America Is 250 and Disability Rights Are Still the New Kid

As America celebrates its 250th birthday, I couldn’t help but think about something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. America is 250, and disability rights are still the new kid. That probably sounds like an odd comparison for an Independence Day article, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Our country has had two and a half centuries to grow, evolve, make mistakes, learn from them, and keep moving forward. Along the way we’ve survived wars, recessions, questionable fashion trends, disco, New Coke, dial-up internet, and whatever was happening with low-rise jeans in the early 2000s. We’ve had plenty of time to figure a few things out.

And to be fair, we have.

America has come a long way when it comes to expanding rights and opportunities for more people. It hasn’t always been pretty, and it certainly hasn’t always happened quickly, but progress rarely is. Every generation has pushed the country a little farther than the one before it, and because of that, millions of Americans enjoy freedoms and opportunities that simply didn’t exist decades ago.

Disability Rights Are Still the New Kid

Then there’s disability.

Sometimes I feel like disability rights are the younger sibling who gets forgotten at the family reunion.

“Oh yeah… they’re here too.”

When you really think about it, the comparison is pretty striking. The Civil Rights Movement that most of us learned about in school gained momentum in the 1950s and 60s. The Americans with Disabilities Act wasn’t signed until 1990.

That’s not ancient history.

There are plenty of people reading this who are older than the ADA.

I’m one of them.

In the grand timeline of our country, disability rights are still relatively young. They’re not even halfway to America’s age. If America were celebrating its 250th birthday at a family cookout, disability rights would be the thirty-six-year-old cousin still trying to convince everyone they deserve a seat at the grown-ups’ table.

Sometimes it feels like we’re still introducing ourselves.

“Hi, we’d like curb cuts.”

“Nice to meet you. We’d also like websites that work.”

“Oh… and maybe bathrooms we can actually use.”

“We promise we’re not asking for a private island.”

The Accessibility Scavenger Hunt

The truth is, disability often becomes the afterthought whenever people start talking about inclusion.

Companies proudly announce they’re making something “accessible.” Then you discover that means there’s a ramp… around back… next to the dumpster… available Tuesdays between 2:00 and 2:15 if Mercury is in retrograde.

Technology gets redesigned to be “more inclusive,” but nobody remembers that some of us can’t use tiny buttons, complicated gestures, or touchscreens that apparently require the dexterity of a concert pianist.

It’s almost as if disability gets invited to the meeting five minutes after everyone else has already decided on lunch.

And don’t even get me started on what I call the Accessibility Scavenger Hunt.

If you use a wheelchair, you’ve probably played this game…

One Place We Still Have Work to Do

Another place where I think you can still see just how young disability rights are is in employment.

The ADA has been around for more than three decades, and that’s worth celebrating. It changed lives. It opened doors—sometimes literally.

But let’s be honest. When people talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, disability often feels like the kid who got left off the group project.

Here’s the uncomfortable part.

Most employers understand that discrimination based on race or sex has been part of our national conversation for decades. Those issues rightly receive significant public attention. Disability, on the other hand, doesn’t always receive that same level of attention.

Too often, assumptions quietly take over. Someone wonders if accommodations will be expensive. Someone assumes a person with a disability won’t be able to keep up. Someone decides it’s simply easier to hire someone else and never has to say the quiet part out loud.

That’s what makes disability discrimination so frustrating. It doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it hides behind phrases like “better fit,” “company culture,” or “we decided to go in another direction.”

The result is the same.

People with disabilities continue to participate in the workforce at significantly lower rates than people without disabilities. The ADA made discrimination illegal, but it couldn’t instantly erase decades of assumptions about what people with disabilities can or can’t do.

Maybe that’s because disability rights are still the new kid. The ADA changed the law in 1990, but changing minds has always been the harder part.

We’ve made remarkable progress, but there are still places where accessibility and inclusion feel less like an expectation and more like an optional upgrade. I have no doubt we’ll get there. We’re just not there yet.

Accessibility Helps More People Than You Think

One of the things I find fascinating about accessibility is that it almost never benefits just one group of people.

Automatic doors are great when you use a wheelchair.

They’re also pretty handy when you’re carrying groceries, pushing a stroller, pulling a suitcase through an airport, or trying to carry three cups of coffee because everyone at work suddenly remembered they wanted one.

Captions were created for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

They’re also used by the guy watching SportsCenter while his spouse is asleep, the student studying in a noisy coffee shop, and just about everyone who’s ever forgotten their earbuds.

Curb cuts were designed with wheelchair users in mind.

Now stand at almost any busy intersection for five minutes. Parents pushing strollers, travelers rolling luggage, kids on scooters, delivery drivers with carts—they’re all using the same curb cuts.

It’s almost as if designing for more people… helps more people.

Who knew?

The good news is this.

In less than 100 years, we’ve made incredible progress.

When I was younger, accessible playgrounds were rare. Closed captions weren’t available everywhere. Voice assistants didn’t exist. Adaptive gaming was barely a concept. Ordering groceries or prescriptions from your couch wasn’t an option. Today, while the world is still far from perfect, technology and thoughtful design have opened doors that simply didn’t exist a generation ago.

Why I’m Optimistic About the Future

What gives me even more hope is watching Jacob’s generation grow up.

His friends don’t look at accessibility as some revolutionary idea. They don’t stop and stare when someone rolls through life using a wheelchair. They don’t think including people with disabilities deserves applause because, to them, it isn’t extraordinary. It’s normal.

Honestly, I think they’re teaching us more than we’re teaching them.

That gives me real hope because lasting change rarely happens all at once. It doesn’t come from one law, one speech, or one Supreme Court decision. It happens when an entire generation grows up wondering why something was ever controversial in the first place.

That’s worth celebrating..

There’s Still Work to Do

Do we still have work to do?

Absolutely.

I’d love for accessibility to become something people think about on day one of a project instead of the day before the ribbon cutting.

I’d love for “accessible entrance” to stop feeling like a scavenger hunt.

I’d love for employers to see a résumé before they see a disability.

I’d love for websites to stop making me play “guess which button actually works.”

And I’d love for companies to realize that making products usable by more people isn’t charity. It’s simply good business.

The ADA Turns 36 Next Week

America is celebrating its 250th birthday.

In less than a week, the Americans with Disabilities Act will celebrate its 36th.

Think about that for a minute.

One milestone is measured in centuries.

The other is measured in decades.

Maybe that’s why disability still feels like the new kid whenever we talk about civil rights. Compared to the history of our country, it is. Compared to many other civil rights movements, it is.

Thirty-six years is enough time to celebrate some remarkable progress, and we should. But it’s also young enough that many of us remember what life looked like before the ADA. We remember buildings without ramps, businesses that never considered accessibility, and a world that often expected people with disabilities to simply figure it out on their own.

When you look at it through that lens, maybe some of our growing pains make a little more sense. We’re still writing this chapter. We’re still learning. We’re still improving. And we’re still reminding people that accessibility isn’t a special feature or an expensive add-on. It’s simply part of building a country where everyone belongs.

Every generation has left America a little better than they found it.

I hope ours is remembered as the generation that stopped treating accessibility as an afterthought and started treating it as something that’s simply expected.

Not because the ADA says we have to.

Because by then, it won’t even occur to people to do it any other way.

So here’s to America’s next 250 years.

And here’s to the ADA celebrating many more birthdays of its own.

Hopefully, by the time the ADA turns 250, nobody will be asking where the accessible entrance is.

Because it’ll just be…

…the entrance.

Happy Birthday, America.