Locals share thoughts on ADA, future of disability rights

• The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law 25 years ago.
• The act increased accessibility and equality for those with disabilities.
• Locals spoke to The Advocate about the next step in the disability rights movement.

NEWARK – When Randy Negele graduated from Heath High School in 1974, he tried working at a restaurant.

But Negele has a learning disability that makes it difficult for him to learn new tasks in a fast-paced environment.

“I couldn’t keep up, and they had to let me go,” he said. “That didn’t make me feel too good.”

He bounced around from job to job and went on disability for several years. Then in 1993, he reached out to the Licking County Board of Developmental Disabilities and eventually began working with Licking/Knox Goodwill Industries.

Through its job training program, he was able to land a custodial job at Defense Supply Center Columbus and has been there ever since.

Negele said he’s grateful to both local agencies for providing him with support. But he also believes that both the attitude changes and regulations brought on by the Americans with Disabilities Act helped him find permanent employment.

His bosses understand his needs and are willing to accommodate them, he said.

“You can ask questions every day. They don’t care if it’s 15 or 20 times. They’ll keep telling you until you get it right,” he said. “They don’t get upset because they know you have a barrier.”

Signed into law on July 26, 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act, known as the ADA, prohibited discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all aspects of public life, including the workplace.

This year marks the act’s 25th anniversary. The milestone has brought up questions about what’s next to increase equality and accessibility, said Marc Guthrie, a Newark City Council member who has served several terms on the United States Access Board.

“The changes that have occurred in the last 25 years are really quite amazing, if you really think about it,” he said. “But there’s a lot left to be done.”

‘Not second-class citizens’

Chandra Hottinger doesn’t clearly remember a time when the ADA didn’t exist, as she was a child when the legislation was signed into law.

But Hottinger, who is blind, is active in the self-advocacy group Mind Over Matter at LICCO Inc. Through her involvement in the group, she’s traveled throughout central Ohio, meeting people with disabilities from older generations.

Through their stories, she has a pretty firm understanding of what life was like in the decades before the ADA.

People with disabilities were isolated. They often attended special schools, worked in sheltered workshops and lived in group homes.

The ADA gave people and families more choices, she said.

“Now they can go to public school,” she said. “Now they can live on their own.”

The ADA is broken into several sections focusing on employment, telecommunication, and access to government services.

The law mandates that places such as restaurants, movie theaters, sports stadiums and hotels as well as government buildings remove barriers and add options such as ramps and elevators to make the facilities more accessible.

Now things such as curb cuts, automatic doors, handicapped-accessible parking spaces and restrooms seem standard, especially in city and county buildings, Guthrie said.

“All those types of things help people with disabilities feel like they are not second-class citizens,” he said.

Most people associate the ADA with improvements in accessibility but the legislation did more than that, said Nancy Neely, superintendent of the Licking County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

“There was really a push for not isolating people and giving them the opportunity to spend their lives in the mainstream of the community,” she said. “We are still feeling that and trying to implement those provisions today.”

A focus on employment

Guthrie spent last week attending meetings and events in Washington, D.C., that marked the 25th anniversary of the ADA.

Though there was was a celebratory atmosphere, a lot of the discussion focused on the future.

One topic discussed was the importance of a United Nations resolution that would create a worldwide version of the ADA so disabled people everywhere would have the same accessibility, Guthrie said.

On a more local level, Doug Sharp, a Johnstown resident who has a teenage son with autism, wants to see a stronger focus on accessibility to employment.

“I think the ADA is a needed and wonderful thing, but if you look at the population of individuals with disabilities, the unemployment rate is really high,” he said. “A lot of people don’t get past the interview.”

He and his wife run a nonprofit organization in Delaware County, Lettuce Work, to help those on the autism spectrum learn job skills.

Many employers are willing to make physical accommodations but aren’t as willing to make accommodations for those who have different social or behavioral needs, he said.

“I don’t think that’s been embraced by lots of employers yet,” he said.

Raymond Shaw, who is president in LICCO Inc.’s Mind Over Matter group, said he wants to see more people with disabilities participate in job training or even go to college.

“We need to do a lot more for disabilities,” he said. “I want to see that people can be what they want to be, not what people are telling them to be.”

There was a time when people assumed that people with disabilities were best served at a sheltered workshop. But that mindset is changing, Neely said.

State and local agencies have launched new initiatives to help people with disabilities find jobs in their communities. For the Licking County Board of DD, that means working with young people to make sure they have the skills they need to be part of the workforce and supporting longtime clients who decided to make the transition, Neely said.

“We need to be leveraging everything our systems can provide to see that more people are working in the future,” she said. “It’s probably one of the best things we can do, and it’s what the ADA leads us to.”

Too many people still believe that people with developmental disabilities can work only in food service jobs, Shaw said. He believes they should have many more options.

“People need to think bigger,” he said.

Self-advocacy is the future

One of Hottinger’s biggest frustrations is when people assume she’s helpless just because she can’t see.

Sometimes, they act like she isn’t even there.

“I am an adult and don’t want to be treated like a baby,” she said. “I want to be treated like a regular person.”

The training she’s done in self-advocacy has helped her speak up in those situations.

In recent years, the self-advocacy movement has spread across the state, empowering people with disabilities to stand up for their rights. Mind Over Matter is one of several self-advocacy groups in Licking County that works to bring people with disabilities together so they can learn to be their own advocates.

Several decades ago, the standard procedure was for family members and support staff to make decisions for a disabled person, especially someone with a developmental disability, Neely said.

Now, the person with the disability is the one leading the conversation, talking about their wants and needs with the support of others, she said.

“I think the whole self-advocacy movement came just in time,” she said. “We really do have to step back and respect that people have their own thoughts, opinions and feelings. We are trying to practice what we do in a very person-centered way.”

Shaw and Hottinger said their goal is to expose more people with disabilities to self-advocacy. They also want to educate the public and work to eliminate outdated, hurtful language, such as the term “mentally retarded.”

“We want to keep going,” Shaw said. “We want the community to see people with disabilities are able to be independent.”

ajeffries@newarkadvocate.com

740-328-8544

Twitter: @amsjeffries

Learn more

To learn more about the Americans with Disabilities Act, go to adaanniversary.org.