Happy 25th Birthday, Americans With Disabilities Act!
The ADA was passed on July 26, 1990
I was 14. At that time I was
A) disabled
B) not known to be disabled. No one else knew. I suspected but kept being told I was wrong
C) completely consumed with the topic of disability and had been for nearly a decade already
So my experience was undoubtedly different than someone who knew about their own disability at the time, or someone who truly didn't develop a disability until afterward, or someone who wasn't born until afterward.
At first it was something I read about in newspaper articles. I wasn't primed to look for curb cuts. I did look for ramps, and Braille, and sign language interpreters. My high school had an elevator, ostensibly for disabled students we didn't have. Occasionally, someone with a broken leg or someone with a legitimate need to move heavy items got permission to use it. Mostly it was played with without permission. I still remember the conversation from 1991 when our class was asked to list traits we would consider valuable in a friend and someone said "athletic." Someone else questioned that, and the first person said, "yeah, you wouldn't want to be friends with some kid in a wheelchair, would you?" I had though, I would, but no one asked me. They weren't friends with me, either. I received a few unofficial accommodations in school for the disability I didn't have.
In 1994, I started college. I used a luggage rack to carry my books (for the disability I didn't have) so I started to notice and use ramps and curbcuts and elevators in earnest. Our campus slowly went from marginally accessible to somewhat accessible over the next three years, after a student enrolled who needed the access. With others, I worked on disability advocacy and awareness. Meanwhile, I still couldn't get formal accommodations but managed to continue with informal accommodations for the disability I didn't have.
The group with whom I was doing the advocacy and awareness accepted me as one of them, even without an official diagnosis. Suddenly I had the disability I'd had all along, accompanied by a wonderful feeling of belonging. I was culturally disabled.
In 1998, a Disability and Law class was offered at my college. I signed right up. We read the ADA. We did an accessibility survey of campus. The first ADA case was just reaching the US Supreme Court that year. We clipped articles and discussed them. I began to recognize ways in which the ADA might apply to me. I became politically disabled.
I got my first job. I got accommodations. I got a diagnosis. Later I got a correct diagnosis. I entered medical school. I got formal accommodations. There were curb cuts and ramps, although these did not always lead to the front door. There was discrimination. There was more discrimination. I carried a copy of the ADA around medical school with me for about a year, reading it conspicuously. I would not have graduated from medical school without the ADA.
There is still so far to go. I have been asked illegal questions at job interviews. Many places have not removed the "readily achievable" barriers, let alone the expensive ones. There's more Braille signage, with varying accuracy. Getting accommodations for an exam or a conference is often a formidable undertaking. Every week I read another article about someone denied access with a service animal, someone denied inclusion due to a diagnosis, someone who could not access something online due to lack of captions or incompatibility with screen reading software. Even though the ADA supports employment, other government regulations related to disability prevent people who need Medicaid or other services from working more than a minimal amount. There are no "ADA police" so enforcement has been slow and tedious. They had to revise the ADA in 2008 because case law had said it was OK for people to have to crawl or be carried up steps to appear in court and said it was OK to fire someone because they had diabetes, among other problems.
But we've come a long way, and the law, albeit an imperfect one, is on our side.
Wouldn't it be great, though, if 25 years from now, we don't NEED it?
I was 14. At that time I was
A) disabled
B) not known to be disabled. No one else knew. I suspected but kept being told I was wrong
C) completely consumed with the topic of disability and had been for nearly a decade already
So my experience was undoubtedly different than someone who knew about their own disability at the time, or someone who truly didn't develop a disability until afterward, or someone who wasn't born until afterward.
At first it was something I read about in newspaper articles. I wasn't primed to look for curb cuts. I did look for ramps, and Braille, and sign language interpreters. My high school had an elevator, ostensibly for disabled students we didn't have. Occasionally, someone with a broken leg or someone with a legitimate need to move heavy items got permission to use it. Mostly it was played with without permission. I still remember the conversation from 1991 when our class was asked to list traits we would consider valuable in a friend and someone said "athletic." Someone else questioned that, and the first person said, "yeah, you wouldn't want to be friends with some kid in a wheelchair, would you?" I had though, I would, but no one asked me. They weren't friends with me, either. I received a few unofficial accommodations in school for the disability I didn't have.
In 1994, I started college. I used a luggage rack to carry my books (for the disability I didn't have) so I started to notice and use ramps and curbcuts and elevators in earnest. Our campus slowly went from marginally accessible to somewhat accessible over the next three years, after a student enrolled who needed the access. With others, I worked on disability advocacy and awareness. Meanwhile, I still couldn't get formal accommodations but managed to continue with informal accommodations for the disability I didn't have.
The group with whom I was doing the advocacy and awareness accepted me as one of them, even without an official diagnosis. Suddenly I had the disability I'd had all along, accompanied by a wonderful feeling of belonging. I was culturally disabled.
In 1998, a Disability and Law class was offered at my college. I signed right up. We read the ADA. We did an accessibility survey of campus. The first ADA case was just reaching the US Supreme Court that year. We clipped articles and discussed them. I began to recognize ways in which the ADA might apply to me. I became politically disabled.
I got my first job. I got accommodations. I got a diagnosis. Later I got a correct diagnosis. I entered medical school. I got formal accommodations. There were curb cuts and ramps, although these did not always lead to the front door. There was discrimination. There was more discrimination. I carried a copy of the ADA around medical school with me for about a year, reading it conspicuously. I would not have graduated from medical school without the ADA.
There is still so far to go. I have been asked illegal questions at job interviews. Many places have not removed the "readily achievable" barriers, let alone the expensive ones. There's more Braille signage, with varying accuracy. Getting accommodations for an exam or a conference is often a formidable undertaking. Every week I read another article about someone denied access with a service animal, someone denied inclusion due to a diagnosis, someone who could not access something online due to lack of captions or incompatibility with screen reading software. Even though the ADA supports employment, other government regulations related to disability prevent people who need Medicaid or other services from working more than a minimal amount. There are no "ADA police" so enforcement has been slow and tedious. They had to revise the ADA in 2008 because case law had said it was OK for people to have to crawl or be carried up steps to appear in court and said it was OK to fire someone because they had diabetes, among other problems.
But we've come a long way, and the law, albeit an imperfect one, is on our side.
Wouldn't it be great, though, if 25 years from now, we don't NEED it?