ADA has helped us see people with disabilities in much different light

Sometimes – not always, but sometimes – Congress has the ability to do more than pass a law. It can set the nation on a new and better course.

Such was the case 25 years ago when it passed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The law’s intent was to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communication and government activity.

Over the years, other laws have been passed and executive orders issued to strengthen the protections afforded the disabled. Enforcement of the law falls to various government entities, including the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Department of Labor’s Civil Rights Center, the National Council on Disability, whose members are appointed by the president, and others. Military veterans with disabilities also have advocates on the federal, state and local levels.

The ADA was signed by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. That law and subsequent amendments, some of which responded to Supreme Court rulings that restricted enforcement of the 1990 act, define disabilities as physical or mental impairments that limit “caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating and working.”

LITTLE ABUSE TRANSPIRED

As with any law, there have been attempts by unscrupulous individuals to abuse its protections. Weeding out the abusers from the victims is the job of the courts. But it has become clear over the years that the predictions by opponents of the law that its costs would be enormous and that it would have a disastrous impact on business were exaggerations.

History has shown that opening commerce and employment to a large, marginalized segment of the nation’s population was good for disabled people, good for companies and good for the nation at large.

It is worth noting that the ADA received strong bipartisan support in Congress, something that is seldom seen these days. The Senate bill was sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, D- Iowa, and one of its most powerful proponents was Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas. It is difficult to imagine such an alliance today. Two years ago, Dole, a former majority leader, returned to the floor of the Senate to urge ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty that would have, as he said, “require countries around the world to affirm what are essentially core American values of equality, justice and dignity.” Ratification failed on a largely party-line vote with 38 Republicans rejecting Dole’s passionate appeal.

US TAKES GLOBAL LEAD

Nevertheless, with the passage of the ADA, America became a world leader in recognizing that disabled people have an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The ADA represents yet another triumph in civil rights for a minority that had faced barriers that were largely invisible to other Americans.

To be sure, it produced handicapped parking spots, wheelchair access to public transportation and wheelchair spots in theaters and stadiums. But far more important, it has contributed to a generation of Americans seeing people with disabilities in a new light.

It has allowed all of us to see past physical disabilities and to recognize individual potential to which we had too often been blind.

It has led to accepting into the mainstream students and workers who had previously been relegated to special schools or special workplaces. Not that there is no need for institutions for people facing extraordinary challenges in their lives. There are, and as a society we should support them. But it was easier to place people in pigeonholes that were more convenient to the rest of us than were helpful to the people with disabilities.

The ADA was more than a law. It was the beginning of a new era in which Americans live and work and prosper side by side.