When I was younger,
it was legal to discriminate against people like me.
I was born with
spinal muscular atrophy. I've always used a wheelchair, and my hands are too weak to scratch an itch. My parents
said I could be anything I wanted when I grew up. It wasn't quite true.
Back in the 1960s
and 70s, my parents struggled to find a decent school willing to take a handicapped kid.
I assumed the problem was I wasn't smart enough.
In 1980 I entered
Harvard. It was the year Harvard had to become accessible, under a forerunner of the ADA – the Rehab Act of 1973.
The ancient cobblestone campus proved challenging. But what really bothered me was the administration's refusal to grant me
roommates. I might impair their experience, one dean explained. Never mind how this segregation would impact mine.
The sting of discrimination
worsened after graduation. No one would hire me. Eventually I landed a newspaper assignment. I typed it slowly,
with two fingers. It ran on the front page, and other assignments followed. But never a full-time job, even after
my working speed increased with voice-recognition software.
Once, an editor
invited me to interview for a staff opening. Upon seeing me, she asked, "How would you make photocopies? I mean,
you'd be here to help us, not for us to help you."
Needless to say,
I didn't score the position.
Then, on July 26,
1990, when I was 27, the ADA became law. It didn't get me a job. But it addressed the differences between essential
and nonessential job tasks. It identified a "reasonable accommodation" from an "undue hardship” – a critical
distinction for employers and public places alike. If I encountered a restaurant or store with a six-inch threshold and
no ramp, I had constructive language to use … beyond cursing or crying.
Most of all, by
recognizing the injustices millions of us were confronting, it provided not just legal recourse, but validation and hope.
Now, the ADA’s
impact is everywhere: wheelchair lifts on city buses, signs in Braille, sign-language interpreters. Many young disabled
people are growing up with a marvelous sense of belonging, entitlement and pride I never had.
Yes, there's still
a long way to go. Yet in redefining the terms of disability, the ADA made us impossible to ignore. So now people
should understand we're just part of the human landscape, and we're here to stay.
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