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.