July 26, 2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). To celebrate this momentous occasion in disability rights history, DAWN Center for Independent Living has made a commitment to a year of celebration by identifying 12 monthly topics for 2015 pertaining to the ADA, and carrying out activities and events to raise awareness around each topic. This month’s topic is, “What does the ADA mean to ME?”
Well, first off, I should say that the activity of the month is a contest among middle school and high school students across many districts in NJ. They have been asked to create an essay or a picture about how the Americans with Disabilities Act has touched their life or the life of a friend or family member. The contest will give students with and without disabilities the opportunity to think about inclusion, and about breaking down physical and attitudinal barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing their full range of civil rights. So, just like the students have been asked to do, I am going to express in creative form, via this blog, how the ADA has touched my life.
I worked with people with disabilities for quite a few years without ever knowing that there was a disability civil rights movement that emerged in the 1960s, that the ADA was the first piece of disability civil rights legislation in the U.S., and that it was not signed into law until 1990, long after other civil rights legislation had been advanced for other marginalized groups. Having lived on Staten Island when the Geraldo Rivera’s shocking expose on Willowbrook State School took place, I had some awareness that there was a time when people with disabilities were once secreted away in family attics, and that institutional care was not always an improvement over the attics for many people with disabilities. (I do not mean to be glib about my ignorance back then. My own father was completely deaf in one ear and almost entirely deaf in the other, yet the words “disability” and “deaf” never came up in my home. I never realized my father had a profound disability that impacted many aspects of his life until long after he had passed away.)
The Willowbrook news made me aware of human rights violations and gross indignities suffered by people with disabilities, but I still did not have much awareness of the social, economic, and civil rights implications of these oppressions. I had sort of noticed that people without disabilities presumed to make decisions for people with disabilities as a matter of course, but until I began to work in disability services, I did not appreciate that in most cases, even when the intentions were good, this amounted to a gross violation of their civil rights. I was aware of human rights protections for vulnerable populations, but it was not until I had the opportunity to join the staff of one of our hundreds of Centers for Independent Living throughout the U.S. that I began to understand that the rights of people with disabilities had been systematically violated throughout history, that they had been deprived of equal rights, choices, and opportunities guaranteed to every citizen under our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and that the ADA was the first piece of legislation enacted to right this injustice.
In my current awareness, I see that any place, any merchant, and any provider of services that does not concern itself with ADA compliance on some level is saying to people with disabilities, “We don’t know you, we don’t want to know you, we don’t need you, and we don’t really want you here.” Having had the privilege in my profession to have become acquainted with so many capable, amazing people with disabilities who have been unjustly, neglectfully excluded from public activities and places, and from social and economic opportunities, it has become hard for me to feel comfortable in any place where exclusion is implicit by lack of concern with respect to the ADA and the civil rights of people with disabilities.
Today, we live in a society that is aggressively advancing a strong culture of inclusion and diversity, and yet still, when we hear people speak about marginalized populations – racial minorities, women, LGBT – we rarely hear, “and people with disabilities” mentioned with these other groups of systematically disenfranchised excluded individuals. Even with the passing of the ADA, general awareness of people with disabilities as a group that has been historically discriminated against often is not even on the radar.
According to the Disability Funder’s Network, people with disabilities comprise the largest minority group in America and the only one that any one of us can become a member of at any time. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that “The vast majority of women, men and children of all ages, races and ethnicities will experience a disability some time during his or her lifetime.” The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 1 in 5 Americans has a disability. When we talk about diversity and inclusion, people with disabilities MUST be part of EVERY conversation. The ADA paves the way for inclusion. It does so by legislating physical, public, and workplace environments with adaptations and accommodations that make it possible for people with disabilities to access and exercise the same rights, choices, and opportunities as people without disabilities.
I guess if I had to sum up what the ADA means to me in a single word, that word would be – get ready for the twist – OPPORTUNITY. As we strive towards equal rights, we give people opportunities to become fully included, vital participants in our communities and our economy, which expands not only their opportunities to flourish and gain on many different and vital levels, but everyone’s.
Happy 25th year, ADA. You brought us a long way, but we still have far to go.