Arlene B. Mayerson

Arlene B. Mayerson is an American civil rights attorney focused on disability rights. She is the Directing Attorney of Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), a position she has held since 1981. She has provided representation, consultation to counsel, and coordination of amicus briefs on key disability rights cases before all levels of federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court. She was appointed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education to the Civil Rights Reviewing Authority, responsible for reviewing civil rights decisions of the Department.

Ms. Mayerson has been called upon to give testimony to several committees of Congress on both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Scholar Lennard J. Davis noted Ms. Mayerson’s contributions as the “brains behind the Americans with Disabilities Act.”