The Americans with Disabilities Act became law 25 years ago today, helping to move people with disabilities out of the confines of their homes and into everyday public life.
The civil rights law prohibits discrimination in employment, government services, transportation, telecommunications and any place open to the general public.
Still, the ADA remains a work in progress.
Advocates for the disabled say even after 25 years, some government buildings, schools, restaurants and hotels remain difficult to access. Lawsuits remain an essential tool for achieving change when business or property owners are hostile toward compliance.
But in some other fundamental ways, the ADA has succeeded.
The law and the awareness it has created have fostered a greater sense of independence and belonging for the disabled. And increased public participation as a result of the law is helping erode long-entrenched stigmas.
The path from exclusion to inclusion started, for many, with the ADA.
“It’s part of a social change whereby people like me increasingly are rights holders rather than charity cases,” said Art Blaser, a 62-year-old Chapman University political science professor who is paralyzed from a stroke he suffered in 1993.
“Since I became disabled, after the ADA, I’ve always expected equal rights.”
Margaret Johnson, an attorney and advocacy director at the Sacramento-based nonprofit Disability Rights California, said the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s helped shape protests during the 1980s over inaccessible public transportation.
She remembers a sign that directly referenced Rosa Parks: “We can’t even get to the back of the bus.”
“There are a lot of parallels in terms of people being discriminated against, in terms of not being allowed to participate, or (being) turned away from things,” Johnson said. “People might say, ‘We didn’t know’ or ‘We thought you needed to be taken care of.’ Whatever the rationale, the ultimate outcome is that a whole segment of the population is excluded.”
After decades of grass-roots advocacy and lobbying by the National Council on Disability, President George H.W. Bush signed the bill into law. He described ADA as “the world’s first comprehensive declaration of equality for people with disabilities.”
“Three weeks ago, we celebrated our nation’s Independence Day,” Bush said at the time.
“Today, we’re here to rejoice in and celebrate another independence day, one that is long overdue. With today’s signing of the landmark Americans (with) Disabilities Act, every man, woman and child with a disability can now pass through once-closed doors into a bright new era of equality, independence and freedom.”
Scott Stuart was a 32-year-old lifeguard at San Clemente State Beach when he broke his neck after diving into a dark, shallow pool in Costa Rica. His injury, on New Year’s Day 1989, left him paralyzed from the chest down.
Even a quarter-century since the passage of the ADA, he calls before visiting any new place to ask detailed questions about parking and restrooms.
Stuart, 58, has learned the hard way that even if an establishment says it is wheelchair accessible, that’s no guarantee of access. Disabled parking spots might not have loading space for his ramp. Once, he checked into a hotel for a business trip only to discover that his wheelchair didn’t fit through the bathroom door.
“I don’t think anyone realized how much of a huge, unfunded mandate” the ADA was, Stuart said last week from his home in San Clemente.
“I thought it was a big, sweeping, social legislation that would be a benefit to everybody with a disability,” he said.
“It’s just been a long, hard grind. It’s almost like people had to fight every inch to get the law complied with.”
In most cases, businesses and various levels of government have made ADA-related changes as a matter of course, at a cumulative cost of untold billions of dollars. Meeting ADA guidelines for accessibility routinely adds up to 20 percent to the cost of major architectural remodeling projects.
Over the years, lawsuits alleging violations of the act also have become routine. Some lawyers spend careers specializing in ADA compliance. There have been some landmark courtroom victories and complaints about lawyers shopping for disabled clients in order to file potentially lucrative lawsuits.
For his part, Stuart has worked to improve access to beaches through his job in state parks and recreation. He’s also pushed for disabled rights as a resident of San Clemente, where in the late 1990s he demonstrated that a bathroom stall for disabled people in a city building wasn’t large enough for him to close the door.
But, increasingly, he’s seen change. More places have become fully accessible, and more are transforming.
Since 2012, when the San Clemente Aquatics Center opened, complete with pool lifts that get disabled swimmers in and out of the water, Stuart has been able to swim before starting his workday as an information systems analyst. He rarely used the old swim facility because entering the building and locker rooms in a wheelchair was difficult. In the new center, he sees several other wheelchair swimmers; sometimes, there’s even a line for the lift.
“People want to be included,” he said. “I think that’s really important to the public perception. It’s not something special.”
In 1998, five years after Blaser had his stroke, he was prevented from serving on a jury because the county courthouse in Santa Ana couldn’t accommodate his wheelchair.
He sued, seeking no money for himself but full compliance by the county. A year later the county settled, agreeing to make buildings and programs accessible to the disabled, and to set up a watchdog committee that would monitor ADA compliance going forward.
“I see it as a small part of a broader movement toward inclusion in Orange County,” he said. “We’re now seeing disabled people everywhere – at the beaches, in the movies and at universities.”
On the fanny pack he wears to carry his wallet and phone, Blaser, who lives in Orange, has affixed a button that reads “ADA25.”
He hopes it will start conversations about what the law has accomplished – and about what still needs to be done.
GOING FORWARD
The ADA requires equal access, but no law can force a change of attitude.
Johnson of Disability Rights California said stigma remains strongest against people with mental health and intellectual disabilities.
For Stuart, frustration comes in the form of overbearing offers to help, consumers who cut in front of him in lines because they apparently think he’s just sitting there, and people who talk down to him.
“It takes a lot of guts to go out into the world and subject yourself to that kind of abuse,” he said. “I could see why people wouldn’t want to leave the house.”
Johnson said technology is an important area for the future of the ADA. She said as more states move to conduct all elections by mail, voting access becomes problematic for blind voters or those unable to mark a paper ballot.
“They’re not able to vote privately and independently; they have to have someone help them,” Johnson said. “There’s so much technology out there. Are there ways to make a lot of these things accessible for people with disabilities?”
Employment levels are also much lower among disabled Americans. In 2014, 17.1 percent of people with a disability were employed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month. In contrast, 64.6 percent of those without a disability were employed.
Blaser is hopeful that the young disabled veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan are helping change public perception. They have many years ahead of them for work and recreation, he noted.
“People would say, ‘Oh, you used to teach at Chapman’ and I say, ‘Yes, I still teach at Chapman,’” Blaser said.
Stuart said as baby boomers age, the number of people who benefit from the protections of the ADA will grow.
“Until we can cure all of mankind’s ailments, we’re going to need it,” he said.
“We need universal accessibility.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 714-796-3686 or cperkes@ocregister.com
