ACTS OF ACCESSIBILITY. Dr. Katherine Schneider, pictured, is one of several panelists part of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation's upcoming celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The event is slated for July 22 on campus.

I was born blind in 1949, so have lived over half my life before the ADA was passed. I attended public schools before section 504 and got to ask for my own accommodations. One of the first I remember requesting was to not play volleyball in fourth grade gym class. “Go stand in the corner” I was told. Most of the accommodations I got were better than that, like the geometry teacher who used his wife’s sewing tracing wheel to make raised line drawings to try to explain perspective.

I learned early to ask nice, persist and make it seem easy to meet my needs.  I learned to have a Plan B if my first request didn’t work.  I also learned to recruit allies. An official from Delta airlines advocated for me to be able to ride on the little feeder plane that went to Alexandria, Louisiana where I was doing my internship. They didn’t want to take “live animals” on the plane, even if it was a Seeing Eye dog, but they gave it a try because of the man from Delta. The Seeing Eye dog did not hijack the plane!

"With all this progress, people often ask "are we done?" the short answer is "no."

In 1990 Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act and President Bush signed it into law.  The Act is a federal civil rights law designed to prevent discrimination and to ensure that individuals with disabilities have equal access to, and may participate fully in, all aspects of American society. It guarantees equal opportunity in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services and telecommunications. This important piece of legislation has raised awareness of barriers and challenged perceptions and expectations of people with disabilities. It has empowered many more individuals to live their lives with dignity and choice.

When the ADA is mentioned, we often think of ramps, accessible bathrooms and other physical access needs. Here are some of the ways the ADA has affected my life as a blind person:

• Standard service animal laws across the country and more people know the laws
• App for identifying currency so blind  can tell denominations of U.S. paper currency apart if they have a smartphone
• Two of the New York Times daily games, Wordle and Connections are doable with a screen reader
• Schneider Family Book awards for children’s books with disability content and Schneider Disability Journalism awards are receiving more entries every year showing mainstream interest in disability issues is increasing
• Checkers or other accessible board games are more widely available
• Large print programs at worship services and public events are more common
• Print/Braille books are sometimes available at public libraries for blind parents and sighted kids or vice versa to read together
• Voting machines with audio capabilities so blind people can vote independently are available in every polling place
• Local sources of gizmos like Independent Living and Aging and Disability Resource Centers exist, so newly disabled people can try before they buy
• Occasional audio descriptions provided in theaters, on Netflix  and on television
• A few  audio-described movies available at libraries
• Audio and touch tours of museums are more common
• Electronic access for blind people to websites, newspapers, email, etc. is slowly improving
• Occasional Braille menus, bank statements, greeting cards, etc.
• Audio-enabled ATMs so I can do my own banking
• Paratransit
• Reasonable accommodations so jobs are accessible
• Virtual meetings so I don’t have to hunt up a ride to get there

With all this progress, people often ask “Are we done?” The short answer is “No.” With every digital improvement, for example, there’s the chance it will go from accessible to my screen reader to inaccessible. Accessibility takes people monitoring and designing for it continuously.

And it takes personal acts of accessibility like:

• And it takes little personal acts of accessibility like:

• Telling me that there’s doughnuts on the counter or a wet paint sign down the hall

• Labeling those pictures in your social media posts so I know what you’re excited about!

• Volunteering  for Be My Eyes duty (https://www.bemyeyes.com)

• Advocating  with Congress so vital programs like Bookshare and National Library Service are not cut

• Advocating with FCC so broadcasters don’t get yet another pass on making weather warnings like those text crawls at the bottom of the television screen accessible to the blind 

The ADA gives a standard of what one can ask for, but it takes people of good will to implement it and it takes patience, time, energy and persistence to advocate for needed accommodations. We humans don’t change our ways quickly, so all of us need to work together to make changes happen. I remind myself when I get discouraged that every change I help make happen will not just benefit me, but will help the next person with my access needs who encounters it. Onward!

The UW-Eau Claire Foundation is sponsoring a celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the Flesch Family Welcome Center on Tuesday, July 22, from 3-5pm. The event will feature a panel of students, staff, faculty, and emeriti – including author Dr. Katherine Schneider – reflecting on their lived experiences of ADA, followed by a reception.