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Last week, I was privileged to have been elected the fourth Chairman of the Board of Directors of RespectAbility , a national non-profit non-partisan organization whose mission is to fight stigmas and advance opportunities so people with all types of disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community. Thirty-one years ago, the Nation and the world witnessed a historic moment as President George H.

Resulting from years of advocacy by and for people with all types of disabilities and the organizations that represented them, the ADA marked the culmination of a bipartisan effort that united a number of stakeholders, both large and small, from all across the country. Almost immediately, the walls of discrimination began to come down within the areas of employment; state and local government programs, services, and activities; places of public accommodation; transportation; and telecommunications.

Since then, more than a generation has passed. Millions of children, young adults, and young somethings are now living who never knew a moment in their lives when the ADA was not on the books. While those of us who are older and who remember what life was like before can share stories with them, the many accommodations that we know today can almost be taken for granted.

The greater accessibility we know now did not occur on its own, but rather was the result of the priceless sacrifices of people from every background, with and without disabilities. And yet when individuals from times of old recount many of their struggles, countless stories sound eerily similar to the challenges that so many of us still face today.

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New buildings still often fail to meet applicable standards, and renovations do not always include removal of barriers. Employment discrimination based on disability still occurs in thousands of instances annually. Towns, cities, and states still often fail to meet their legal obligations under the ADA. Transportation accessibility continues to be fleeting for many, telecommunications inaccessibility keeps challenging significant segments of the disability community, and thousands of websites, either in whole or in part, are not accessible to millions of people with different types of disabilities.

But while much work remains on these and other fronts, it is equally clear how far society has come. In addition to many examples of the physical and programmatic improvements, attitudes by and about fellow people with disabilities have also evolved. It is no longer a foregone conclusion that our people must necessarily be subjected to second-class status, being told that we should be happy for whatever we can get, even if that entails fulfilling mediocre expectations at best.

Instead, thanks to civil rights champions over the expanse of many decades, the disability community has changed its collective paradigm to assert that we have the right to rise to whatever stratospheric heights of success to which we justifiably dare to go, recognizing that even the sky itself need not be the limit.