The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in many areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and many public and private places that are open to the general public. The purpose of the law is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications. The ADA is divided into five titles (or sections) that relate to different areas of public life.
The original ADA was signed into law in 1990. In 2008, the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) was passed by Congress because of several Supreme Court decisions that had narrowly interpreted the ADA definition of “disability.” The effect of narrowing the definition of disability was to deny the law’s protection to many individuals with conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and epilepsy who had been discriminated against because of their disabilities. The law expanded on the ADA definition of “disability” to ensure that it would be easier for a wider range of individuals to be protected by the ADA.
Belo Miguel Cipriani is an American writer, publisher, and entrepreneur in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. He is the founder of Oleb Media, a digital inclusion firm, and the disability publishing house Oleb Books. He is also a disability and LGBTQ+ advocate. In the spring of 2007, Belo Cipriani was brutally assaulted and robbed by a group of former friends in San Francisco’s Castro District. He was kicked in the face repeatedly. One of those devastating blows went directly into his eyes, leaving Belo blind at the age of twenty-six.
Belo is the author of Blind: A Memoir (2011), which chronicles the two years immediately following his assault. He received an Honorable Mention for Best Nonfiction Book by the 2011 Rainbow Awards, and an Honorable Mention for Best Culture Book by the 2012 Eric Hoffer Awards.
He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary and Yaddo, and was the first blind writer to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Cipriani has guest lectured at Yale University, University of San Francisco, and University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, and was the Writer-in-Residence at Holy Names University from 2012 to 2016.
His writing has appeared in several publications, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Business Insider, and HuffPost. He was a contributor to the Ed Baxter Morning Show on iHeart Radio, and was also a frequent commentator on San Francisco’s KGO Radio, as well as on several NPR shows. He also has a column on disability issues that was recognized by the National Center on Disability and Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.
Belo has received numerous awards for his disability advocacy work, including being named “Best Disability Advocate” by SF Weekly (2015), an “Agent of Change” by HuffPost (2015), and an “ABC7 Star” by KGO-TV (2016). He was also honored as the first blind Grand Marshal at San Francisco’s 45th Annual Gay Pride Parade.
He lives in St. Louis Park, Minnesota with his partner, James, and his guide dog, Oslo.
Interviewed by our Different & Able President and Founder, Alexandra Nicklas, Belo shares his story about the harrowing night which took away his eyesight. He also discusses the mission and purpose of his companies Oleb Books and Oleb Media, how he is the spokesperson for Guide Dogs for the Blind, finding inspiration to write his memoir, and his role as a disability and LGBTQ+ advocate. “People with disabilities, at the end of the day, are just like everybody else,” Belo says. “We have desires, dreams and goals. We also have fears. The only difference is we negotiate life differently, but that doesn’t mean that our lives are any less valid.”
The Honorable Chantal Petitclerc is an internationally renowned athlete, an advocate for people with a difference, a spokesperson for Défi Sportif in Montréal, an ambassador for the international Right to Play organization and a Member of the Senate of Canada. At the age of thirteen, Chantal was paralyzed from the waist down when a barn door fell on her while she was playing with friends on a farm near her hometown. Convincing her to take up swimming in order to develop her strength and stamina, her high school physical education teacher, Gaston Jacques, would have a decisive impact on her life. For Senator Petitclerc, that was her first contact with sport and training. Four years later, she would discover wheelchair athletics, paving the way for a long and very successful career which would take her to the Barcelona Games in 1992, and ultimately, to the Beijing Games in 2008.
Chantal returned from the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games with 5 gold medals, for a total of 21 Paralympic medals, including 14 gold medals, making her the most celebrated female track athlete in history, the most medaled Canadian Paralympic athlete, as well as the only Canadian athlete to have won gold medals at the Olympics, the Paralympics and the Commonwealth Games.
