The Americans With Disabilities Act improved access, but disabled people wish it also changed attitudes
"I had about 13 lost years of unhappiness and confusion because people with disabilities didn't really exist in the 70s and 80s," said Todd Key with a crack in his voice.
In 1968, Key broke his arm severely when he was seven years old. The break soon became infected resulting in the loss of use in his arm. Ten years later, Key was diagnosed with cancer which led to the amputation of his leg above the knee.
Being a person with a disability in the 1960s wasn't something that was openly talked about or accepted. The Americans with Disabilities Act wouldn't be passed for almost another 20 years, and programs like the Special Olympics were barely coming into existence. With no help from the government, a lack of support groups and no access to employment, an entire community was left alone, to fend for itself.
When thinking about how to manage his new life, Key recalled what first came to mind.
"It was a sad time where you pretend there's nothing wrong with you. You hid everything and you didn't tell anybody and nobody talked about it. There was nowhere to go," he said.
Key continued to live hiding his disability from everyone by wearing only jeans for nearly a decade until he decided to move to Arizona and attend a university.
The Americans with Disabilites Act
Key chose to attend Arizona State University in 1990 as an engineering major. Although due to only having one arm, he realized he couldn't keep up with the demands of the program, so he switched to studying education. That year was also when former President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability in employment, public transportation, public accommodations, such as ramps and elevators, and other areas based on disability.
The ADA was designed to promote inclusivity. However, Key recalls that the passing of the ADA was slow to implement change. He noticed this during his time at the university and the indifferent way people treated him and other members of the disabled community.
Because of his prosthetic leg, Key walks with a limp and would only wear pants. The combination of the Arizona heat and the lack of comfortability when wearing pants, prompted Key to make the brave decision to wear shorts, exposing his prosthetic. When walking around campus, Key remembers the reaction that non-disabled people would have when seeing him which he summed up as fear, horror, disgust, anger and confusion. Most people would try to avoid him, but for some of his disabled friends in wheelchairs, worse things occurred.
"People would grab their wheelchairs and force them into buildings or ditches and shove them into rooms and closets while screaming and yelling at them. That's what it was like to live with a disability before 2003," recalled Key.
The Iraq War which began in 2003, left countless American's disabled. This increased the amount of people with disabilities and made it more frequent for nondisabled people to encounter people with disabilities.
"Today, there's way more awareness. People aren't horrified, frustrated or angry about your disability, and that is because of the Iraq War," said Key.
Although the Iraq War may have normalized having a visible disability in society, the Americans with Disabilities Act lacked enforcement of their policies against discrimination in the workforce.
The U.S. Labor Department defines persons with disabilities as, "a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such impairment or is regarded as having such an impairment."
Its website states that the department doesn't, "enforce the ADA but provide assistance on the basic requirements of the law."
The lack of enforcement of the ADA regulations can make it difficult for people with disabilities to obtain work and create an income. For people with disabilities who are employed, the lack of enforcement of the regulations can make it difficult to ensure they are being reasonably accommodated.
This was the issue for Key when he was working as one of the top car salesmen. His employer refused to move his desk closer to the copy machine and other work instruments to accommodate his disability. Key reported this incident, thinking the company would accommodate him, but instead they fired him. Due to Arizona being a "right-to-work" state, Key was left jobless and with no legal options.
Aside from his own story, Key knows a lot of people with disabilities who were denied jobs.
"I knew people that had gotten master's degrees and doctorates and couldn't get a job because companies were afraid to hire them," he said. "I know a ton of people that are struggling to find jobs and never found jobs or that aren't in the careers that they went to school for."
Oftentimes, people with disabilities don't have enough income to afford legal help when these situations arise, forcing them to stay in abusive jobs, or to end up in jobs they don't like or to be fired. They are left with no options other than to accept the discriminatory circumstances they are in.
Aside from equal employment opportunities that the ADA requires, it also requires making public places more accessible for people with disabilities. Unfortunately this requirement isn't always enforced and can result in an absence of braille on signs or no elevator access.
The absence of implementing the ADA laws, leaves enforcement up to organizations like the Special Olympics and the American Civil Liberties Union to be the primary advocates for persons with disabilities and strive to make society more inclusive for them.
