Posts Tagged ‘ADA 20th anniversary’

Most of the media coverage I heard on the ADA 20th anniversary represented the civil rights law as a landmark in American public life. There were dissenting views, of course. Someone hiding behind the name “fortressdayton” wasted little time in adding this comment to my op-ed piece on the Dayton Daily News Matter of Opinion blog. Disability discrimination is often hard to put your finger on, so I give “fortressdayton” credit for being unfiltered, if mean-spirited.

President Obama and others speak at an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [Source: whitehose.gov]. This video is in the public domain. Read the transcript.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Twenty years is significant, not because it’s a round number, but rather, because it represents a generation of experience gained since the law was passed. Many of us who lobbied for the ADA believed at the time that it could take a generation or more, as it had with the Civil Rights Act before it, to fulfill the ADA’s promise of equal opportunity for Americans with disabilities.