Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Signed Into Law
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was a landmark civil rights laws that provided a broad range of rights to people with disabilities. The bill was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on this day.
The ADA defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.” The law covers employment, access to public services (for example, buses or libraries), and public accommodations and services provided by private companies.
The first federal law supporting the rights of the disabled was the Smith-Fess Act, which President Woodrow Wilson signed on June 2, 1920, and which provided federal support for vocational rehabilitation for people with physical disabilities.
The ADA served as the model for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was signed on March 30, 2007. The U.S. Senate has still not ratified the Convention, however, because of conservative opposition. See December 5, 2012 for a Senate vote on ratification that failed.
On December 3, 1982, the United Nations declared December 3rd the International Day of Disabled Persons.
Learn more at the ADA home page: http://www.ada.gov/
Read: Kim Nielsen, A Disability History of the United States (2012)
Learn more: Fred Pelka, What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement (2012)
View the 31-point Minnesota ADA Legacy project here
Learn more at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund: http://dredf.org/
Learn more; read the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml