Hip Hip Hooray for the ADA! (And the IDEA)
A Special Fourth of July Post
I acknowledge that since moving to Europe nine years ago, I have on occasion been one of those tiresome Americans who lives overseas and won’t shut up about how great Europe is: Universal healthcare! A social safety net! Safe, reliable, and affordable public transportation! At least four weeks of vacation a year! Free or cheap higher education! Dogs on the bus!
I recently read The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway, an expat in France when he wrote the book, has us Americans in Europe bang to rights:
“You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. . . . You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés.”
To be fair, the espresso in those cafés is pretty great.
Anyway, I think it’s important, especially around the Fourth of July, to highlight some of the many wonderful aspects of the US: National parks! Target! Air conditioning! A majority of the greatest universities in the world! Right turn on red! Washers and dryers that actually work! Friendly, generous people! And most of all, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Our family has a good reason to be grateful for the ADA. Check out the photo below, which shows a typical European experience for us:
Our daughter has a disability that makes it very difficult for her to walk up stairs. Because Europe doesn’t have laws that require buildings to be accessible to people with disabilities, many places have been totally closed to her—or, when she was younger, we would have to piggyback her up the stairs, as my husband valiantly does in the photo. Throughout our European travels, my son and I have loved to climb to the tops of the towers in castles and cathedrals to take in the view, but the lack of elevators means this experience is denied to my daughter. It is rare for public bathrooms over here to be equipped with the grab bars she needs. And even her middle school in Prague—a new building that could easily have been built with adequate elevators—had several classrooms that were accessible only by climbing a long, steep flight of stairs.
Now compare this story, from when we lived in the US. My daughter’s kindergarten classroom was on the third floor of a school building that had just undergone a renovation. The new elevator had yet to be inspected, and so no one was allowed to use it. In the spirit of taking one for the team, I agreed to carry her upstairs every morning until the elevator was cleared for use. Three weeks later, I was still schlepping her up those stairs, and I was getting grumpy about it. For one thing, it was not good for my daughter’s social development to have her mom hanging around and then carrying her in front of all her new classmates. For another, I injured my shoulder and couldn’t lift her anymore. So I called the school district, described the situation, and spoke the magic words: “You are in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. You have had three weeks to deal with this. If the elevator isn’t in service by tomorrow, I am calling an attorney.” You guessed it: The elevator was inspected that very afternoon and in service the next morning.
The ADA and IDEA Represent What Is Best about America
The ADA was sponsored by Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and cosponsored by a bipartisan group of sixty-three senators. It was signed into law in 1990 by Republican President George H. W. Bush. The ADA “prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public” (source). It covers employment, public services, public accommodations, and telecommunications.
The IDEA was first signed into law by Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. It was reauthorized and renamed the IDEA by a bipartisan Congress in 1990. The IDEA mandates that all children receive a “free appropriate public education” in the “least restrictive environment.” It also requires that parents be allowed to participate in the process of evaluation, grants parents access to their children’s records, and gives parents rights of redress if they disagree with the plans for their children’s educations.
Before the ADA, our country wasted the potential of millions of disabled people, people who could have contributed their intelligence, perspectives, and talents to make life better for all of us. This article includes heartbreaking stories of people who suffered terribly before the ADA was made law, not because of their disabilities, but because of our refusal to make reasonable accommodations—a Vietnam vet who was a virtual prisoner in his home because public transportation, sidewalks, and buildings didn’t have wheelchair ramps; a woman who lost her job after surviving breast cancer and then, “as a person with a history of cancer,” couldn’t find another job; a woman who had been forbidden to enter a local movie theater because she had cerebral palsy; a family whose little boy died of AIDS, and whose grief was compounded when not a single funeral home in their city would take their son’s body for burial. The gratuitous cruelty in these stories is rightly shocking to us now.
As for the IDEA, well, I am old enough to remember what public education was like before the law required public schools to offer a free and appropriate education to all children. Before 1975, fewer than 20 percent of disabled children received a public education, and “many states had laws excluding certain students, including children who were deaf, blind, emotionally disturbed, or had an intellectual disability” (source). In my elementary school, there were several boys who acted out or acted weird. (God forgive us, but the rest of us referred to them as the “bad boys.”) My school dealt with these boys, who, in retrospect, probably had ADHD or were on the spectrum, by harshly punishing and sometimes expelling them. What a senseless misery school must have been for them. I have often wondered what happened to these boys after they left our school. With some additional support, they could have stayed in our school and been happy and successful students.
