JUDY WOODRUFF: This week marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a
groundbreaking law that prohibits discrimination based on disability.
The legislation has been invaluable for what it changed, but significant obstacles still
exist for those who have physical or mental impairments of any kind.
When President George H.W. Bush signed the law in 1990, it guaranteed new protections
for work, education, access, and transportation, among other rights. Many of the physical accommodations
that are now commonplace only came to pass after the ADA became law.
In fact, as seen in the Netflix documentary "Crip Camp," it took longer to guarantee these
basic civil rights than it did for other groups, including black Americans, Latinos and Asians.
And a generation of advocates took to the streets to demonstrate and protest through
the 1970s and 80s. But even after all of this time, the challenges for people with disabilities
remain enormous. Just 32 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities have a job. People
with disabilities also live in poverty at more than twice the rate of people without
disabilities.
We're going to explore these questions more in a moment.
But, first, the "NewsHour" spoke with a number of Americans and asked them to reflect on
what it means to live with a disability today.
BRITNEY WILSON, Civil Rights Attorney: My name is Britney Wilson. I'm from Brooklyn,
New York. I'm a disabled civil rights attorney. I have cerebral palsy.
BILL KREBS, Advocacy Coordinator, Keystone Service Systems: My name is Bill Krebs. I
live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am a person with a disability myself. You may not
know it. It's a hidden disability.
ELIZABETH BOSTIC, Mother: My name is Elizabeth Bostic. I am first and foremost the proud
parent and humble servant of king James. He has a rare disease called Kernicterus, which
is caused by severe jaundice at birth.
JEN DEERINWATER, Journalist and Organizer: I'm Jen Deerinwater. I'm a citizen of the
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. I'm also bisexual, two spirit, and I am multiply disabled with
chronic illnesses.
ALICE WONG, Editor, Disability Visibility: My name is Alice Wong. And I'm a disabled activist in San Francisco.
MAX BARROWS, Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates: My name is Max Barrows. I
am a person on the autism spectrum. I speak up for people with disabilities throughout
the state.
BRITNEY WILSON: I think it's safe to say that my life wouldn't be anything that it is right
now, because the ADA literally gave me my rights as a disabled person.
The fact that I was able to attend law school and receive accommodations and to be employed
as an attorney, but I think also as a civil rights lawyer in particular, I know the limitations
of the law. And that's what ADA is.
At the end of the day, it's just a statue. It gave us the bare minimum, which is our
rights. And rights are not anything if they are not enforceable.
BILL KREBS: Well, before that, the ADA, kids like myself were segregated in school. We
didn't have no education. We were never heard, never seen, never did anything.
Employment was the hardest thing for people with disabilities. We were placed in shelter
workshop programs, where we just sat there and did nothing. We did some minimum wage
jobs. We may have made a whole dollar. Wow.
I was there for 10 years of my life. I thought, as a person with a disability, I would go
nowhere. So, I started being a self-advocate.
ELIZABETH BOSTIC: When I think about ADA, the key word for me is access.
And that, coupled with a number of other disability laws, really gave everyone the ability to
have access to whatever tools were necessary, any reasonable accommodations were necessary
to be able to live as independently as possible.
And so, as his mother, of course, one of my primary concerns is, can he effectively communicate
his wants, his needs, his desires to live the life that he wants to live in and to be
in charge of it?
And so a lot of technology has been built as a result of that because there was a demand
for it.
JEN DEERINWATER: One of the caveats of the ADA was to try to stop the institutionalization
of disabled people. Well, that's not really ended.
Like, yes, we do have more options, but disabled people are being institutionalized all the
time. I can't tell you the number of times I have had medical providers or health care
workers try to put me in a nursing home.
I don't need to be in a nursing home. Just make sure I have a disability-accessible apartment
and a home health aide, and I can mostly get by on my own.
ALICE WONG: I do think, especially with the pandemic, my right to health care and to be
protected from discrimination is really important.
I am legit worried about coming down with COVID-19 and not being a priority or considered
a life worth saving. And these attitudes will not be fixed by a law. These are larger, more
difficult cultural changes that need to happen. And that takes time.
MAX BARROWS: We're still not seen as independent or productive people in many areas, because
we rarely are given the opportunity to prove ourselves. And people should let us be in
the driver's seat of making decisions for ourselves.
And who knows us better than we know ourselves?