down the transportation provisions. The underlying principle of the ADA was to extend the basic civil rights protections extended to minorities and women to people with disabilities. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited employment discrimination by the private sector against women and racial and ethnic minorities, and banned discrimination against minorities in public accommodations. Before the ADA, no federal law prohibited private sector discrimination against people with disabilities, absent a federal grant or contract. The job of the disability rights movement during the ADA legislative process was to demonstrate to Congress and the American people the need for comprehensive civil rights protections to eradicate fundamental injustice -to demonstrate not only how this injustice harms the individual subjected to it, but also how it harms our society. The first hearing in the 101st Senate on the new ADA was an historic event and set the tone for future hearings and lobbying efforts. It was kicked off by the primary sponsors talking about their personal experiences with disability. Senator Harkin spoke of his brother who is deaf, Senator Kennedy of his son, who has a leg amputation, and Representative Coelho, who has epilepsy spoke about how the discrimination he faced almost destroyed him. The witnesses spoke of their own experiences with discrimination. A young woman who has cerebral palsy, told the Senators about a local movie theater that would not let her attend because of her disability. When her mother called the theater to protest that this attitude "sounded like discrimination," the