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So, my name is

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Michelle Nario Redmond.

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I am a social psychologist

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and I teach at Hiram College.

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in the psychology 
and biomedical humanities program,

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and I just wrote a book on ableism, 
the causes and consequences

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of disability prejudice.
My first memory,

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and I'll just back up and say in 1990,

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when the ADA passed 
I was in graduate school,

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in Kansas, and disability prejudice,
the ADA or anything

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related to disability issues 
were completely off my radar,

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and I worked at a place 
where one of the pioneers

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of disability studies worked, 
Beatrice Wright,

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and I had yet to have a class with her.

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It really wasn't until 1995,
which was five years later,

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when my daughter was born,
Sierra, with spina bifoda,

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that I became aware 
of disability and found the work

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of Carol Gill and Simi Litton
and began to educate myself

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on disability studies and its scope,
and the first memory I have of

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confronting inaccessible spaces
was a few years later, when we enrolled

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my daughter Sierra in a preschool,
at a Catholic preschool,

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right down the road; and it just didn't
even dawn on me that we would have to

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work so hard for her to be accommodated
as a preschooler,

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and it was really a function of
the fact that the building was older,

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there were steps, and they really didn't
know, nor did they need to legally know,

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about reasonable accommodations 
and civil rights of their students,

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because they were a private facility and
weren't subject to the ADA's rules.

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So it became clear to me that we needed 
to find a new preschool, and luckily

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we found another private place - 
it wasn't a public school -

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but it was a music school settlement
and they had resources

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and they were already operating 
under a sort of set of presumptions

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about the value of diversity
and diverse perspectives,

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and we didn't really have to ask for much,
because they bent over backwards

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to include my daughter
in a typical classroom, with her peers,

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her preschool peers, music classes,
there were so many eclectic--

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movement classes, and they even
purchased equipment

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for their exercise room and movement room
that would be useful to her among others,

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and she has since grown up to become this teacher 
and has applied to work there

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as a preschool teacher, so I think
it would be really amazing

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if she came full circle, but I guess
to answer the broader question

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about being frustrated and aware of
inaccessibility and lack of inclusion,

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we were in a district that, when she then
was about to move to preschool,

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I knew that she probably wouldn't be 
able to go to a private school,

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not only because of the financial cost
but also because they would not have to

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think about best practices
and the law when it came to

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accommodating their 
students with disabilities,

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and so I knew we would be
looking at the public school,

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and the public school in our neigbourhood
was not accessible.

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We went to visit it,
the playground had a little house

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that she wouldn't have been 
able to get into,

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and it was really disheartening
and so it came at a time

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when we were already 
looking for other opportunities,

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and my husband got an opportunity
to move us as a family

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to the West Coast
of Portland of Oregon,

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so the way I-- so the way we had to
navigate her early educational experiences

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was to only look at spaces and schools
that were in districts that were new,

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so that had buildings 
and had training in terms of

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accommodating their diverse students
and their disabled students,

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because just having the brief experiences
that I did with the preschool

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and IEP meetings that were going to
require me to fight at every juncture

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for her basic rights 
to show what she knows

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and participate and recognize herself
as a valuable contributor

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to the school community.
We're not going to be forthcoming

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without a fight, 
and so we narrowed our search

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to a district,
and thank God we had the opportunity

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and the resources to do this,
that was pretty known for their

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inclusivity.

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We did that also when we came back 
to the Cleveland, Ohio area.

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We were able to avoid all districts
that weren't at the cutting edge

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of full inclusion and proof of excellence
and had newer buildings

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that could accommodate those 
with disabilities,

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but I guess that that was my earliest
memory of how, 'Oh, we have a road

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ahead of us and we have to take it upon
ourselves to either continue to fight

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battles that had already been won, 
legislatively, or, finds spaces, places

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and organizations that were ahead
of the curve

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in terms of implementing, monitoring and 
just execute the basic civil rights

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of their various constituents

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The impact that all of that has had on me 
is to just be able to communicate

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with other parents and students 
with disabilities

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about not only knowing their rights but
knowing how to get those rights

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how to advocate for ensuring that those 
rights are addressed, are met.

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I think the ADA has made 
a huge difference

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and the 'ah ha' moment was even when I was
collating information for this book

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on disability prejudice, I realised that 
when I was a kid,

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when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, 
people with disabilities weren't able to

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do any of the things that we took for 
granted as kids- go to the movies

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go to restaurants, go to visit a friend,
at a friend's house, or invite

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others to your birthday parties.

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Since the ADA passed in 1990, it wasn't 
an immediate set of changes,

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as, there has been significant progress
made, particularly in public spaces

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and in employment settings, where there
are even employers

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who are part of an organization 
of inclusive excellence, who

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recognize that disabled employees are 
actually more reliable and

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have less turnover and are worth
investing in and promoting.

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But, there are still so many places, 
small businesses, educational institutions

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that are not carrying out basic gains and
practices that the ADA has made possible

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there's just way too much variation,
and I think part of that

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is just a lack of education in terms what

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is reasonable and what is necessary

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in terms of accommodating your citizenry

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and lack of resources in some cases but

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also a lot of misinformation about whether

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or not it's worth it. The ADA is going to

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be 30 here in July. We're celebrating all

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over the country and we are still fighting

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for businesses to do what they should have

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done 30 years ago, those that have been

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around this long. They have not, they have

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have waited for complaints or they have

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failed to do but the bare minimum in

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terms of recruiting the largest minority

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I work in the education sphere and to me,

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we could be doing so much more with

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advertising and recruiting for those kinds

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of students that we tend to really, at

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least my institution, do well to retain

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because we're a small, intimate college

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Hiram College. For years I've tried to

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encourage us to consider more universally

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designed approaches but also approaches

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that do more when it comes to housing and

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extracurricular accommodations for

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students to who use mobility devices. For

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example, my daughter ended up having to be

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carried in her chair, to various club

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meetings while she was on the Hiram

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College campus. She was told that, in the

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winter, when the ice storms came, that

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they couldn't transport her up the long

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hill, while they were telling everyone

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else to walk like a penguin, and we had

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vans to do this. We had to file with the

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Ohio Disability Rights Commission and

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request that the school think about other

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ways of accommodating her should there

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be a storm, an ice storm, and she can't

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get up to campus.