Commentary: Laws and cultural shifts have opened doors for Americans with disabilities
When you think of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the first image that is likely to pop into your mind is an automatic sliding door.
The installation of automatic and easy-to-open doors in public places is not all that the act accomplished. But an open door is a fitting emblem for a legal affirmation of the rights of Americans who once had no access to daily life.
The ADA ensures that people who had been shut out of daily life now have access to education, employment, government services, public accommodations and commercial facilities. It also raised the profile for so much of what we work toward at Goodwill of Orange County, and what others work for as well: breaking down barriers.
The week of July 26, advocates for people with disabilities throughout the country celebrated the 25th anniversary of the ADA. While I applaud the ADA, I see it as perhaps the most famous sibling in a family of acts and actions — both legal and cultural — that work to improve the lives of people who contribute so much to society.
Beginning with the Lanterman Act of 1977, the general public became aware of the discrimination suffered by people with disabilities. The ADA took that recognition of equality and added a legal right for access to public spaces, private business, government offices and other areas. The ADA also prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities in education, employment, government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities and other vital areas of society.
The 1998 Workforce Investment Act and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act, signed into law in 2014, have further improved access to participation by ensuring workforce-training programs in high-demand industries. It is in those laws that I particularly see the doors opened wide.
Work is transformative. It contributes to our pride and our independence. By receiving job-training opportunities, individuals with disabilities or other challenges have the prospect of attaining a sense of self-confidence and personal worth.
Organizations like Goodwill that have trained and integrated people with disabilities into the workforce over the years recognize that what the workforce laws and the ADA accomplish is giving people the opportunity to realize their potential.
The effect of that profound opportunity is particularly evident when you speak to younger people with disabilities. Those raised in the years after America woke up and acknowledged the problem of not including everyone in the national story have a stronger sense of self. They know that when they transition from high school to college and into the workforce, there will be opportunities for them in a more accepting world. There is little of the dependency and fear that plagued the generations that came before them.
Every day I work with people who have different disabilities, including profound intellectual disabilities. I know — as do they — that it’s all about finding what abilities a person has and putting him or her in a position to be as successful as possible.
From custodial work to high-tech industry jobs, more than 16,000 Goodwill program participants are transformed every year through the power of work and Goodwill’s programs and services. The Goodwill Employment WORKS program provides individualized job placement and retention services to adults with mental illness.
Our Assistive Technology Exchange Center introduces innovative technologies to help give a voice to those who cannot speak and ensures more engagement in daily life. Our Workforce Solutions program helps place enthusiastic, fully trained workers in industries across the county on a temporary or permanent basis.
I have never met a person who couldn’t contribute, and the ADA and complementary legislation has put that fact in sharp focus. Those doors must open for all of us, or they open for none of us.
RICHARD ADAMS is the community-based services program director of Goodwill of Orange County.