Celebrating 36 Years of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
- Redfish Counseling
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
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[Video transcript here]
Happy ADA Day!
Today marks the 36th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which took place on July 26th, 1990. I’m Chase from Redfish Counseling, and I’d like to talk about why this is an important day for everyone. I’m also the dad of a kiddo living with disabilities, so this is an important date for my family in particular.
This day is especially critical right now, as disabled Americans are facing some deeply concerning legal and cultural trends across the country.
So, why should you care about the ADA? Here are just a few reasons:
One:
It set a new legal standard supporting community integration.
Two:
It gave disabled people access to educational and occupational opportunities
they’d been barred from.
Three:
Because literally everyone you know and love—including yourself—will one day become a part of this marginalized group... unless you’re fortunate enough to die suddenly, and in perfect health.
Prior to the ADA, society’s legal and cultural approach to disabled people focused heavily on isolation. There were literally “public ugliness laws” that didn’t get fully phased out until 1974. These laws made it a crime to be out in public if you were deemed an "unsightly or disgusting object." Being seen outside with a visible disability could get you fined, thrown in jail, or forcibly sent to a work farm.
To put this in perspective, these laws were only fully repealed five years after the moon landing. That means if Neil Armstrong became disfigured on his way home, he could’ve been thrown in jail for being in his own parade.
Pre-ADA Healthcare for disabled people primarily also meant institutionalization--basically tossing people into a warehouse and throwing away the key. To fully understand what this model of quote-un-quote “care” actually looked like,
consider these descriptions that were common for these custodial institutions:
Overcrowding was common and deliberate. In just one instance, a facility built for 4,000 people housed over 6,000Â residents.
Rampant overcrowding meant that one caretaker might have to oversee dozens of residents. This would make it impossible to ensure even the most basic needs of residents were met.
People sat on floors. Naked. Covered in waste and “extreme filth.”
Untreated infections spread rapidly among residents—including children. And researchers deliberately exposed residents to things like hepatitis and even radiation... and this also included children.
The ADA changed all this. It made it illegal to unnecessarily segregate disabled people, labeling it a form of (surprise) discrimination.
This gave people with disabilities the legal right to live, work, and receive care in their own communities.
Then there are the educational and occupational changes.
Before modern civil rights laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—or IDEA—and the ADA, roughly only 1 in 5 children with disabilities was allowed access to public school.
The reasoning for exclusion was also all over the place. For example, in 1919, the Wisconsin Supreme Court actually upheld excluding a student with cerebral palsy because they claimed the student’s presence would produce a “nauseating effect” on others students.
While laws like IDEA opened public school doors, the ADA took things a massive step further. It mandated that higher education settings had to be fully accessible,
and it barred employers from explicitly discriminating based on disability. If you developed a disability later in life, your employer couldn't just fire you—they had to provide reasonable accommodations.
That was revolutionary, because education and its impacts on employment opportunities remain the single biggest variables that keep people out of poverty.
If you’re still thinking, "cool, but this doesn't really apply to me," consider this:
According to the Social Security Administration, there’s a 25% chance any worker over age 20 will experience a disability before they retire.
Now: Imagine having an accident that cost you the ability to walk,
and then immediately losing your job as a result.
Or imagine an elderly loved one showing cognitive decline, and being forced into a cinderblock room with 40 other people and just one caretaker. Welcome to the pre-ADA world.
So, since the ADA already exists, why are so many people worried about issues of disability rights and disability justice today?
Let’s recap just a few things that have happened in just the last year:
First:
Last year's H.R.1 bill mandated that ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in federal Medicaid funding will be cut over the next decade. That’s 100 billion dollars cut per year, every year, until 2035. As just one example of the impact of this legislation, in North Carolina, reduced reimbursement rates have already forced pediatric physical therapy clinics for disabled children to cut staff or close their doors. We’re looking at nine more years of this.
Second:
In January of this year, nine states sued the DHHS, essentially arguing they shouldn't have to support the community integration of people living with disabilities.
They seem to want to dust off the pre-ADA custodial institution model of care.
Third:
This summer, the Department of Justice issued a statement saying that the understanding that states are required to provide for the community integration of disabled people to the fullest extent possible was no longer the view of the DOJ.
They issued a memo reversing 25 years of legal practice across the country, and announced they will no longer enforce Title II of the ADA, which protects the rights of disabled people to be able to live in their communities and not be unnecessarily institutionalized.
What this means is there is effectively no interest from the federal government in stopping states from gutting their community integration programs, otherwise known as home and community based service programs, and effectively forcing disabled people back into institutional settings.
Fourth:
The Federal Department of Education has been basically exploded. The reason this is relevant is because the agencies that have protected disabled students' rights have been scattered, with the responsibility for the direct monitoring and enforcement of these laws handed over to a DOJ that just told us they aren't prioritizing these exact kinds of cases.
Finally:
Outside all the legal and regulatory stuff, there has been a massive resurgence of dehumanizing rhetoric online and in public discourse. While some or most of that may likely be from spambots, just last week I personally saw at least three instances of very popular public figures calling people with whom they disagree “retarded”— simply because they have a different point of view.
Now, a lot of people using this language casually today will argue that when they use it, they “don’t mean people with disabilities.” But that’s a little like someone saying (and hang with me here) “When I use the N-word to insult someone, I’m not borrowing anything from the word’s history that has to do with racism in any way.”
That’s kind of ridiculous.
So, now you know a bit about the ADA and why it matters, and some of the concerns still facing us today. This Disability Pride Month, one easy thing anyone can do to build on the progress made since 1990 is partner with any of the agencies linked at the end of this video.
We’ve put together a few that have easy, one-click calls to action or ways to contact your state and federal representatives to let our leaders know that this is still an issue that matters, and that we the people still care.
Not long ago, we celebrated 250 years of the United States being a nation. At both its most fundamental and most aspirational levels, the US is meant to be a place that holds certain truths to be inalienable; such as all people being created equal.
Well, out of the last 250 years, people living with disabilities have only been seen as equal under the law for 36.
We have a long way to go, but with small gestures of support, awareness, and advocacy, we can close that gap a bit more.
Thanks for taking the time, and happy Disability Pride Month.
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