The ADA Turns 33: These Truths…

by Neil Romano

Chairman Emeritus of the National Council of Disabilities

2023 marks the 33rd anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an act that was designed to afford people with disabilities all of the legal rights enjoyed by other Americans citizens.

Prior to the passage of ADA people with disabilities were relegated to the shadows of everyday American life, marginalized in virtually every major aspect of life from education to employment to healthcare. Before ADA, many government programs for people with disabilities were seen as endless sinkholes where money was spent with no real expectations for any return on those investments.  We largely focused on what people with disabilities could not do, instead of what they could do.

The sad truth is that prior to the ADA our national philosophy regarding our responsibilities to people with disabilities could be summed up  as maintenance and segregation. Now in 2023, while ADA has been largely effective in establishing a legal framework for the integration of people with disabilities into the mainstream of American life, we still struggle with providing people with disabilities the equity they deserve under the law, let alone the equality they inherently deserve as human beings.  

On July 19, 2018, I stood in the National Archives Rotunda in Washington D.C., in front of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States with my wife and two daughters by my side and for the fifth time in my life, I raised my right hand, placed my left hand on my family Bible and swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. This ceremony marked my being appointed chairman of the National Council on Disability, the same council that wrote the first draft of the ADA some 28 years before. 

The selected venue for my swearing-in was carefully chosen by my staff who knew that for the past 25 years virtually every speech, interview, or testimony I gave included that portion of the Declaration of Independence which states:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

In his immortal “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us that those “magnificent words” from the Declaration were a promissory note that future generations were responsible to deliver. And while he was not speaking specifically of people with disabilities, we do know that those words were meant for all people and all generations.

While we can all celebrate the ADA as a great step forward in codifying the legal rights of people with disabilities in our society, we should remember that each of us shares the responsibility to promote the humanity of all people in our own lives in our own way. During my time as a very junior officer in the Reagan administration I had the distinct pleasure of working with then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. Dr Koop would say that we should work to view the needs of the group through the lens of the individual, otherwise we run the risk of sacrificing the humanity of the individual to the facelessness of the unemotional “them.” 

The ADA has brought significant change for people with disabilities. But, like all social legislation it is the individual who must choose to go beyond compliance with the law and move toward embracing people with disabilities. We do this when we demonstrate a true belief in their inherent value as people. Simply stated, while important, laws alone can’t force people to fully accept others, only to tolerate them. And that never leads to enduring progress, just an uneasy peace.

So, we all get the opportunity to decide how to view people with disabilities. Will we view them for what they can’t do or what they can do? Do I consider the person with IDD for their differences, or do I recognize them for the unique abilities they do have and the joy and love they offer others?

Sometimes it’s comfortable to wait on governmental, communal, corporate, or systemic change to decide how to move on the great social issues of the day. Or we can know what is right and begin to work on the needed change in our own lives, families, offices, and hearts.

May the spirit of the ADA burn in each of us like an unquenchable fire.

Neil Romano is a lifelong advocate for people with disabilities. He is the Former Assistant Secretary for the United States Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy. He is also a former member of the President's Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities, The United States Ability One Commission, and The United States Access Board. He currently serves as Chairman Emeritus of the National Council on Disabilities.