Happy 30th birthday!
Today is the 30th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The life I have lived as a woman with a disability – the full 30 years that I have considered myself disabled – has been lived entirely under the aura of the ADA. I, in fact, can’t imagine it any other way and, thankfully, right now, I don’t have to.
The ADA touches upon many issues that affect the lives of people with disabilities. As people with disabilities are often unable to access buildings that are easily frequented by those without disability, the ADA focused on accessibility standards and access measures. While people with disabilities are far more likely to be unemployed needlessly, the ADA focused on reasonable accommodations in the workplace and in the education system, to ensure that everyone could have the supports necessary to work or grow successfully. While people with disabilities require more planning and thoughtfulness in traveling from location to another, the ADA focused on transportation and urban planning so that people with disabilities could be more active members of their communities.
The ADA is a piece of legislation but it is also, and should be, a call to action and a need to realize a vision that appreciates diversity, strives for equality, and builds inclusion. The ADA was a start but it was not a completion. It was not a panacea. The ADA is not simply about accommodation, it is about civil rights. Basic dignity. It was an attempt – however imperfect, however elemental in its origins – to amplify the voices of people with disabilities and provide opportunities for those voices to be heard. But, legislation can only go so far. In fact, the legislation has only GONE so far. The spirit of the ADA is what brought the legislation to life, but its perpetuation has been mired by litigation, resistance, and a general societal unwillingness to understand people with disabilities as the creative, strong, resilient, and formidable people they are, whose experiences have value and are to be valued. This is the accommodation that must be made. This is the societal adaptation that needs to take place. This is the work – indeed, the moral imperative – of the next 30 years.