Her career in numbers:
Five Paralympic Games (Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Beijing)
21 Paralympic medals (including 14 gold medals)
2 world records (200m, 400m)
3 Paralympic records (200m, 400m, and 1500m)
1 Olympic gold medal in the 800m (demonstration sport)
24 world records broken in her career
Chantal has received several recognitions for her sporting career, including being appointed Companion of the Order of Canada, being named Personality of the Year by La Presse newspaper (2004) and receiving the Laureus international award (2005).
Other recognition:
Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec (2005)
Companion of the Order of Canada
Lou Marsh Trophy as Canadian athlete of the year
Star on Canada’s Walk of Fame
International Paralympic Committee Female athlete of the year
La Presse Sports personality of the year
Honorary Doctorate, University of Ottawa, University of Montréal, and University of Edmonton
2010 United States Sports Academy’s (USSA) Juan Antonio Samaranch IOC Disabled Athlete Award
Listed 7 times as one of the Most Influential Women in Sport (CAAWS)
While the Beijing Games would be the last time she would be participating in track competitions, Chantal is still committed to giving back to the sport. In 2012, she was recruited as coach and mentor of the United Kingdom’s track and field team at the London Paralympic Games. After her return to Canada, Chantal was named Chef de Mission for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. This was the first time in history that a Paralympic athlete led a team of combined Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
Chantal Petitclerc is a highly sought-after speaker, and shares her story with dozens of groups each year, both throughout Canada and abroad. She participates in projects by various Paralympic athletics and sports organizations. In April 2016, Chantal Petitclerc became a Member of the Senate of Canada for Quebec. As a Senator, her goal is to improve the health for all Canadians, especially our youth, as well as the rights of persons with disabilities.
Interviewed by our Different & Able President and Founder, Alexandra Nicklas, Senator Petitclerc shares her story of how she overcame adversity and many obstacles to become a proven leader in the sports world. Petitclerc also discusses, as a Member of the Senate of Canada, that she is a voice for inclusion for people with a difference, including Indigenous people with disabilities, as they often face barriers to employment, discrimination and accessibility issues. With grace and tenacity in all that she accomplishes, Senator Petitclerc states, “Excellence doesn’t happen accidentally. It’s true; we can’t choose what happens to us in life. However, as an individual or a country, we can always choose the attitude we will have to face life’s challenges.”
My name is Jane and I was born in Chicago. Soon after my birth, doctors realized I had cerebral palsy. My CP resulted in physical and cognitive deficits. I have right arm weakness which prohibits me from doing two-handed tasks. My attention deficits, slower processing speed, and problem-solving skills affect my academic and vocational performance if accommodations are not granted.
For these reasons, the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) has played a crucial role in my education. Because of the ADA, I was able to graduate from high school, college, and graduate school. Having my CP-related deficits did not make excelling easy. I had to work twice as hard as the typical student without a learning disability and I had to be pretty resourceful to get around my one-handedness in school and graduate training.
The ADA insured that reasonable accommodations would be made during my entire schooling. As I write, you will see what is meant by “reasonable accommodations.” For me, it began when I began experiencing academic difficulties in fourth grade. After receiving a neuropsychological evaluation that revealed my deficits, I started receiving accommodations. The accommodations included receiving extended time on exams and projects, getting the help of a peer note-taker, and getting access to class material prior to the start of each semester. I needed extended time because my processing of information was slow, a peer note-taker because I was a slow writer, and access to class material would allow me to study in the summer so I would not lag behind the class because of my slow reading. The accommodations leveled the playing field for me so that I could demonstrate my intelligence and not be hindered by slow processing and reading.
As I continued my education, my accommodations changed as the program demands changed. When I entered graduate school to get my masters in Psychology, I needed accommodations that would serve me both in class and in clinic practicums. In class, I continued to receive extended time for exams and a peer note-taker. For clinic practicums, I now required audio recording privileges to take home after therapy sessions. Students in my program were generally not permitted to take home audio recordings of their patient sessions. The Office of Students with Disabilities (which is responsible for ADA implementation in my program) arranged for special permission for me to take home the recordings of my patients so I could fill in the gaps of my therapy notes that occurred because of my slower processing speed and working memory deficits. Physically, I had to learn compensatory strategies to manipulate testing materials. An occupational therapist taught me ways to maneuver materials using one hand. She taught me to use therapy “sticky mats” to keep things in place and ways to grab materials in a seamless manner during sessions with clients. The occupational therapist also suggested using a suitcase with wheels to carry all my books and materials to the clinic. Again, the faculty recognized the unusual changes in procedures as “reasonable accommodations” since they were protections offered by the ADA.