Even if we and everyone we love happen to be able-bodied and with no educational challenges, we still benefit from these laws. We profit from the contributions that disabled people make to our economy and culture. We should also humbly acknowledge that we may need the ADA ourselves one day. After all, we are just a car crash or a few decades more of aging away from needing elevators, wheelchair ramps, and other accommodations. And even young, healthy people use accommodations put in place for disabled people—for example, curb cutaways help parents with strollers and kids on scooters, pretty much everyone is watching TV with the closed captioning turned on these days, and many of us prefer the larger handicapped stalls in public bathrooms (but please only use them if you know that no disabled person needs it!).
Similarly, the positive impact of the IDEA is enormous. In the 2021–22 school year, 15 percent of US public school students used special education services. But far more of our kids have used these services at some point and then “graduated” from needing them because the services worked, allowing them to thrive in regular classes. Even if our own families haven’t used these services, we all know people whose kids have used early intervention services; received physical, occupational, or speech therapy at school; had a personal or shared aide at some point; received pull-out support or tutoring; improved their executive function with the help of a learning specialist; gotten help with regulating their emotions from a school psychologist; or had an IEP at some point. How much more impoverished would these families and our country be if—as is the case in many other countries—we lacked the right to these services, and so most of the children who needed help were denied an appropriate education? The IDEA is an investment in our country’s future.
I specified the political parties of the politicians who gave us these laws for a reason. In our current polarized time, it can be difficult to remember that Americans across the political spectrum are capable of cooperating for everyone’s benefit. The ADA and IDEA were signed into law a mere generation ago. Our country’s leaders saw a problem and fixed it, which is, after all, what we pay them for. They put aside partisanship and decided that we Americans could be kinder and more inclusive, and that if we offered a bit of help to people who needed it, we would all be better off. We can be proud of these achievements, and we can do it again; we just have to be patriotic enough to put our country ahead of our differences and work together.
Kstatsi: And Now for “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
My husband lived in Russia before the fall of Communism, and he was always amused by the way that newscasters from that era would transition between totally unrelated stories on the TV news. The newscasters would say, “kstatsi,” which means “by the way,” and then they would just launch into the next story. Now, in our family, whenever one of us abruptly switches topics, someone will say “kstatsi.” So, kstatsi, or, to quote Monty Python, “And now for something completely different”:
Our summer book club, for which we will be reading “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853), by Herman Melville, begins next week. A free version of the story is available here, or you might have a copy knocking around somewhere in your old college textbooks. The story is about forty pages long, so we will have plenty of time to read it before next week. Here are some general questions for us to think about as we read:
How does this story make you feel? Why does it make you feel that way?
The Narrator comments that “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.” How might you explain Bartleby’s behavior? The Narrator’s response?
Have you ever worked in an environment like the Narrator’s office? What insights does Melville’s work world have for our own?
What would you do if Bartleby were your employee, or even just someone you knew?
The story is full of symbols—walls, bonds, the dead letter. What point is Melville making through these symbols? What other symbols did you notice?
What did you like best about the story? What are some quotes you especially loved?
Just for fun, how many times did Bartleby say some version of “I would prefer not to”?
Our discussions will take place on July 12 and 19. Thanks in advance for participating, and happy reading, everyone!
How about you, readers? How has the ADA or IDEA helped you or someone you love? And what other event or policy do you think represents what is best about America? Please share you thoughts in the comments!
The Tidbit
One benefit of the ADA is that Deaf people are now included, thanks to ASL interpreters. In the video below, the Academy Award–winning actor Troy Kotsur signs the National Anthem at the 2023 Super Bowl. It is impossible for me to watch Kotsur’s interpretation without getting tears in my eyes. (And Chris Stapelton’s bluegrass rendition of the anthem is pretty terrific too!) Watch and be inspired!
That’s an incredible story about carrying your child up the stairs. Glad there was a spur available when you needed it.
Looking forward to Bartleby!
Very nice, Mari! Reading your column I found myself wondering if such a law could pass now. Would those in favor be derogatorily described as "woke"? Ridiculous to view conquering injustice as a partisan issue, but that seems to be where we are. Thank goodness the ADA was passed long enough ago to be of help to Casey. That is wonderful and as you say, necessary.