To washington any time, anywhere. Host we are back, andt of our landmark series, we are going to be talking about the americans with disabilities act. We are going to start by showing you senator tom harkin introducing the final report of the americans with disabilities act in july 1992 than to the u. S. Senator appeared for the radio listeners, the first part will be silent because he is doing it in sign language. Hold on and you will hear us in a few minutes. [video clip] [performing sign language] mr. President , i think you for permitting me perhaps to Say Something that only a few people understood. But i wanted to do that as sort of a special way of thinking a very special person in my life who taught me at a very early age that people with disabilities could do anything they set their minds to do and that people should be judged on the basis of their abilities and not on the basis of their disabilities. Host we are joined in the studio today by former senator tom harkin who is here to talk about the americans with his abilities act of 1990 that he authored and cosponsored. Also with us this mornings disability rights activist judy huemann, and theyre both here to talk about the impact of the ada on the lives of americans with disabilities and the Small Business community. Thank you for bring with us. First, senator harkin, why does the americans with disabilities act fit into our landmark legislation . Guest is great to hear be here it is great to be here with judy. Why is it landmark . Look around, think about what america like before the ada and what it looks like now. Transportation, access to buildings, people with disabilities in employment and all aspects of society. It changed the face of america. Buses are assessable and trains and stores with widened doors and bathrooms everybody can use. It broke down those physical barriers, but just as important, it broke down attitudinal errors, attitudinal feelings and prejudices with people with disabilities. The americans with disabilities act said look, disability is a normal part of human existence and should in no way diminish a persons right to full participation in society, equal opportunities, independent being, living, and having work and meaningful employment. That to me is what really changed america, and i think people today, broadly speaking, now see people with disabilities not with separate and apart from but a part of our family. Host judy, did life really change before the ada and after the ada . Guest i agree totally with tom, obviously. Life had begun to change before the ada because of section 504 which came about in the 1970s, but the americans with disabilities act, from my perspective, was really not only groundbreaking in the United States but around the world, because it was decades of work which required disabled people with all types of disabilities to come together under one umbrella. The ada really required that we have two Work Together and be able to tell a story the types of discrimination we were experiencing. We need to be able to work at remedies. Toms point, fundamentally, is that our moving forward as a Disability Community, being granted rights like other constituents in the United States, not only was a powerful message here but around the world. Host youre just talking ago seconds ago about stories you had to tell about living in america with disabilities. What was it like before the ada . What did the disabled community face in the United States before the ada . Guest i will start off by talking about myself and tom might want to speak about his brother. Today, the cdc says there are 60 million disabled people in the United States and according to the world health organization, there are 1. 5 billion disabled people. One thing i want to say also is we need to look at disability and await which is not just thinking of people with visible disabilities. That is a very important part of the definition under the ada. To the viewers and listeners, people who have things like diabetes or depression or bipolar or cancer or significant back problems, something which limits one or more major life activities, you are protected under the americans with disabilities act. Most importantly, you need to see ourselves as a part of an evergrowing movement. When i talk about that as an evergrowing movement, it is not that the numbers are dramatically changes but the fact that people like myself, and with invisible disabilities are recognizing that we need to be proud of who we are. That is part of who we are, not the totality of who we are is that we have one or more different kinds of disabilities. That is a significant outcome of the ada, that we see ourselves as being a part of society. Myself, some of the issues of discriminations faced and some of the broader ones, i graduated college and wanted to be a teacher. I was in brooklyn and i applied for a teaching license because i had taken the appropriate courses. There were no loss at that point. I had to take the written, oral and they were given in buildings that had at least one flight of stairs here i had to have friends carry me up those stairs. I had to write specifically. I was able to get attorneys who worked for free and the judge was the first block woman to serve black woman to serve on the bench and it was lucky we had her, because she understood that what happened was clear discrimination. So i settled out of court and that might teaching license and taught for three years. The time that i went to a restaurant with some other friends and the manager told us to leave because we were disturbing. There was no law at that time that made that illegal. I told him to call the police. I learned to become a very strong advocate, not because it was something that was inherent in me or that my parents raised me to be an advocate, but my parents, even today, learn very quickly that if they werent going to be our advocate, my advocate, and i didnt learn how to be my own advocate and things like getting on buses. You think about rosa parks, a black woman who got on a bus, sat in the front and was told she had to sit in the back. If rosa parks had been a wheelchair user when this happened, she