The ADA applies to all individuals with disabilities in all levels of education and employment. According to the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division on the ADA:
“This law is one of America’s most comprehensive pieces of civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination and guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life — to enjoy employment opportunities, to purchase goods and services, and to participate in State and local government programs and services. Modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin – and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — the ADA is an ‘equal opportunity’ law for people with disabilities.”
The faculty members in my program were unaware of how the ADA applied to students in graduate school. Most assumed that the ADA only applies to students in secondary undergraduate programs. Their incorrect understanding of the law and reluctance to understand my eligibility for accommodations in graduate school prompted me to seek the advice of legal counsel. With the help of an attorney advocating for my rights, the faculty began to comply and grant my accommodations. The main reason colleges have a center for students with disabilities is because of the ADA for students. Unfortunately, in my case, my school’s Center for Students with Disabilities was unable to be helpful. Thankfully, the law is there to protect people in my position.
I am now working at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I continue to use the same accommodations that I used in graduate school in my work today.
We recently had the good fortune to interview Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, co-directors of the celebrated documentary Crip Camp, which tells the story of how a camp for children with disabilities became a training ground for a whole generation of disability rights activists, including Judy Heumann. Enjoy!
Based in Delhi, India, Dr. Singh is best described as a healer, a teacher, a disability rights crusader, and an advocate for disability employment in the medical and health care industries. Acquiring a physical disability in his legs due to polio when he was nine months old, Dr. Singh went on to become a medical doctor and a professor at the University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi. A firm believer in diversity and inclusion, he fought discrimination to bring policy reforms that unlocked 1,674 faculty posts for doctors with disabilities. His tireless work also helped raise the bar for web accessibility standards in hospitals under the Government of Delhi.
As a professor, Dr. Singh strongly believes that education has the power to break down barriers in communication, attitudes, and opportunities for medical students with disabilities. Outside of the healthcare industry, Dr. Singh played an integral role in making India’s 2014 General Elections in Delhi accessible to people with disabilities. In recognition of his accomplishments, he received the State Award from the Government of Delhi. In 2017, Dr. Singh became the first Indian to win the Henry Viscardi Achievement Award. This prestigious award is given to extraordinary leaders in global disability activism. Today, he continues to work toward improved accessibility— including medical institutions, banks, and post offices — across India.
Interviewed by our Different & Able President and Founder, Alexandra Nicklas, Dr. Singh discusses how his locomotor disability was one of the factors that defined his characteristic traits of perseverance and resilience. Dr. Singh also tells of his work in advocating for equal access in medical education. In addition, he talks of his success with ensuring competencies around the care of patients with disabilities. As Dr. Singh states, “Don’t identify a person based on their disability. Just talk to them and respect them as human beings.”
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is one of the most important documentaries about disability ever made and one of the most human. Directed by Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, it tells the story of Camp Jened, a summer camp in Upstate New York that gave young people with disabilities something most of them had never experienced before: a space where they were fully expected to participate, fully accommodated, and fully themselves. What grew out of that camp changed the United States forever.
What Is Crip Camp About?
Crip Camp follows the story of Camp Jened, a unique-for-its-time summer camp run by young, counter-culture counselors who believed that people with disabilities deserved the same freedoms, experiences, and opportunities as everyone else. For many campers, Jened was their first experience of genuine accessibility, a place where accommodation was the expectation, not the exception.
The first half of the film is told largely through the eyes of co-director Jim LeBrecht, who attended Camp Jened as a teenager. What he found there was a community unlike anything he had encountered, one where campers held democratic votes on everyday decisions, where counselors created accommodations on the spot, and where nobody was left out simply because participation required a little more thought or creativity.
The second half shifts focus to the disability rights movement that grew directly out of Camp Jened’s community. Many of the camp’s alumni, including the remarkable Judy Heumann, went on to become the leaders of one of America’s most important civil rights movements, fighting for federal legal protections for people with disabilities at a time when none existed. No ramp requirements. No anti-discrimination laws. No legal recourse if the world simply would not make room for you.
We won’t spoil where that fight led, but the United States would look very different today without the activists who first found each other at Camp Jened.
Why Crip Camp Matters
What makes Crip Camp extraordinary is not just its history, it is how it tells that history. People with disabilities are shown in full dimension: funny, angry, sexual, political, complicated, and deeply human. This is rarer than it should be. Popular culture has a long history of reducing people with disabilities to inspiration props or background characters. Crip Camp refuses that completely.
For anyone who has ever felt unseen, unaccommodated, or underestimated, this film is for you. And for anyone who hasn’t, it is an essential window into an experience and a movement that deserves to be understood.
About the Director: Jim LeBrecht
Jim LeBrecht is not just the co-director of Crip Camp, he is one of its subjects. He attended Camp Jened as a teenager and went on to become an accomplished filmmaker and sound designer. His decision to tell this story from the inside gives the film an authenticity and intimacy that is rare in documentary filmmaking. Crip Camp was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before being acquired by Netflix.
About the Americans with Disabilities Act
The activism documented in Crip Camp ultimately contributed to one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in American history — the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law in 1990. The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, public accommodations, transportation, and government services. It is the legal foundation that makes accessibility a right rather than a favor.
To learn more about the ADA and what it means for people living with disabilities today, visit our ADA resources page.
Key Takeaways from Crip Camp
Accessibility is not a special accommodation, it is a basic expectation that benefits everyone.
The disability rights movement was built by ordinary people who refused to accept that their lives were worth less than anyone else’s.
Representation matters deeply. Seeing people with disabilities portrayed as full, complex human beings changes what we believe is possible.
Community is where movements begin. Camp Jened was just a summer camp, until it wasn’t.
The fight for disability rights is not finished. Understanding its history is the first step toward continuing it.
Crip Camp is not a film about what disability takes away, it is a film about what people with disabilities have given the world when the world finally got out of their way.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is an important piece of legislation for those with disabilities. Here are the basics. The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H.W. Bush. The ADA is one of America’s most comprehensive pieces of civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination and guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life: to enjoy employment opportunities, to have access to public accommodations and public transportation, to be given physical and academic accommodations to pursue educational goals, to purchase goods and services, and to participate in State and local government programs and services. Modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin – and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — the ADA is an “equal opportunity” law for people with disabilities.
The ADA is divided into four titles (or sections) that relate to different areas of public life.
Title I – Employment
Helps people with disabilities access the same employment opportunities and benefits available to people without disabilities. Title I requires employers who have 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants and employees. This section of the ADA also defines what constitutes a disability, what constitutes a reasonable accommodation, and provides guidelines for the provision of reasonable accommodations.
Title II – Public Services: State and Local Government
Protects those with disabilities from discrimination by state and local government agencies and requires all public services, programs and activities to be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Provides guidelines for agencies to make reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures to avoid discrimination, to minimize architectural barriers and to communicate effectively with people with hearing, vision and speech disabilities.
Public Transportation provided by state or local government transportation includes, but is not limited to, bus and passenger rail service. Rail service includes subways (rapid rail), light rail, commuter rail, and Amtrak.
Title III – Public Accommodations and Services Operated by Private Entities
Prohibits places open to the general public from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. This includes privately owned, leased or operated facilities such as hotels, restaurants, shops, doctor’s offices, golf courses, private schools, day care centers, health clubs, sports arenas and movie theaters.
