Harkin Institute
The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement is located at Drake University and serves as a venue and catalyst for dynamic non-partisan research, learning, and outreach to promote understanding of the policy issues to which Senator Tom Harkin devoted his career, including disability, labor and employment, retirement security, and wellness and nutrition.
Senator Tom Harkin
Senator Tom Harkin represented Iowa in the United States Congress for more than four decades. He served Iowa’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975 to 1985 and was a U.S. Senator from 1985 to 2015.
As a young senator, Tom was tapped by Senator Ted Kennedy to craft legislation to protect the civil rights of millions of Americans with physical and mental disabilities. He knew firsthand about the challenges facing people with disabilities from his late brother, Frank, who was deaf from an early age. What emerged from that process would later become his signature legislative achievement — The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The unemployment rate among adult Americans with disabilities who want to work and can work is over 60 percent. That is a blot on our national character.”
Senator Tom Harkin in his farewell speech to the U.S. SenateThe ADA has become known as the "Emancipation Proclamation for people with disabilities." The legislation changed the landscape of America by requiring buildings and transportation to be wheelchair accessible, and to provide workplace accommodations for people with disabilities. To preserve the intent of the ADA after several court rulings weakened its standards, Senator Harkin and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced the ADA Amendments bill to ensure continuing protections from discrimination for all Americans with disabilities. It was signed into law in September 2008. For his ongoing and dedicated work to people with disabilities around the world, Senator Harkin was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Senator Harkin’s legacy policy priorities have included federal farm policy, civil rights for Americans with disabilities, childhood nutrition and food access, healthcare access and reform, labor issues, and access to and improvement of education.
Harkin Challenge: Double employment among people with disabilities
At the 2017 Harkin International Disability Employment Summit, Senator Tom Harkin (retired) issued a bold challenge: to double the labor force participation rate of people with disabilities in the United States and around the world within 10 years.
In his 40 years in Congress, Senator Harkin played a leadership role in enacting a legislative agenda that advanced the civil and human rights of children and adults with disabilities. In the process, he worked closely with leaders of the disability rights movement around the U.S.
Over time, he became increasingly focused on one area – helping people with all types of disabilities participate fully in their communities by working in the competitive labor market.
Tackling this problem will require us to work together across sectors – government, business, re- searchers, disabled people’s organizations, educators, service providers, family leaders, philanthropy, religious institutions, media – with a common goal of generating new approaches that bring sectors together to re-imagine what is possible.
The Tom and Ruth Harkin Center
Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement was founded on the premise that good public policy is best achieved when policymakers have access to high-quality information, political processes are open and well-understood, and citizens are informed and active participants. The organization stands by five values: inclusion, education, respect, accessibility, and opportunity, which we strive to incorporate in our everyday operations.
In 2020, The Harkin Institute and Drake University opened the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center, a new home for the Institute that serves as a model of inclusion and accessibility to public policy and citizen engagement made possible by the exceptional vision, leadership and collaboration of individuals with a commitment to social justice and sound decision making.
Thirty years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Harkin Center illustrates that compliance is a starting point to achieving inclusion, not the end. It is imperative to think beyond basic compliance to create a truly inclusive setting. The strategies of inclusive design developed in this project provide a model for architects and designers to create buildings and landscapes that are guided by a spirit of empathy and inclusivity.
Learn more about past Harkin Summits
The Harkin International Disability Employment Summit has occurred annually since 2016 and has gathered private employers, government leaders and disability advocates from more than 40 countries to address the barriers to competitive, integrated employment for persons with disabilities.
Most recently, The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement hosted a regional Harkin Summit in our home state of Iowa in August 2021. In December 2020, The Harkin Institute partnered with Valuable 500 to host a virtual Harkin Summit. Learn more about both events by clicking the images below.
Five years into hosting the annual Harkin International Disability Employment Summit (Harkin Summit), The Harkin Institute sought feedback from attendees on how they’ve been able to execute on what they learned. We received 24 full submissions from around the globe. Twelve were selected to best represent the diversity of innovative employment programs and initiatives and included in a report, Innovative Employment Practices at Work, which was published in conjunction with the 2020 Harkin Summit.
2021 Iowa Summit
2021 Iowa Summit
2020 Harkin Summit
Read Proceedings from Past Summits: Journal from 2018 Summit | Journal from 2019 Summit