Participation in sporting organizations
The Special Olympics was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968 after, according to the organization's website, "she saw how unjustly and unfairly people with intellectual disabilities were treated. She also saw that many children with intellectual disabilities didn't even have a place to play."
Since then, the Special Olympics is now a haven for more than five million athletes. The organization not only promotes athletics but also helps society to promote inclusivity.
"Many people are not aware that the Special Olympics provides year-round programs and focuses on inclusive health and leadership training in addition to sports," said Terrence Thornton, executive director of the Special Olympics in Reno, Nev.
Organizations like the Special Olympics and the Paralympics have given people with disabilities an opportunity to participate in sports regardless of their disability.
For all his early challenges, Key is now a paracyclist for Team U.S.A., and has enjoyed everything that cycling has given him. He is currently training for competitions and even developed his own custom bike to make it more accessible for him.
Though Key loves being a paracyclist, he considers himself very fortunate to be able to participate due to how expensive it is. Before joining Team U.S.A., Key had to qualify and compete in many races. These competitions required each paracyclist to have two bikes and carry around their own gear. Since these bikes have to accommodate people with different disabilities, they often need to be custom made which most cannot afford to do. Transportation is not provided, and hotel rooms are not covered.
Key mentioned that there is hardly any funding for members of the disabled community in paracycling unless someone is a veteran. Veterans receive a good amount of funding to participate in these events which include coverage of bike cost, bike maintenance, transportation and rooms. However, for those who didn't serve in the military, the burden of cost depends on them.
Since Key was able to work for many years, as a car salesman, he had enough money saved up to afford to become a paracycler and to participate in competitions but unfortunately that isn't the case for everyone.
"Over my eight years of doing this, I've met a lot of underrepresented people of color, who don't have wealthy parents, and don't make any money, or the kind of money needed to support bikes," said Key.
People with disabilities who are of minority groups, unless they are veterans, are left behind as they are not granted the same access to participate in these events because of limited finances.
Covid-19 impact on people with disabilities
The Covid-19 pandemic has especially affected the disabled community not only health-wise but also economically.
"People with intellectual disabilities are two to four times more likely to die of Covid-19 than the general population," said the Special Olympics website.
Since people with intellectual disabilities are more likely to die from the virus, it is imperative that they have access to proper health care and preventative care. Unfortunately this is not always the case.
"Over 80% of healthcare providers are not professionally trained to treat people with intellectual disabilities," said the Special Olympics.
The Americans with Disabilities Act itself does not include training by health care staff for the care of disabled people, and the lack of staff with the skills to care for people with disabilities has been exposed during the pandemic. This is extremely dangerous for people with intellectual disabilities because they are more susceptible to Covid-19.
Despite being susceptible to the virus, persons with disabilities were not on the Center for Disease Control's priority vaccination list.
Eric Sogo, a 24-year-old man from New York has limb girdle muscular dystrophy, which causes extreme weakness in his muscles making it hard for him to use stairs or to lift items. Concerned about his susceptibility to the virus, he had a conversation with his doctor about getting the vaccine.
Sogo's doctor told him to, "Get the shot as soon as possible," because if he got Covid-19, he would, "stop breathing."
Since people with disabilities are vulnerable to Covid-19, they have to take extreme precautions to avoid contracting the virus. For those that were working with the public, that means most of them had to either quit their jobs or file for unemployment in order to increase their chances of surviving the pandemic.
The pandemic has also placed a financial strain on some of the organizations that aim to promote inclusivity of the disabled community.
"Like many businesses, the pandemic has had a financial impact on our organization and disrupted our programming format, playing sports in person," said Thornton, the Special Olympics executive.
In an effort to create revenue for the Special Olympics, many grocery stores have included a box to collect donations. Recently in Lake Tahoe, Calif., people took a socially distanced plunge into the lake to help raise money for the organization.
Sogo created his own nonprofit, "DeleteTheWordCan't," which is dedicated to bringing awareness to persons with disabilities.
"I created it to raise money to help people with disabilities have a better life. We do this whether it's keeping programs open, creating new programs or helping them find jobs," said Sogo.
His nonprofit was affected by the pandemic as all of his fundraising events were postponed indefinitely.
For many members of the disabled community, these organizations have an immense impact on their lives, which is why they try so hard to sustain them and continue to create more organizations.