Hi,my name is Joseph Scamardo and I am an assistant professor of philosophy
and associate Director of the Institute in Public Affairs
at San Diego State University
I specialized in philosophy of disability and bioethics.
I also identify as disabled, I have a spinal cord injury as well as a rare kind of dwarfism
So you get two for the price of one with me
So, my first memory of discrimination was, well, it's hard to say.
I have lots of memories as far as the experience of stigma
or bigotry, mostly around my dwarfism
and so, you know I have lots of early memories
around that with children staring and laughing and that sort of thing
from a very young age.
Then as far as sort of a more systematic discrimination that sort of excluded me from something
that I wanted to do,
I had a pretty good experience as a child,
mostly because my parents really did a lot to make sure that I was included
I can remember being in boy scouts and cub scouts when I was a kid
and my father, really doing a lot with me
to ensure that the inclusion of my disability--
You know going on camping trips with me
and sort of acting as a personal attendant
kinda thing to make sure that I was able
to go and participate,
and that sort of thing.
And so the first real experience
of exclusion that I can remember
happened when it was time
to go to high school.
I had gone to the public schools in my town
in my town up until the 8th grade
and then when it came to high school,
I was supposed to go to the same
private religiously oriented school
that my older siblings went to
and I took the entrance exam and
even got a small scholarship to go and everything,
but it didn't have an elevator,
and so I used a motorized scooter
to get around, and it was
going to be impossible for me to
attend that school, because there was no
elevator. Now this was actually
after the passage of the ADA,
but because it was
a religiously oriented school,
it was exempt from the requirements
of the ADA.
And so, I didn't have any leverage with
that law.
To be able to get them
to make accommodations for me
so I ended up going to the public school
in my town, which actually, personally,
I was pretty happy about anyway,
because that's where all my friends
were going.
But it still sort of clued me into the fact that
not everything is accessible,
not everything is designed for me and that
this was going to be something
I was gonna have to figure out throughout
my life.
As far as
remembering the ADA and its ()
and that sort of thing,
I was pretty young when it was passed,
I was sometimes referred to as part of the
ADA generation, which means that
I grew up with the ADA mostly,
I was born in 1982,
so I was 8 or 9 years old when the ADA
passed,
and so I didn't really have
any kind of recollection of, "Aha!"
That's--Of the moment that it passed.
And the recall of where I was at the time
or anything like this,
but I do remember my father explaining
it to me, around the time of my
start of high school.
When I experienced this with that
private catholic school, and having that
sort of systematic discrimination experience
It explained that public schools,
and other kinds of public places
were accessible to me because of the ADA
and that there was this law that said
that things had to be accessible to people
who use wheelchairs, and people who use
motorized scooters like I did at the time.
And so, that was my first awareness
of the ADA, as well as my first awareness
of discrimination, which is kind of cool,
I think?
Because it was neat to have
that experience of,
"Okay, well, this is something that's going to be a challenge for you,
and here's how you're protected, and here's how you can do something
about it." And so in a way, it was this sort of,
my awakening into advocacy as well.
Now, as far as the difference that the ADA has made in my life,
or the life of others, I think that it's been, of course
an incredibly important law that has opened up all sorts of opportunities
for people, everything from public transportation, to be able to move around
in your community, the homestead decision is based on ADA, which says that people
need to be--when they need any kind of () from care,
they need to be served in the least restrictive environment, meaning that
you can't just institutionalize or warehouse somebody because it's more
convenient for you, you need to make sure that they're able to live in the community
or somewhere that is going to be best for them.
What else do the ADA do? Just the ability to get an education,
the ability to get a job, all of these things, for me and for others,
were sort of caused by the ADA and I can't really imagine what it was like
prior to the ADA, honestly.
I mean, I can imagine it I guess, but I'm sure glad that I didn't have to
experience it.
The ADA makes a difference in a wide range of personal experiences
and also a wide range of disability politics issues.
So, my personal experience that I think most recently has been impacted by the ADA
has been my ability to live an independent life with my two kids.
I think prior to the ADA, it would've been much harder to do that.
Raising kids means that I have to go into lots of different public spaces and do
different things that I might not have been 'required' to do, if you will,
professionally, or just sort of in everyday life, if I didn't have them.
So going to the zoo, or going to the grocery store, for that last minute item
or you know, just whatever it might be, I think that, you know--
opening up the daycare centers, and so on and so forth.
The ADA sort of opened all of that up to me, as a wheelchair user
and so, that's where it's made a big personal impact in my life recently.
Now, I think that the one thing that I can sort of speak to, professionally,
about the ADA and its impact or lack of impact is probably, two-fold:
One, is the ways in which my privilege as a physically disabled--
there's a disability hierarchy of course, and so physical disability
is usually at the top of that hierarchy, with psychiatric disabilities
and intellectual developmental disabilities,
sort of lower down on the hierarchy.
And so, as a physically disabled, cisgender, heterosexual white guy,
I've benefited a lot more from the ADA than lots of other people that don't have
those kinds of privileges.
I think for instance about how the ADA is designed, really
to promote what you'd think of as equality of opportunity,
meaning that everybody has an equal opportunity to compete within the economic
life of the United States, and so, it allows you to enter into the workforce,
and enter into the educational system, and so on and so forth
then compete.
But what it doesn't do is it doesn't address any of the other advantages
or disadvantages that intersect with ableism. So that's sort of something
that is I think, a real problem, with the ADA.
I'm a well-educated person, I have a master's degree and a Ph.D.
and that, I don't think would've been available to me as easily as it was
if I didn't have these other privileges that I do have,
that the ADA doesn't do anything to address, it just sort of treats
all disabled people as if they were the same, and as if the only thing
they have to deal with is structural ableism, and that's just not true, right?
I think another thing about () that the ADA doesn't address
is economics, in that, I think that despite the ability to compete,
a lot of disabled people still live in extreme poverty, because of other
things that make it impossible for them to compete,
other than just their disability.
And so, the real sad part to me about that is you look at other systems
that are designed to help disabled people get out of poverty,
and even they don't recognize the way that privilege operates in these contexts.
So, for instance, the vocational rehab system.
I've benefited greatly from the vocational rehab system so I don't want to just
sit here and talk smack on it, right?
The vocational rehab system has helped me get a van that I could drive,
so I could get back and forth from
my place of employment.