The excuse of architecture

With the 15-year anniversary of the ADA rolling around next month, reflection will naturally focus on the tangible changes the law has or has not achieved -- employment of disabled people and the public and private physical landscape of society. Undoubtedly, the mainstream press will also editorialize extensively on the "nuisance" suits businesses fall victim to when they fail to comply with the law, and we'll hear another round of outcries to further weaken the ADA by requiring a waiting period before suing under Title III. It's such a shame American businesses have had no warning about the ADA and that it might just apply to them. Why, who wants to discriminate against disabled people? If we just had a little notice we'd fix everything up to code right away!

But in the current print edition of New Mobility (other portions of that issue viewable at the link), Mark E. Smith of wheelchairjunkie.com describes a situation the law was designed to stop, where lack of wheelchair access fueled the rationale of exclusion and exclusion fueled the bigotry that belies the patronizing belief that all people just want to help the disabled if only given the chance.

Only a few months before the ADA's 1990 passage, Smith, his future wife, and three other couples went for dinner at a restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area. Smith's friends easily carried his wheelchair in the inaccessible front entrance, but the hostess refused to give Smith a menu or even speak directly to him:

"If he wants to eat here, you'll have to order for him -- we don't serve people like him."

The restaurant manager had some handy logic for this policy when he backed up the hostess' words:

"You're not even supposed to be in here," the manager said, raising his voice. "We don't have a ramp, so we don't have to serve you."

Instead of treating Smith like any other patron as he and his friends insisted, the manager called the police. And how did the police respond?

"I understand that you're upset," one officer said, "but there's no ramp, so you shouldn't be in here, and the restaurant has the right not to serve you."

Imagine getting upset about a little thing like being kicked out of a restaurant because they don't want to serve "your kind." Smith encountered an obstacle and with the help of his friends -- in what might be called a very American bootstraps attitude -- found a way around it exactly as people with disabilities are so often schooled they should. We're told we should persevere and somehow "overcome," as if that's always possible or the best way to spend our time. Except it was never really about the tangible barriers: "We don't serve people like him."

The belief that disabled people's exclusion from mainstream society is benign neglect is mostly an illusion. Ask any architect if he considers who will use his building when he designs it. Consider that disabled folk have been a part of the human experience since time began. Modern science has altered the number of people surviving health crises and age, and it's given us elevators and TTY machines, but ramps existed before steps were invented and yet we lack them everywhere.

Yes, it's better now. There are more ramps then there were pre-ADA. But these ramps weren't installed because people miraculously realized that folks with mobility impairments were being excluded from the fabric of society with each building that denied them access. The need to help the disabled because, "well, everyone just wants to don't they?" didn't suddenly kick in one day, and I doubt it ever will. The ramps that have been built in America since 1990 exist because architectural means of excluding disabled people was named for what it is in a legally enforcable document -- though enforcement has been spotty at best. It was named bigotry.

Ramps are perhaps the most tangible evidence of the changes the ADA has wrought in our culture these past 15 years, and they are hardly unimportant. When I went to college in 1987, I was forced to choose my banking institution not by the features of their checking account or available ATMs, but by the accessibility of the building's entrance. I did not have the luxury of opening my account at the bank I found to be the best place to do business. That much has improved for me and others in wheelchairs. (I am less certain what improvements the law has brought for people with other disabilities.)

But as Smith's pre-ADA encounter shows, ramps and other tangible means of access for the disabled are not just important for their daily practical use. They are also very real symbols that disabled people belong in society too. When the tired tale is told again and again that businesses would happily comply if they only had a little time, what they are really saying is that they don't want to bother with making inclusion a priority. If it was a priority, it would have happened long ago.