9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Hi,my name is Joseph Scamardo and I am an [br]assistant professor of philosophy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and associate Director of the Institute in Public Affairs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at San Diego State University 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I specialized in philosophy of disability and[br]bioethics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I also identify as disabled, I have a spinal cord injury as well as a rare kind of dwarfism 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So you get two for the price of one with me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, my first memory of discrimination was, well, it's hard to say. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have lots of memories as far as the experience of stigma 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or bigotry, mostly around my dwarfism 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so, you know I have lots of early memories 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 around that with children staring and laughing and that sort of thing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 from a very young age. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then as far as sort of a more systematic discrimination that sort of excluded me from something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I wanted to do, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had a pretty good experience as a child, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 mostly because my parents really did a lot to make sure that I was included 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I can remember being in boy scouts and cub scouts when I was a kid 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and my father, really doing a lot with me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to ensure that the inclusion of my disability-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know going on camping trips with me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and sort of acting as a personal attendant 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kinda thing to make sure that I was able 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to go and participate, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that sort of thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so the first real experience 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of exclusion that I can remember 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happened when it was time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to go to high school. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had gone to the public schools in my town 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in my town up until the 8th grade 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then when it came to high school, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was supposed to go to the same 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 private religiously oriented school 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that my older siblings went to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I took the entrance exam and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 even got a small scholarship to go and everything, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it didn't have an elevator, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so I used a motorized scooter 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to get around, and it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going to be impossible for me to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 attend that school, because there was no 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 elevator. Now this was actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 after the passage of the ADA, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but because it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a religiously oriented school, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was exempt from the requirements 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the ADA. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, I didn't have any leverage with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that law. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To be able to get them 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to make accommodations for me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so I ended up going to the public school 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in my town, which actually, personally, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was pretty happy about anyway, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because that's where all my friends 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were going. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But it still sort of clued me into the fact that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not everything is accessible, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not everything is designed for me and that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this was going to be something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was gonna have to figure out throughout 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As far as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 remembering the ADA and its () 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that sort of thing, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was pretty young when it was passed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was sometimes referred to as part of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ADA generation, which means that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I grew up with the ADA mostly, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was born in 1982, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so I was 8 or 9 years old when the ADA 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 passed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so I didn't really have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 any kind of recollection of, "Aha!" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's--Of the moment that it passed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the recall of where I was at the time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or anything like this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but I do remember my father explaining 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it to me, around the time of my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 start of high school. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I experienced this with that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 private catholic school, and having that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sort of systematic discrimination experience 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It explained that public schools, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and other kinds of public places 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were accessible to me because of the ADA 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that there was this law that said 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that things had to be accessible to people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who use wheelchairs, and people who use 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 motorized scooters like I did at the time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, that was my first awareness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the ADA, as well as my first awareness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of discrimination, which is kind of cool, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because it was neat to have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that experience of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Okay, well, this is something that's[br]going to be a challenge for you, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and here's how you're protected,[br]and here's how you can do something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about it." [br]And so in a way, it was this sort of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my awakening into advocacy as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, as far as the difference that the [br]ADA has made in my life, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or the life of others, [br]I think that it's been, of course 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 an incredibly important law that has [br]opened up all sorts of opportunities 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for people, everything from public [br]transportation, to be able to move around 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in your community, the homestead decision[br]is based on ADA, which says that people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 need to be--when they need any kind of [br]() from care, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they need to be served in the least [br]restrictive environment, meaning that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can't just institutionalize or[br]warehouse somebody because it's more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 convenient for you, you need to make sure[br]that they're able to live in the community 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or somewhere that is going to be best [br]for them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What else do the ADA do?[br]Just the ability to get an education, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the ability to get a job, all of these[br]things, for me and for others, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were sort of caused by the ADA and I can't[br]really imagine what it was like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 prior to the ADA, honestly. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, I can imagine it I guess, but [br]I'm sure glad that I didn't have to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 experience it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The ADA makes a difference in a wide range[br]of personal experiences 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and also a wide range of [br]disability politics issues. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, my personal experience that I think [br]most recently has been impacted by the ADA 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 has been my ability to live an [br]independent life with my two kids. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think prior to the ADA, it would've [br]been much harder to do that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Raising kids means that I have to go into[br]lots of different public spaces and do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 different things that I might not have[br]been 'required' to do, if you will, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 professionally, or just sort of[br]in everyday life, if I didn't have them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So going to the zoo, or going to the[br]grocery store, for that last minute item 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or you know, just whatever it might be, [br]I think that, you know-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 opening up the daycare centers, and so on[br]and so forth. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The ADA sort of opened all of that up to[br]me, as a wheelchair user 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so, that's where it's made a big [br]personal impact in my life recently. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, I think that the one thing that [br]I can sort of speak to, professionally, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about the ADA and its impact or [br]lack of impact is probably, two-fold: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One, is the ways in which my privilege [br]as a physically disabled-- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there's a disability hierarchy of course,[br]and so physical disability 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is usually at the top of that hierarchy, [br]with psychiatric disabilities 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and intellectual developmental [br]disabilities, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sort of lower down on the hierarchy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, as a physically disabled, [br]cisgender, heterosexual white guy, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've benefited a lot more from the ADA [br]than lots of other people that don't have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those kinds of privileges. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think for instance about how the ADA [br]is designed, really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to promote what you'd think of [br]as equality of opportunity, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 meaning that everybody has an equal [br]opportunity to compete within the economic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 life of the United States, and so, [br]it allows you to enter into the workforce, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and enter into the educational system, [br]and so on and so forth 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then compete. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But what it doesn't do is it doesn't[br]address any of the other advantages 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or disadvantages that intersect with [br]ableism. So that's sort of something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that is I think, a real problem, with [br]the ADA. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm a well-educated person, I have a [br]master's degree and a Ph.D. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that, I don't think would've been [br]available to me as easily as it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 if I didn't have these other privileges [br]that I do have, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that the ADA doesn't do anything[br]to address, it just sort of treats 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all disabled people as if they were [br]the same, and as if the only thing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they have to deal with is structural [br]ableism, and that's just not true, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think another thing about ()[br]that the ADA doesn't address 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is economics, in that, I think that [br]despite the ability to compete, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a lot of disabled people still live in[br]extreme poverty, because of other 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things that make it impossible for them [br]to compete, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 other than just their disability. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, the real sad part to me about that[br]is you look at other systems 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that are designed to help disabled people [br]get out of poverty, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and even they don't recognize the way that[br]privilege operates in these contexts. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, for instance, [br]the vocational rehab system. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've benefited greatly from the vocational [br]rehab system so I don't want to just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sit here and talk smack on it, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The vocational rehab system has helped me [br]get a van that I could drive, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so I could get back and forth from 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my place of employment.