State’s 2026 Constitution Day Celebration will feature an address by disability rights attorney Katie Hunt Thomas of the Ability Center of Greater Toledo. She will reveal how the disability rights movement overcame the Constitution’s limited equal protection, contributing to the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and establishing a powerful framework for disability rights protections which culminated in the 1999 Supreme Court decision of Olmstead v. LC. Hunt Thomas will also cover a recent legal memo by the U.S. Department of Justice that has endangered those protections. Following the featured address, a panel of Kent State students, moderated by Professor of Political Science Chris Banks, Ph.D., will join Hunt Thomas in responding to several topic-related questions, in addition to those from the audience.

Katie Hunt Thomas is the disability rights attorney for the Ability Center of Greater Toledo, providing independent living with the mission to assist people with disabilities to live, work and socialize within a fully accessible community. She received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Xavier University and her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Toledo College of Law. She is the author of the “Ability Center’s Olmstead Barriers in Ohio: The Problems Faced by People with Disabilities in Ohio in Achieving Community Integration,” “The Rights of People with Disabilities in Inclusive Neighborhoods,” “Vital Connections: Civil Rights and Public Policy Issues Affecting People with Disabilities in Pursuing Inclusive, Accessible Transportation,” and “Legal Foundations of Inclusion, for Inclusive Leisure: A Strengths-Based Approach.” Hunt was drawn into the field of disability rights by watching her sister with Down syndrome struggle through a system designed to exclude and not include her as an independent and active member of our society.

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