would never have been able to get on the bus. The ada was one of the exact change that that all people in Civil Rights Movements can now get on the bus. Host senator harkin, in that clip we showed from 1990 gave the beginning of it in sign language. What is your passion on this subject and why do you know sign language . Tell us your experience in this area. Guest i grew up with a brother who was deaf, and i just saw how he was discriminated against when he was going up in terms of schooling and education and told he couldnt do this, he couldnt do that, couldnt get a job that he was qualified for. The problems he went through just to get a drivers license as a deaf person. It was just one hurdle after another. And so i just and i had a nephew who became quadriplegic. I began to see it was at only hearing problems but mobility problems he was a young man who was injured in the military and became quadriplegic. And i went to visit him and my sister and family, he couldnt even go to a restaurant or across the street because the curbs and doors and he couldnt get in there just one thing after another. I started because of my brother who was deaf and continued on after i saw what happened to kelly, and at one point met with danny piper, a young man with down syndrome and a light went off in my head that it is not just communication problems and mobility problems, it is also intellectual disabilities that people have and are discriminated against. All of this came together when i went to the senate in the 1980s and we had people like judy who was out there reading the charge by a broad civil rights bill. Either way, i might just say that judy huemann led the longest sit in in a federal facility in history in San Francisco in 1977. You are to see it amazing. I would also say for your viewers there is a movie alled crip camp. Guest you can get it on netflix. Guest you should see this movie because it gives the origin of the movement in the late 1960s, early 1970s of people with disabilities demanding their rights this country. I would just close on this we all know about the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, notes, nation on the basis of race, sex, origin, religion, but they left out people with disabilities. We said what about us . They still discriminated and then that began this long movement. But my brother, frank, who is deaf and taught me sign language. Host my daughter is learning American Sign Language for her foreign language. Guest she will love it. Host let me take a second to remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation about the americans with disabilities act. We are going to open up regional lines. If you are in the eastern or central time zones, you call 202 7488000. If you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number is going to be 202 7488001. We are going to open up to special lines for this conversation. The first line will be for people with disabilities. We specifically want to hear from you and your experience with the ada. Your number is going to be 202 7488002. Our last line will be for caregivers of people with disabilities. We know this affects you as well your number is going to be 202 7488003. People with disabilities, we want to hear from you at 202 7488002. Caregivers, we want to hear from you at 202 7488003. You can always text us at 202 7488003. And we are always reading on social media on twitter at cspanwj, and at facebook at facebook. Com cspan. Senator harkin, you started talking about the politics of getting the ada past and you talked about judy passed and you talked about judy trying to get the bill passed in 1989. Guest as judy mentioned earlier, in the early 1970s, there was a rehabilitation act basically covering federal government, section 501, 5 03, 504, i get them mixed up. Then there was the education of all childrens act passed my first year in the house. I wasnt all that much involved in that, but later it became the individuals with disabilities education act, which was my bill that i got passed over 20 years later. It came together because, well the Disability Community was hammering us. They were demonstrating all over the country. You have to remember that in the 19 80s, people with disabilities would lay down 1980s, people would people with disabilities with lay down under the buses and the buses couldnt move. This became national news. I remember at one time we had a demonstration where people with wheelchairs had chained themselves across independent avenue by the capitol at rush hour. What was funny is i went outside to watch this with my staff person, bobby silverstein, who we all know did a lot of the writing and was with me on the floor that day, we went out to watch this. It is cold out, dark, rushhour, and they brought the paddy wagons and police to get rid of the wheelchairs blocking the traffic. They brought the bolt cutters and were cutting the chains and they brought the paddy wagons and the wheelchairs wouldnt fit in the paddy wagons. And they were saying g, you cant even arrest gee, you cant even arrest us because we cant fit into the paddy wagons. The National Committee and disabilities just said, look, we were left out of the civil rights bill. We need a broad civil rights bill that covers all persons with disabilities. That is the outside influence that came in. Host that is what i want you to talk about judy, that outside influence. Where did that start and when did you get involved and how did it get all the way to washington . Guest thank you. There are thousands of disabled people in the United States who worked on section 504. It is fairly fair to say that no one person creates a movement, and i really want to underscore that. Basically, i got involved out of necessities with stories i was telling you earlier about discrimination, not being able to get across the street. Growing up in new york i would have to ride 20 blocks in my wheelchair behind the buses and cabs because of the curbs. The beginning of the film shows disabled people going to a particular camp. What we were learning at that camp and other camps around the country as disabled people who were becoming teenagers is that our nondisabled peers were talking about college, careers, getting married, where they wanted to work and how they wanted to participate, and for many of us it was very clear that was not going to be what was happening. We also made the decision that we were not going to be prohibited by pursuing our dreams because of problems in discrimination. It is really important to say the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s and obviously way before that, had a very strong impact on many of us, because television really wasnt coming into being until the 1950s. It was the first time like people that was the first time people like myself and others were not only learning about the impact of discrimination but also what people were willing to do to express themselves and fight for them right and fight collectively for rights. The exclusion of disabled people in the Civil Rights Act was something as more of us were getting older and learned about what legislation was and learned about the Civil Rights Act itself and its impact, really made us realize the fact that in that period of time when the Civil Rights Act was being developed, we were invisible. That was a very important part of the movement then and today. The ada has created something called the Ada Generation were younger disabled people realize that just having the ada wasnt sufficient, but had to be implemented and people need to understand what that rights are so they can deal with it collectively. Host a perfect segue to what i want to talk about next, which is what is specifically in the ada . I will read a couple of the titles of the ada and i want you to tell me about why it is in here. Title i of the ada bans employment discrimination against those with disabilities and covers employees employers with more than 15 employees. Title ii prohibits discrimination by public duties, which includes physical access to public buildings and public transportation. Title iii bars discrimination in public accommodation in places of commerce and covers Service Animals for auxiliary aids and calls for a balancing for accommodations. Lets start with title i, why does it cover employers with more than 50 employees and not those with fewer question mark guest that was with fewer . Guest that was a compromise. I will start out, if you dont mind a little history, i didnt announce the first ada. It was lowell riker. On the house site it was tony gwynn lowe and steve barlett, maybe and then lowell riker got defeated and then it fell to me and i was chair of the disability subcommittee, so i picked it up and moved it after that. We did start out with just covering everybody but then we had to compromise. We took something from the Small Business legislation of 15 employees. What can i tell you, it was just a compromise. I wish it was less than that, sure, and quite frankly i think that Many Employers who have fewer employees than that of i voluntarily and do that because they see their customers coming in the door and they want customers and people with disabilities and families coming into the store to shop or whatever. It could be just a small watch repair shop we have in a strip mall near where i live. People with disabilities by watches and rings and earrings and get their watches repaired, so they made the doors wider and put in a ramp so people could get in and out. It was just a compromise. Guest and in the state of california, it is five. The ada and other federal laws are going above. I want to emphasize another point that tom was making, which is the developing of standards. Those standards have been developed at the federal and state levels, and those standards ensure things like when a new building is going to be built that the door will be wider from the beginning so it isnt left up to each individual merchant to decide what the width of the door will be because there are standards on that. One very important outcome of ada 504 has been that as these laws been implemented, we are seeing standards that are happening at the average person isnt even aware of, but those changes, like elevators for train stations and buses that have lower floors have a lift that comes out. Those are for people with baby carriers, canes, broken legs to use these very important parts of our life without ever knowing why it came about, but they are benefiting. Now if you were to take those things away, many people would recognize that whether or not they were defined as having a disability, they would be excluded temporarily. Universal design is one of the outcomes happening with the ada. I remember, i insisted that employment be number one. And i still feel this way, employment is so critical to a persons life. Work is more than just getting a paycheck. It is how we affirm our identities. We make friends, get involved in our community through our work. Employment was so important. What we wanted to do in the employment title, focus on the 15, but it is businesses had to provide reasonable accommodations for a person with a disability to get a job. They could not discriminate in hiring. If you are a person with a disability and applying, they cannot ask you about any disabilities, at all. We wanted to break down those barriers to employment, to get people into meaningful jobs. Not sub minimum wage jobs, segregated jobs, but integrated in employment. That is what we put it number one. Guest about employment for the audience, it is very important to look at the onset of disability. When we look at employment for younger people, and i was 18 months old, i was not seeing myself. I am still not seeing myself that much in childrens books, on television, places where young people see themselves. So you find that as much because of ada and other laws, the movement itself, younger disabled people are seeing employment as something they want to participate in. Prior to the ada, not seeing yourself as a doctor, a teacher, a bus driver, a personal assistant, you did not relate. The ada put forward a very strong statement that there is an expectation that disabled people can work and will work, and looking at removing those barriers that mentally made people feel like this is not for me. Then, you have so many other