Why the ADA Still Matters

When I was in fifth grade, on January 20, 1993, President Clinton was inaugurated, and we watched what felt like—and probably was—hours of political TV. In addition to the inauguration ceremony itself, I remember watching a clip in which people, including children, thanked outgoing President George H.W. Bush for his contributions. One person mentioned that he had signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law, to which one of my classmates sneered, “Oh, that’s for people like Kristen!” Some of the other kids laughed. That was literally the first time I had heard about the ADA, two and a half years after it was signed into law. This snark was why I was starting to hate the word “special;” kids felt I was getting special treatment, even when the accommodations were necessary. This was very much the language of “there’s the person getting a handout.” This was more than a little ironic, considering that in many ways, the ADA was a Republican bill that became a bipartisan effort, and because the Republican rationale was that this bill would get people with disabilities into the workforce and off of welfare.

In my admittedly faulty memory, my parents had never mentioned the ADA, maybe because they thought I was too young when it came out, maybe because they weren’t all that sure it would change anything. I still can’t believe I never heard the story of Jennifer Keelan as a child, and when I asked my mom if she had read or heard about her, she hadn’t. More about her below.

But in going over pre-ADA educational records, I learned my blindness was listed as a “defect.” Blindness and other disabilities are no longer classified that way in schools. So much changes, and so much stays the same. But I imagine the ADA, at the very least, removed the blatant language of brokenness.

As an adult, I can finally begin to comprehend the legacy of the ADA. The states have a patchwork of laws that often determine the nuts and bolts of access “On the ground.” However, without the ADA, a basic expectation of equality and equity for people with a variety of use constraints would just not exist.

Dipping a Toe into ADA History

President Bush signed the ADA into law, but it took tireless advocacy and activism from generations of people with disabilities, as well as the work of lobbyists and legislators, to bring disability to national attention. Until then, attention to matters of disability had been individual, complex, and inconsistent.

In 1977, activists, including Judy Heumann and many others, staged a historic 26-day sit-in in the San Francisco Federal Building that finally forced Section 504 regulations into law. Section 504 guaranteed people with disabilities equal opportunity and full access to programs in any organizations that receive federal funding. To read more about why similar laws such as Section 504 are so important, I invite you to check out my colleague, Raquella Freeman’s, reflection on her journey.

In 1977, activists, including Judy Heumann and many others, staged a historic 26-day sit-in in the San Francisco Federal Building that finally forced Section 504 regulations into law. Section 504 guaranteed people with disabilities equal opportunity and full access to programs in any organizations that receive federal funding. To read more about why similar laws such as Section 504 are so important, I invite you to check out my colleague, Raquella Freeman’s, reflection on her journey.

But throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, there were vigorous discussions, often in the Supreme Court, about when and how Section 504 could be applied. In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled in Southeastern Community College V. Davis that education could be denied to people with disabilities if it was considered to be an undue burden upon the institution. Therefore, disability activists made it their mission to educate the Supreme Court during the 1980s about the importance of equality, not only in the purview of federal funding but more broadly.

The disability community also continued to build intersectional alliances with other marginalized groups. These allied groups made it a mission to push legislation that would overturn Grove City College v. Bell, a decision which had restricted the reach of Section 504-related statutes. In 1988, these communities also amended the Fair Housing Act to improve enforcement mechanisms and guarantee anti-discrimination protections.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was a huge movement forward. It would guarantee equality more broadly across education, employment, housing, and all facets of life. Although it was preceded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504, and other legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act was a pioneering law, protecting a large minority that cut across race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and the individual disability groups themselves to guarantee civil rights to a broad sector of the population that would incur expense, not just a mindset shift.

The ADA was begun in 1988 and passed in the Senate in 1989. Its glacial journey into law took it among the White House, the Senate, several subcommittees and committees within the House of Representatives, and into conference between the chambers as amendments popped up to potentially weaken it. The bill was also largely kept out of the press, which had its advantages and drawbacks. Although it received pushback from many in the business community, the closed-door sessions meant that most of the public was left out, which ultimately may have helped it to pass. However, people in the disability community had a relatively poor sense of how it was moving and changing. This probably explains why my mother was not aware of the bill until it passed.

