Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 14:39:07 -0700
To: "Coleman, Diane and Steven Drake" "ndycoleman@aol.com"
From: Marilyn Golden "mgolden@dredf.org"
Subject: Appalled
To the Gleitsman Foundation and its Judges:
We, the undersigned are shocked and appalled at your selection of Jack Kevorkian as a co-recipient of the Citizen Activist Award.
We have followed Kevorkian's activities for years and have been disgusted by his career as a serial killer of old, ill and disabled people. Kevorkian's body count consists mostly of people with nonterminal conditions and disabilities - people who had histories of spousal abuse, abandonment by friends and family, exclusion from employment and housing, and other aspects of discrimination that we, our families and our friends, live with every day. Kevorkian endorses that discrimation and, in honoring Kevorkian, so do the participants in this award.
Bestowing this honor is an affront to all people with disabilities and a dishonor to other recipients of Gleitsman Awards.
(signed) Sat., 8 Apr 2000, 00-04-08 17:37:47 EDT
Marilyn Golden
mgolden@dredf.org
Policy Analyst, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
and California Disability Alliance, Executive Committee member
Note: Subsequently, we signed on to this letter on behalf of the California Disability Alliance. The letter, composed by the leadership of our affiliated group, Not Dead Yet, is being endorsed by a number of organizations in protest of the award. -- Jean Nandi
(signed)
Jean Nandi, Laura Remson Mitchell, Marilyn Golden,
Members of the Executive Committee
for the California Disability Alliance (CDA)
http://www.dredf.org/cda/index.html