Bazelon Center’s History and the Impact of the ADA
By: Jalyn Radziminski & Sadie Salazar
“Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down,” declared President George H. W. Bush as he signed the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 26, 1990. July 26, 2021 marks the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the world’s first comprehensive declaration of equality for people with disabilities. When the civil rights legislation was passed in 1990, it had overwhelming bipartisan support.
“It is a landmark law for people with disabilities,” says Jennifer Mathis, Bazelon Center’s Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy. “The ADA has been the core of the Bazelon Center’s work and nearly all of our cases center around the ADA.”
This week, the Bazelon Center reflects on the progress accomplished for individuals with disabilities, and the issues that are yet to be addressed.
The ADA is not only the core of our work but a critical part of our organization’s history. However, the fight for disability rights started far before the ADA’s passage. Prior to the ADA, the Bazelon Center was originally founded as the Mental Health Law Project in 1972. Since the beginning, we have fought tirelessly in cases for the equity of those who have mental health disabilities to build up to this landmark moment that included people with disabilities in education, employment, housing, health care, and more to have the ability to live as fully integrated into society as possible. We fought in the Wyatt v Stickney case to establish the constitutional rights of people with mental disabilities in state institutions, which created the field of mental health and public interest law. The Bazelon Center advocated in that case for 30 years to establish rights for people with disabilities across the nation to receive appropriate treatment in institutions and to be served in the community where appropriate. We later continued the fight in the Willowbrook case (NYSARC & Parisi v Carey) to push for the transfers of residents with disabilities to community-based programs. Our fight to end needless and harmful incarceration and our push to encourage home and community-based services continue to the present day.
After setting the stage for the field of mental health law, the Bazelon Center played a significant role in the ADA’s passage and expanded legal protections for people with disabilities. Subsequently, Jennifer Mathis, Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy at the Bazelon Center, was a member of a team of disability community negotiators that collaborated with businesses and civil rights organizations to craft language that became the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA). This legislation restored an expansive definition of “disability” to ensure that the ADA’s protections were available to a much broader group of individuals than the courts had allowed.
Despite the progress we have achieved, our fight continues to ensure people with disabilities are in the fullest integrated setting possible. The primary goals of the ADA were to promote: independent living, equality of opportunity, full participation, and economic self-sufficiency. This is reflected in our current work, which includes litigation, public policy advocacy, coalition building, public education, media outreach, and technical assistance to those with mental health disabilities.
“Economic Self sufficiency is the goal on which we have the longest way to go,” Jennifer Mathis says.
Despite significant progress in removing barriers for over 50 million Americans with disabilities, significant gaps in employment, education, and income continue between those with and without disabilities. Across all racial and ethnic backgrounds, 26% of people with disabilities live in poverty, compared to only 11% of those without disabilities. Regardless of disability status, BIPOC groups have a higher poverty rate than white communities. Individuals with disabilities, regardless of race or ethnicity, are considerably more likely than those without disabilities to live in poverty. Black and Indigenous people with disabilities are the ones with the greatest poverty rates.
Across all racial and ethnic groupings, 35% of people without disabilities have a bachelor’s degree or above, whereas 15% of people with disabilities have received the same level of education. People with disabilities have lower levels of academic attainment in each racial/ethnic group, and all racial/ethnic minorities experience lower levels of educational attainment as compared to non-Hispanic white people. Because the level of education received is an extremely significant factor in regards to employment and income, lower education levels for people with disabilities, especially for BIPOC individuals with disabilities, have a major impact on economic outcomes and the ability to cope with the consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic.
People of color with disabilities also face massive health inequalities, with racial and ethnic health inequalities amplified enormously by disability health disparities. Disabilities-related health inequities are linked to substandard care, avoidable morbidity, institutionalization, and death.
While the ADA’s 31st anniversary has given us a chance to reflect on the ways its passing has dramatically improved the lives of millions of Americans with disabilities, we recognize that there are still significant challenges to address, such as equal access to school, healthcare, and employment for Americans with disabilities. We will be posting a series of blog posts to further highlight these inequities, and how you can join us in this historical fight for the civil rights of the disability community.
Jalyn Radziminski is the Communications Manager for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and graduated from Emory University as the first Black woman, first Japanese woman, and the first first-generation college student to receive the Marion Luther Brittain Award. Jalyn has extensive experience advocating for disability rights and racial equity; Jalyn founded Emory’s Black Mental Health Ambassadors program, was a founding council member of Mental Health America’s National Collegiate Mental Health Innovation Council, and was one the American Association of People with Disabilities first Fannie Lou Hamer Organizers. Radziminski also served on the Bobby Dodd Institute’s steering committee to foster accessibility in transportation and employment across the state of Georgia.
Sadie Salazar is Summer 2021 Strategic Communications Intern at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. She is currently a rising senior at Northern Arizona University, where she is pursuing her Bachelors in Psychology with a Minor in Disability Studies. Sadie is spending her senior year as an Undergraduate Research Assistant for NAU’s Developmental Psychology program, where she plans to contribute to developmental disability research.
