20 Years and Counting: The Americans with Disabilities Act

The history of mankind is a review of how humanity has managed to develop and create a method of interactive association. In other words, how working together benefits us all. We actually joined together in order to survive in the cruel and dangerous world of pre-history man. We needed support to protect ourselves from predators-mostly other humans. In coming together we found that doing things in concert created a better way of life for all. We as hunter-gatherers delineated chores in a way that benefited everyone. This concept evolved into our modern society.

Historically, society did fill its needs generationally so jobs never went unmet and society kept functioning on a healthy and sustainable and productive level. What was needed was made. As the world became a smaller and smaller place our society became more and more interdependent. We rely on each other and over each other more than ever before. But an issue arose that society had never had never before had to address. What does society do with persons who do not fit society’s mold of what is needed from an individual and what can be given to that individual?

The Spartans in the dawn of civilization murdered their disabled and every empire along the way either marginalized the disabled or continued Spartan eugenics, as in the case of Nazi Germany. The truth is that society had no use for persons who were not able bodied. Those that took more that they gave were seen as an unnecessary burdens on everyone else. Through thousands of years of societal evolution, through religious upheavals, revolutionary thought, enlightenment periods, religious reformations, political discord and scientific breakthroughs, society had managed to retain one of its oldest superstitions: the disabled were to be feared, misunderstood and shut away from society as a whole. Even in mid-20th century America, ignorance and evil abounded. We all remember the horrors that were Willowbrook . Modern society could no longer claim that the attic, shackles and disregard for the visibly or invisibly disabled was a thing of medieval history. Warehoused, ignored and kept away from the rest of society, the treatment of the disabled was modern society’s dirty little secret.

However, 20 years ago this all changed. The Congress of the United States passed the American with Disabilities Act. This law enabled those persons with disabilities the right to be fully fledged members of society and that society as a whole was required to accommodate the disabled in their midst and welcome them into the world at large. I remember when the ADA became law. I remember the hullaballoo. I remember the hand wringing and the dire predictions of the death of American business. I remember the world decrying the interference of government into the mainstream lives of the everyday person. I remember how municipalities decried the fact that they would have to create wheelchair ramps and disability friendly public restrooms.

 You know money is a very important element in life. Without it, there is very little that can be accomplished. It is just a sad fact of life. However, sometimes money is not the end result and the end reason. Sometimes society needs to think beyond the ledger page and recognize that in life there are rights and wrongs. It is what separates us out from the Spartan and yes, from the Nazi too. Why was it that due to some unforeseen money issues that it was thought that it was just fine that a segment of society remain disenfranchised? Why was it thought ok that the disabled should not be able to fully access everything that society had to offer? It is as simple sometimes as a wheelchair ramp to access a sidewalk or a ramp to go to the bathroom. Think how it would curtail your world if you knew that there was no place for you to go if you needed a bathroom? What would that inflict upon you and take from you? Why would some still think that the disabled were not members of society and entitled to be all that they could be just like able bodied and neurotypical persons? I remember very vividly the arguments in the papers and among the pundits, and I think those that stood against this bill should rightly feel shame.

I know that it amazes us today that this was even an issue. In our world the disabled are in every walk of life, it is hard to fathom that people were once so against inclusion. But