Recognizing the 15th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

RECOGNIZING THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT -- (Senate - July 25, 2005)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier this month, America celebrated the 41st anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Next month, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important civil rights victories in our Nation's history. Those are two of the most important achievements in civil rights in our Nation since the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Today, I want to reflect for a few minutes on another critically important achievement in civil rights: the enactment 15 years ago this week of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I recently saw a young man wearing a T-shirt. In large letters on the front of his shirt were the words: "The ADA ....." On the back, the shirt read, "..... boldly going where everyone else has already been." I think that young man's T-shirt sums up the ADA pretty well.

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not grant people with disabilities any special status or position. To the contrary, it simply removes certain barriers that for too long had made it difficult-if not impossible-for people with disabilities to make the most of their God-given skills and abilities, and to participate fully in their communities and in the workplace.

Before the ADA, if you needed a haircut, if you needed to see a doctor, if you just wanted to meet a friend for a cup of coffee, you probably had to rely on family, friends, or a social service agency. Very few transit systems in this country had buses or trains that were accessible to people using wheelchairs. Today, thanks to the ADA, that has changed. If you need go somewhere, you can go to a comer, catch a bus, and be on your way.

Let me tell you another story about the difference the ADA has made. Ann Ford lives near my hometown, Springfield, IL. She is a grandmother now. She had polio as a child. She uses a motorized scooter now, but for many years, Ann walked with crutches. As anyone who has ever used crutches knows, they can wear you out pretty quickly.

Before the ADA, when Ann Ford needed to go to the grocery store, she would first make a very careful list, then plot out her shopping as efficiently as possible so that she could buy what she needed in 20 minutes and be back home before she ran out of energy.

Shortly after the ADA was enacted, the manager of the grocery store where she shopped pointed out a new electric-powered scooter the store had purchased, and asked Ann if she would like to use it. Well, Ann Ford shopped for an hour and half that day. She went up and down every aisle in that store. She said later she had no idea how many things you could buy in a grocery store.

By removing physical barriers, the ADA is helping to reduce some of the isolation and prejudice that people with disabilities too often have to battle. It provides people with disabilities a degree of autonomy and dignity that everyone deserves. That is progress, and that is worth celebrating.

But we still have a long way to go. The physical barriers are disappearing, but there are other, subtler barriers that continue to prevent far too many Americans with disabilities from participating fully in their communities and in the workplace.

As Senator Harkin noted, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is still 60 to 70 percent-the same place it was a decade ago. That has to change. Most people with disabilities want to work, and have to work. ADA mandates access but we can't legislate attitudes. And it is the lingering prejudice or ignorance about disabilities that contributes to this stubbornly high unemployment rate.

Congress can mandate access. With the stroke of his pan, the President can outlaw overt acts of discrimination. But the next step in this civil rights struggle-integrating people with disabilities into our workplaces-is a step we must choose.

Failure to make the greatest possible use of the skills and talents of people with disabilities hurts them. It hurts their families. It hurts all of us. Think for a moment. Where would America be today had we not had Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help pull us through the Great Depression? Dorothea Lange, the great photojournalist, walked with a limp as a result of childhood polio. How much less we might know about our own national history had she not captured it on film for us? How much poorer would the world be without the brilliant insights of Stephen Hawking? How much poorer we would all be artistically and emotionally if we had never heard Ray Charles sing "America the Beautiful?"

We need to tear down the subtler barriers that prevent far too many people with disabilities from participating fully in our economy. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the smart thing to do.

I want to make one final point. I mentioned that the Americans with Disabilities Act is part of a tradition of important civil rights achievements. But there is one fundamental way in which the ADA differs from some of those other milestone laws.

The Civil Rights Act was enacted primarily to combat legal, institutionalized racism against African Americans. Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 was passed to prevent discrimination against women and girls in education. Those laws and others protect people from discrimination based on certain fundamental, unchangeable characteristics. If you are not born black, you are not going to become black. But any of us can become disabled-in an instant.

Today, you may think the ADA is for other people and other families, but you may think differently by the time we celebrate the 16th anniversary of the ADA a year from now. In fact, one in three 20-year-olds today will become disabled before the reach retirement age.

This past year, I have had the privilege of getting to know an extraordinary American who became disabled doing her job. Her name is Tammy Duckworth. She is major in the U.S. Army National Guard. Her job was piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq. Last November, just before Thanksgiving, her Black Hawk was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade and she lost both of her legs. Although now a double amputee, she is determined to both walk and fly helicopters again.

Thanks to advances in medicine, we are able to save more people who--15 years ago-would not have survived a car crash, or bone cancer, or even military combat. Thank goodness for that.

As we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, I hope we will commit ourselves as a Nation to work to close the gap between our medical abilities, and our mental attitudes. Let us agree that men and women like Tammy Duckworth, who suffered permanent disabilities, will not be forced to fight in this country for basic rights and gainful employment that is worthy of their skills and talents. Let us commit to work across party lines-as Congress did when it passed the Americans with Disabilities Act 15 years ago-to fulfill not just the letter but the spirit of this important law.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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