By 1990, people with disabilities had had enough. On March 12, over one thousand protesters with disabilities, primarily from the activist group ADAPT, came to Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to pass the law. This protest included the Capitol Crawl, in which over sixty people with disabilities abandoned their mobility aids and crawled up the steps of the Capitol as a demonstration of how inaccessible the architecture was. Eight-year-old Jennifer Keelan, who had cerebral palsy, has been quoted as saying she would get up the steps of the Capitol if it took her all night. As professor and author Lennard Davis noted in his groundbreaking history, Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights, Congress was already actively, albeit slowly, working on the law. But because the public was largely unaware of its progress, the activism, staged at considerable hardship for people who couldn’t always get in front of politicians easily, became historically crucial, both as a demonstration for legislators and part of the mythos of the journey of disability rights.

I, too, was eight years old in 1990. I had just learned Braille, and my typing was improving. My TVI (teacher of the blind) was helping me to master the slate, my signature, sewing, cutting food, how to take a joke, and how not to cry every single time I made a mistake. Some of these skills have served me better than others; perfectionism feels like more of a hindrance than my blindness, and my handwritten signature is horrible. My parents were worried about equality in my education. What would they have thought about an eight-year-old becoming the symbolic body of disability history? What were their exact hopes and fears for me then? No doubt Jennifer Keelan was also spending hours laboriously learning skills the kids around her had mastered. Yet she and her mother had taken the time to come to Washington to show the legislators just how pervasive social barriers were.

On the White House south lawn, the law was officially signed on July 26, 1990. ADA Day or Disability Pride Month is still remembered by many organizations around the United States, including at Tamman and Chax.

Where Are We Now?

In fifth grade, I was at the height of torment from schoolyard bullies. It would take another year or so and a move to junior high, when I met a broader friend group, for social life to get easier. I still dealt with the challenges of conformity and individuality, but they never felt quite as terrible as they did during late elementary school.

Without the ADA, I probably wouldn’t have had as good of an education as I did. I did meet teachers who were apprehensive, but none of them were openly hostile. My mother, normally quiet and reserved, became my fiercest advocate, declaring I could take a full Honors curriculum when case managers suggested I start with half Honors/half regular classes and work my way up. She taught me well, and by the time I was eighteen, I ran my own IEP meeting. After all, she had work that day.

Has the ADA fixed everything? Absolutely not. Thirty-six years later, people with disabilities still struggle with inaccessible physical architecture, deeply entrenched employment biases that can no longer be openly chalked up to disability, the stigmas around medical care and illness, true equality in social and relationship contexts, and the added complexity of varied, often inaccessible, digital landscapes. Day after day, Tamman and Chax help individuals and organizations by retrofitting inaccessible assets and by training them in the practices of good design so that accessibility can be built in from the beginning.

Now, in 2026, the protections of the ADA feel particularly tenuous. My new cringe word is “inspiration,” especially when the inspiration leads to inaction. I wonder what Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, an educator, advocate, and author, is thinking and feeling right now. It took 34 years for the DOJ to establish a clear, enforceable accessibility standard for web content and mobile apps under Title II. Now the compliance deadlines have already been extended, and the rule itself could be weakened. After years of the relative safety of guarantees that people with disabilities can stay in their communities whenever possible, institutionalization, which has long been shown to be more expensive and often abusive, has been sneaked back onto the table.

It is up to each of us, people with disabilities and their allies, to continue the fight our ancestors in the disability community fought on our behalf to make our lives that much easier. We must keep conversing, working, dreaming, writing, fighting, living, and loving. Our words and actions matter. Our stories matter.

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Kristen Witucki is a Tamman partner and contributor. A published author and educator, she brings her lived experience and perspective as a woman who is blind to the Tamman Team.