
{"id":6670,"date":"2009-08-14T06:16:13","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T14:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6670"},"modified":"2009-08-14T06:16:13","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T14:16:13","slug":"needed-now-more-than-ever-the-americans-with-disabilities-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/08\/14\/needed-now-more-than-ever-the-americans-with-disabilities-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Needed now more than ever: The Americans with Disabilities Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Vicki Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nineteen years ago, on July 26, 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law. This landmark civil-rights legislation removed many barriers to participation in community life for people with disabilities. Whether the barriers were driven by policy, architectural design, communication or attitudes, the ADA was (and is) intended to guarantee people with disabilities equal opportunity and protections to which all U.S. citizens are entitled. These are rights that citizens without disabilities already enjoy.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nAnd it has been a great success. Since its inception, this law has accomplished amazing outcomes for people with disabilities. Many policy, structural and communication barriers have been eliminated. People with disabilities are moving out of institutional settings where they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t belong into their communities, with appropriate supports and services. More and more people with disabilities are returning to work or staying employed with accommodations.<br \/>\nPublic buildings are more accessible. Trains, buses and other forms of public transportation are more accessible, young adults with disabilities go to college and get advanced degrees and people who are blind or have visual impairments now have access to ATMs in Braille.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, as is so often the case with any important movements of social progress, many obstacles remain.<br \/>\nDespite mostly good intentions, elected officials continue to badly underfund essential programs and services. At the same time, many persons in positions of authority still have much to learn about what the law does and why it is important.<\/p>\n<p>The ADA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s success has made it especially painful to watch the recent actions of the North Carolina General Assembly.<br \/>\nThough precipitated by the budget crisis rather than bad intentions, lawmakers are still methodically reducing appropriations for some of the very services that implement the opportunities and protections the ADA provides. The decisions faced by the legislators have been dreadfully difficult in light of current budget constraints, but their impact will be even harder on the people who depend on the services being slashed.<\/p>\n<p>Equally as painful and troubling (and perhaps even less excusable) have been the attitudes demonstrated by some of our elected representatives. For example, at a recent committee meeting about the feasibility of changing state law to allow people who are deaf to serve as jurors (legislators were debating whether or not to change a North Carolina statute that requires that jurors be able to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hear and understand English\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) multiple lawmakers made insensitive \u00e2\u20ac\u201c even offensive \u00e2\u20ac\u201c remarks. These comments demonstrated yet again why access for people with disabilities has to be protected in federal law.<\/p>\n<p>Another similar example of an attitudinal barrier surrounds the development of local emergency evacuation plans. Right now, many of these plans do not consistently include accommodations for people with disabilities \u00e2\u20ac\u201c people who use a wheelchair, people who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear emergency warnings or alerts, people who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see or read signs, people who have service animals or people who need medication. America witnessed the shortsightedness of such an approach during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, many officials continue to drag their feet. Some have even made the absurd argument that accommodations for people with special needs will somehow prevent \u00e2\u20ac\u0153equal treatment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, 19 years for the ADA is an important milestone in American history and should be celebrated. But it is hard to muster a great deal of joy at a time in which the disability community faces cuts to services that have the potential to wipe out these accomplishments. It also is hard to celebrate when faced with attitudes that stigmatize a population that has faced such extreme discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>Yet despite these obstacles, people with disabilities overcome hardships daily. It is the daily courage and capabilities demonstrated by people with disabilities that will continue to tear down the barriers standing in our way. Perhaps the best way to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Happy Anniversary!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the ADA \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at least for now and the foreseeable future \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is to renew our commitment to enforcing it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Vicki Smith is executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vicki Smith Nineteen years ago, on July 26, 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law. This landmark civil-rights legislation removed many barriers to participation in community life for people with disabilities. Whether the barriers were driven by policy, architectural design, communication or attitudes, the ADA was (and is) intended to guarantee people with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6671,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670\/revisions\/6671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}