Access for All: Understanding the Disability Rights Movement and Disability Studies

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In July 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), prohibiting “discrimination based on disability in employment, State and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications.” This historic legislation has meant that, much like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, those with physical and mental disabilities must have equal access and full citizenship.

The ADA was passed because of the incredible work of Disability Rights activists who, following the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and the return of Vietnam veterans in the 1970s, sought equality for individuals with disabilities, who make up the single most significant physical minority in the United States. A pivotal moment in the fight for disability rights occurred on March 12, 1990, when 1,000 protesters converged on the Capitol, as 60 participants abandoned their wheelchairs, powerchairs, and crutches to crawl up the Capitol steps. The demonstration represented the symbolic barriers that people with disabilities in America face.

Origins of Disability Studies

Just like we have considered the social, cultural, and economic discrimination that racial minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and women have experienced, Disability Studies asks us to think about what it means to be disabled and “normal.” Disability Studies asks us to consider disability not only as a medical category but as a universal part of the human experience that shapes our society.

Understanding Medical and Social Models

What does it mean to think about disability as more than just a medical condition and to think about disability as an experience that shapes our society and politics?

First, we need to understand what we mean when we only talk about disability through medical and rehabilitation models.

Medical models have been the primary approach to disability, treating disability as a disease in need of a cure and the disabled body always in need of repair, concealment, remediation, and supervision.

For example, we see the medical model when we coerce physically disabled people to use prosthetics to walk “normally” or when we perform painful and invasive corrective surgeries for cosmetic purposes.

Social models of disability ask us to consider how society creates barriers that prohibit and exclude disabled people from full inclusion and access.

These barriers might be physical:

1. Only having steps rather than ramps so that someone who uses crutches cannot literally enter a building.
2. Not having bathroom stalls large enough to accommodate wheelchairs means they cannot use the facilities.
3. Not providing a chair that would allow someone with chronic pain to sit rather than stand when working.

Or, these barriers might reflect our attitudes toward disability:

1. Thinking about people who use wheelchairs as “bound” to them.
2. Believing that someone who vocalizes while using sign language or who relies on a computer to talk is cognitively impaired.
3. Considering someone who doesn’t make eye contact as untrustworthy or unemployable.

Thinking about disability through a social model means that we also must consider how disability shapes our identities and culture. We understand the difference between deafness and Deaf Culture. We respect how neurotypical people experience their surroundings differently and communicate those experiences. It is important that we rethink our assumptions about disability, recognize activism and resistance as essential parts of disability history, and promote a more inclusive and equitable society.

For more information about this topic, check out these additional resources.

Brueggemann, Brenda Jo and James A. Fredal. “Studying Disability Rhetorically.” Disability Discourse. Eds. Mairian Corker and Sally French. Philadelphia: Open UP, 1999: 129–35.

Charlton, James I. Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. Directed by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht, Higher Ground Productions, 2020. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/title/81001496.

Davis, Lennard J. Bending Over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism, and Other Difficult Positions. New York: New York UP, 2002.

Linton, Simi. Claiming Disability. New York: New York UP, 1998.