Stipulates the minimum standards for accessibility, for alterations and for new construction of commercial facilities and privately owned public accommodations. It also requires public accommodations to remove barriers in existing buildings if it is easy to do without much difficulty or expense.
If transportation is offered by a private company, it is covered by Title III. Privately funded transportation includes, but is not limited to, taxi cabs, airport shuttles, intercity bus companies, such as Greyhound, and hotel-provided transportation.
Businesses are to make “reasonable modifications” to their usual procedures when serving people with disabilities and businesses must take steps necessary to communicate effectively with customers with vision, hearing, and speech disabilities.
Requires telephone and internet companies to provide a nationwide system of interstate and intrastate telecommunications relay services that allows individuals with hearing or speech disabilities to communicate over the telephone. Also requires closed captioning of federally funded public service announcements.
The ADA prohibits discrimination based on a person’s disability in employment, state and local government programs, private and non-profit businesses (referred to as public accommodations), commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications. In other words, the purpose of ADA is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.
The laws for each area (employment, State and local government programs, public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications) are termed “Title.” There are five Titles.
Title I – Employment
Helps people with disabilities access the same employment opportunities and benefits available to people without disabilities.
Applies to employers with 15 or more employees.
Requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants or employees. A “reasonable accommodation” is a change that accommodates employees with disabilities so they can do the job without causing the employer “undue hardship” (too much difficulty or expense).
Defines disability, establishes guidelines for the reasonable accommodation process, and addresses medical examinations and inquiries.
Title II – Public Services: State and Local Government
Prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by “public entities” such as state and local government agencies.
Requires public entities to make their programs, services and activities accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Outlines requirements for self-evaluation and planning; making reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures where necessary to avoid discrimination; identifying architectural barriers; and communicating effectively with people with hearing, vision and speech disabilities.
Title III – Public Accommodations and Services Operated by Private Entities
Prohibits places of public accommodation from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. Public accommodations include privately owned, leased or operated facilities like restaurants, retail merchants, doctors’ offices, golf courses, private schools, day care centers, health clubs, sports stadiums, movie theaters, and so on.
Sets the minimum standards for accessibility for alterations and new construction of commercial facilities and privately owned public accommodations. It also requires public accommodation to remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense.
Directs businesses to make “reasonable modifications” to their usual ways of doing things when serving people with disabilities.
Requires that businesses take steps necessary to communicate effectively with customers with vision, hearing, and speech disabilities.
Requires telephone and internet companies to provide a nationwide system of interstate and intrastate telecommunications relay services that allows individuals with hearing or speech disabilities to communicate over the telephone.
Requires closed captioning of federally funded public service announcements.
Contains a variety of provisions relating to the ADA as a whole, including its relationship to other laws, state immunity, its impact on insurance providers and benefits, prohibition against retaliation and coercion, illegal use of drugs and attorneys’ fees.
Provides a list of certain conditions that are not considered disabilities.
Transportation
Public transportation offered by a state or local government is covered by Title II of the ADA. Publicly funded transportation includes, but is not limited to, bus and passenger train (rail) service. Rail service includes subways, light rail, commuter rail, and Amtrak.
If transportation is offered by a private company, it is covered by Title III. Privately funded transportation includes, but is not limited to, taxicabs, airport shuttles, intercity bus companies, such as Greyhound, and hotel-provided transportation.
The U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration releases information, guidance and regulations on transportation and the ADA. FTA: ADA
The ADA protects individuals with disabilities. An individual with a disability is defined as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits major life activities; has a record of such an impairment; or is regarded as having such an impairment. “Major life activities” means functions such as caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working.
Physical or mental impairments include, but are not limited to: visual, speech, and hearing impairments; intellectual disabilities, emotional illness, and specific learning disabilities; cerebral palsy; epilepsy; pulmonary disorders; muscular dystrophy; multiple sclerosis; orthopedic conditions; cancer; heart disease; diabetes; and contagious and noncontagious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV (whether symptomatic or asymptomatic).