News & Advocacy in Disability Rights

Nobody said it would be easy

By William G. Stothers

On July 25, here in my town, we're going to gather to mark the eighth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This will be our seventh such gathering.

The theme for most of these occasions has been "Celebrate and Advocate." We celebrate the fact of the ADA, with its promise of equality, independence and inclusion in society. We celebrate the progress we have achieved. There are more curb cuts. There is more access to the physical environment than before. People with disabilities can do more and go further, to school, to work, and to play.

This is not to say that the ADA is perfect and without flaw. Millions of people are still discriminated against, in housing, in transportation, in education and in the workplace. The preamble to the ADA outlines the long and pervasive history of prejudice and oppression of people with disabilities.

I remember seeing a public television program years ago in which the presenter strode along a huge calendar. The calendar symbolized the age of the universe. Human beings came along just a few minutes before midnight on December 31, the last day of the year. We are late comers.

The history of people with disabilities might be viewed in a similar way. Disabled people have been oppressed, abused, exiled and killed for centuries.

In many parts of the world, such treatment continues today.

In our country, laws to protect people with disabilities are virtually freshly minted. Only 30 years ago this year did we see the Architectural Barriers Removal Act. The Rehabilitation Act is 25 years old this year. IDEA, the education act, is 23. And the ADA is merely eight.

Eight years is hardly enough time to eradicate the oppressive habits of centuries. On that calendar, the progress of the disability rights movement is a few seconds before midnight.

But the ADA, even with its flaws, is under attack. Powerful forces in the country want to reverse its achievements and expunge its intent. And many disability rights advocates attack the ADA's limitations and weaknesses.

Enforcement of the ADA is too often faint-hearted or non-existent. High-minded rhetoric from the White House and the Congress about including people with disabilities in the so-called American Dream is belied by federal actions, or inaction.

Surely a government that can unleash the howling tenacity of the IRS and scourge Social Security of suspected cheats could ensure greater compliance with the ADA.

It is, of course, a matter of political will. How else can we explain continued punitive rules that discourage disabled people from marrying and trying to earn income. The threat of having below-poverty benefits and health care snatched away deters countless numbers of people from doing anything.

President Clinton has often stated that America needs all of its citizens. It is a noble sentiment. But we might wonder just what it is, exactly, that people with disabilities are needed for. Does he mean that we are needed as productive citizens? Or does he mean that society needs us to be taken care of by a burgeoning health care industry?

Where is the Presidential leadership to reform these terrible regulations? Why does the Administration support more generous earnings limits for elderly people on Social Security but deliberately exclude people with disabilities from the same advance?

So while we gather on July 25 to celebrate the ADA and its promise, we also focus on the obligation to advocate. It is clear that we cannot depend on government to voluntarily guarantee our rights. As individuals, a few of us may achieve independence and success. But for most of us, strength will come from numbers. And to bring us together, the ADA makes an attractive symbol around which people with disabilities can rally. For it is necessary that we join together if we want a place. This is no "gimme." It is, and will be for a long time, a struggle. Nobody said that changing the world would be easy. But it is something to celebrate.

William G. Stothers is editor of MAINSTREAM.

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