Proclamation 6728—National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 1994

Like every civil rights law in our Nation's history, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is about potential. We see that potential reflected every day in the faces of America—from the AmeriCorps volunteers of Gallaudet University to the athletes taking part in this year's trials for the Special Olympics World Games. In myriad ways, our citizens continually prove the proposition on which our Nation was founded: that empowered by the freedom to dream, to work, and to succeed, every one of us can accomplish great things.

As we commemorate National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 1994, employers across the country are recognizing that in the hiring of people with disabilities, basic fairness and economic good sense are one and the same. Prohibiting discrimination in employment, public accommodation, government services, transportation, and communications, the ADA holds up a model and an important challenge to businesses at home and around the world. In this country, the 49 million Americans with disabilities represent one of our largest untapped resources—a resource upon which we must rely if we are to succeed in an increasingly competitive international marketplace. Their knowledge and skill, their energy and creativity are essential in building a work force that will carry our economy into the next century.

This year, we celebrate as the ADA provisions for fair employment practices go into effect for small businesses throughout the land. These provisions are designed to open a vast new world of opportunity to American workers and employers, and our Nation stands committed to fully implement and to aggressively enforce the ADA in our schools and workplaces, in government and in public facilities. With this measure, our citizens will enjoy more avenues to freedom than ever. Indeed, it is past time to free all of our people to dream, to work, to succeed, and finally to fulfill the vast potential that is America.

The Congress, by joint resolution approved August 11, 1945, as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), has called for the designation of October of each year as "National Disability Employment Awareness Month." This month is a time for all Americans to recognize the tremendous potential of citizens with disabilities and to renew our commitment to full inclusion and equal opportunity for all.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 1994 as National Disability Employment Awareness Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities that affirm our determination to fulfill both the letter and the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act and related laws.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and nineteenth.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON