WEBVTT

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Hi, I'm Beth Haller.

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I'm a professor of Mass Communication
at Towsen University in Maryland.

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I also teach Disability Studies there
and at several other campuses.

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I teach at City University of New York
and their Disability Studies programme;

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I teach at York University in Toronto
and their Disability Studies programme;

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I teach at University of Texas, Arlington
and their Disability Studies minor.

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So I've been doing research since
the early 90's

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about media representations of people
with disabilities.

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So I have a kind of unique
relationship to the ADA

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because I did my dissertation on
how the news media covered it.

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So before I went to Temple University
in Philadelphia to get my PhD,

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I was at University of Maryland College
Park getting my Masters.

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I started that in 1989,

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and there's a reason for all these numbers
(laughs) these dates,

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and in 1988 is when the Deaf President
Now movement happened

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that gathered at university in DC, and I
think somewhere in the back of my mind

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I knew about what was happening because I
was a journalist before I became academic.

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So when I started at College Park in 1989
I ended up doing an article for a class

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about a deaf student at Gallaudet and I
got very interested in the deaf community,

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there's a huge deaf community
in the DC area.

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Doing my Masters thesis on how the
deaf community was represented

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before, during and after 
Deaf President Now

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in the New York Times and the
Washington Post,

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that was a jumping-off point.

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When I left College Park it was 1991
and so the ADA had just been passed

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and when I got to Temple to start 
working on my PhD

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I knew that I wanted to still work in
the area of disability

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and we just had this major disability
rights law passed.

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I remember it more as a focus
of my research

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cause I don't necessarily remember seeing
the actual coverage on the day it happened

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in 1990, but I do remember looking at all
the coverage cause that was the subject

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of my dissertation.

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So it was really interesting to look
at it as an academic

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and to kind of watch it happen and
then not happen (laughs)

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as it moved into the future.

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So my dissertation looked at how the
mainstream news media,

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you know, all the big news magazines
and the major newspapers back then.

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So I finished my dissertation in '94,
graduated in '95

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so it was very early days of the ADA so it
wasn't really being implemented yet

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because they gave several years for
people to get into compliance

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but as the years have passed it's been
very interesting to watch how things

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weren't happening.

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And I think what we all thought was
going to happen was:

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Congress was going to pass this major
disability rights law

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and people would then follow it
because it's now federal law

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not to discriminate based on disability

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but that isn't what happened (laughs).

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And from a media standpoint, that really
kind of hurt ADA because-

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and I've even had this conversation with
disability rights scholars and

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disability rights activists-
because they I think thought

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in that same way that it's now law
and everything will be fine,

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and there was such a history of being
covered in the media so badly

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that the activists thought they could get
this past and everything would be fine

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and they didn't need the
media for anything.

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So I come onto the scene, I start going
to Society for Disability studies,

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meetings in the early 90's,
started presenting my research

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and even the disability community in those
first early years right after the ADA

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didn't understand why the
media was important.

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Because I remember presenting
at a conference,

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at a Disability Studies conference,
and people coming up to me and saying

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"That's really nice that you do work on
media, but we have bigger things we

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need to be dealing with: getting people
jobs, getting people proper education

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getting people out of nursing homes."
My response to everybody was

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"How do you think you're going to do that
if you're not getting out information

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into public opinion, so if you're not
able to change public opinion

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how can you get these
things accomplished?

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And how do you get public opinion
changed? You get a proper narrative

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going in the media." And now there's
actual disability studies, research

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and disability activists who've talked
about this in the early 2000's

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about how they took the wrong tactic
after the ADA was passed

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and decided that when it was passed
it would get enforced.

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"Yay we can move on."
Unfortunately the business narrative

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came into the mix and they controlled
the message that was in the media.

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And so from quite a number of
years after the ADA was passed,

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it wasn't being enforced because there
was this narrative in the news media

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that it was an unfunded mandate and
"Well, we never saw a person with a

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disability in our store, why do 
we have to do all this stuff?"

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Well of course, the reason they didn't see
a person with a dis- as a wheelchair user

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in their store is because it wasn't
accessible, or nobody came to their

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website because it was inaccessible
(laughs) but they didn't get that.

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A lot of the journalists didn't know
people in the disability community

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and the disability community was
very wary of the news media

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because they'd done such a bad job, but
any news coverage in my opinion is better

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than no news coverage usually (laughs).

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And so the business community really took
over the narrative and had this really

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negative perception of the ADA
that was funnelling into the media,

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and then people just didn't know about it
cause it wasn't getting covered that much.

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There was a national poll done, I believe
in, like, 1995, of Americans

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about what they knew about the ADA
and other disability rights issues.

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Only 18% of Americans in 1995 had even
heard of the American Disabilities Act

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if I'm remembering the stats right.

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To me, that is the fault of not engaging
with media to do stories about that,

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and I know it's very difficult.

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Even today I know it's difficult to get
the media to do a more complex, policy,

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legal, government related
story about disability

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and not one of those 
inspiration narrative stories,

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but it's still worth fighting to try to
get those stories into the media.

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And the other data point I would say,
what I always tell my students when we're

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talking about the ADA: the ADA's
enforcement depends on who's

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in the White House.

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So we had quite a number of
Republican Presidents

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who did not care about the ADA being
enforced for, like, 8 years,

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so that is why it really only got more
enforced when Obama became President.

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There's a lot of external factors
that meant that the ADA

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was not going to be changing things
as radically as we would have hoped,

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or what we were thinking back in 1990.

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The ADA has had impact in more recent
years since President Obama

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came into office and it was
just getting enforced.

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I use a lot of these example in my class,
of news stories about the ADA

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finally being implemented.

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A couple that I use, one is about a
little city in Pennsylvania.

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The headlines of a lot of ADA stories,
still, I say they have this blaming tone.

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"Things are expensive because of the ADA;
things are closing because of the ADA."

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I always tell my students that
narrative should be flipped.

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The story really is, "Why didn't this town
in Pennsylvania comply with the ADA

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for however many years, 20 years."
So that, to me is the real story.

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This one headline was about this town, I
believe was Logansport, Pennsylvania,

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the headline was, "They must pay $8
million" for some kind of ADA compliance

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that they were finally going to do, I
think in, like, 2008 or something.

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And I'm like, okay that $8 million
would have been a lot less

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if they'd just been compliant back in 1992
like they were supposed to be compliant,

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but they're still blaming the ADA.

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But now I think people, the general
public now knows a lot more

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and I actually chalk a lot of it
up to social media,

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because now people are getting, not a 
mediated story through the news media

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and some journalist or some newscaster.

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They're actually on social media
with people with disabilities

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and see what their life is like.

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And I know in the last couple of years
when there was an assault on the ADA

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and people in Congress were thinking about
and the President was thinking about

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figuring out a way to knock it out.

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I saw lots of allies on social media
because they were finally aware that there

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was a disability rights law and they said
it should stay, it should not be repealed,

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and so I think the media
have a lot of power,

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and now that we have this very
personal media of social media,

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people get to know actual people with
disabilities in their community

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and they see the benefits of having
things in braille or having captioning

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or having wheelchair ramps, or just
thinking about asking somebody before

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you barrel ahead and create something
that may be inaccessible.

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So I think the general public is a lot
more aware than they were in 1995

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when only 18% of people had
even heard of the ADA.

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And even if they haven't heard of the ADA,
they're in favour of disability rights,

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and I think that one thing that came out
of that survey, even back in 1995,

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is that, they might have never heard of
the ADA, but if you pose to Americans

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the concept of disability rights
then they agree with that.

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They don't think people should be
discriminated against just because they

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need a ramp to get into a building or
need a sign language interpreter

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to apply for a job.

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So I think there's a better feeling among
the American public in terms of

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understanding disability rights and making
sure that everybody has equal access.

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And also I think people now understand
people with disabilities are them,

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are their friends, are their family 
members, and so a lot of the hidden stuff

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that was happening before the ADA where
people with disabilities were being

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hidden in their families, where
nobody talked about it,

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I even noticed that, in my teaching at
Temple when I was a grad student,

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that the younger generation, because
a lot of them had grown up

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in inclusive education, there was no shame
they were proud to talk about their own

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disability, their parent's disability,
their sibling's disability.

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I still remember a student, we had a 
discussion, actually one of my journalism

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classes, and one student, she was talking
about, her mother was fluent in sign

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language cause both of her grandparents
were deaf, so her mother's first language

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was sign language even
though she was hearing.

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Another kid was like, "My brother
has Down's Syndrome"

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and he said it with pride.

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So I think the cultural change that the
ADA brought was really powerful too,

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cause that is what gets you to the
place, if you're a business person,

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"Oh okay, maybe I should be more open to
hiring somebody with Down's Syndrome

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to work in my grocery store, or whatever."

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So I think having that cultural change
where people are now including

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the disability community as
part of the American citizenry,

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then that is a very powerful thing, I
think that the ADA did.

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Yeah. If the ADA stays around, I think
that's a really good part of our future

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because it's a really good law.
It was written really well,

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and it just needs to be
enforced at all times.

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We learned about how it could be enforced
in those 8 years that President Obama

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was in office, and I think we
can continue to learn that.

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And the Justice Department and Department
of Ed. and all the other federal agencies

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that enforce it, I think the
community knows how to reach them

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and tell them to enforce things,

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and people are even getting a little bit
better, even the business community

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understands now that people with
disabilities are a major part of our

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consumer culture, and now with the
pandemic and everybody working online,

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people with disabilities have
been, can be the leaders.

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They're the ones that have been doing the
workaround to try to make a living

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when they've not been able to go
to an inaccessible building.

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So I think the future is bright if we
will listen to disabled people about

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what the world needs to basically embrace
everyone and accommodate everyone,

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and it'll be a better future for everyone
because we talk about the hidden benefits

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of access for everyone, so think about
all the people that use curb cuts

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for their wheelie luggage and
all the UPS guys that use curb cuts

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for rolling their hand carts. All the bars
that use closed caption cause they're loud

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So everybody gets benefits from disability
related access and I think it can only get

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better, if people learn to trust that the
disability community can lead us,

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because they're the ones who are most
innovative and entrepreneurial

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about making sure that they can move
forward in the most access-friendly ways.

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I think there should be a lot more
listening to people with disabilities

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in the future cause they've
already worked out the problems

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that we're now dealing with in a pandemic.

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I think they can help us build a
future that's better for everyone,

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whether you have a disability or not.

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What steps can we take right now?

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I think if you're not a person with
a disability, being a good ally.

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If you're a family member, being- 
helping to make sure that the person

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in your family with a disability is
empowered to be independent,

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and giving them all the support they need.

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If you're a person with a disability,
making sure that the world

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is accommodating to you.

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And everybody needs to focus on making
the world completely accessible.

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A lot of people live in houses that
cannot be made accessible,

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and a lot of things were grandfathered
into the ADA because they were built long

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before the ADA existed,
but there's other locations.

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There's online, there's video chatting,
there's all kinds of workarounds

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that I think we can all embrace, and we
got to quit whining about this stuff

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because, I'm talking to you in the
middle of a pandemic (laughs).

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But I hear so many people complaining
about things that I'm like, you know,

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this is all good, we can all
still be connected, it's fine,

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and things are going to change,
we need to learn to adapt.

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People with disabilities can teach us how
to adapt, and they have a major disability

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rights organisation called
Adapt as well (laughs).

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So I think that's the key for all of us,
is to start learning to roll with it,

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learning to adapt and make sure
that we're bringing everyone along

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into this new world that we're going to
have to fashion post-pandemic,

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and that it's accessible to
everyone, that we're all equal,

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that we're making sure that supports
and what people need are in place,

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and then we can be a better community.

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It's kind of a weird time to be
talking about all this (laughs).

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I mean, I know it's the ADA's 30th
anniversary, I'm very glad that it's here

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and still exists, but I really feel like
we can use the model of the ADA

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from 30 years ago as we move forward.

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We're going to have to 
restructure so much of our world,

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why not do it accessibly this time?