BAC Rutland

Brooke Weckwarth doesn’t know of a life without the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Born in May 1988 with cerebral palsy, Brooke was 2 when the groundbreaking legislation was enacted. The pair have grown up together, with the ADA in the supporting role as Brooke made her way through the K-12 system and matriculated into the world of higher education.

“It’s made so much of what I do possible,” said the University of North Alabama sophomore. “I don’t think the life I lead would have happened without it. I go to school, I work, I drive a car. Could I have had these opportunities without the ADA? I don’t know, but probably not.”

This year, the Americans with Disabilities Act celebrates its 20th year.

In that time, there are those, such as Brooke, who say it has been the key to an independent life. Others, however, say much work remains to be done to guarantee that all Americans with disabilities are ensured equality in everyday life as well as in the workplace.

“It’s come a long way, but it still has a long way to go,” said Kathy Martinez, assistant secretary in the Office of Disability Employment Policy in Washington, D.C., who was born blind. “Look at the face of society. You can see that the ADA has changed a lot of how we do business with regard to access to buildings and pathways. One example is curb cuts in a street. Many of those weren’t added until after 1990, and now everyone from those with visual impairments to mothers with strollers to roller-bladers to delivery men with carts use them.”

The workplace, however, poses a significant challenge to the ADA, Martinez said.

“We have a long way to go,” she said. “One big barrier remains fear and attitude and misperceptions about people with disabilities. For hundreds of thousands of years, the perception is that people with disabilities aren’t capable or productive. To undo that mindset is going to take a lot longer than 20 years.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced 93,277 workplace discrimination charges were filed in 2009, the second highest level on record. Monetary relief obtained for victims totaled more than $376 million.

The data also show that bias charges in private sector jobs, which include those filed against state and local governments, alleging discrimination based on disability, religion and/or national origin hit record highs.

Helping to shift these stereotypes about those with disabilities are people like Brooke, Martinez said.

“She has the luxury of taking the ADA for granted,” Martinez said. “Like the women’s movement, it broke a lot of ground.”

Brooke can’t hide her disability. She’s willing to answer questions about it when – and if – people ask.

“You hear people snickering sometimes after I walk past,” she said. “It’s like my mom said, though. We all have our bag of rocks; some people are just better at hiding them than others.”

Brooke’s mom, Jill Lawson Weckwarth, has fought many of her daughter’s battles, especially in the K-12 system.

“No one wanted to take the extra time with her. It was an inconvenience,” Weckwarth said. “I had to press forward and make sure she was getting the lesson the same as the other kids. Overall, we’ve been lucky because she’s had teachers who have helped champion her through the process.”

When it was time for college, Jill Weckwarth said, she had to let her daughter take up the fight.

“Brooke has always wanted to be just like everyone,” she said. “Her theory is that she doesn’t have a disability, that she doesn’t want to be labeled. She doesn’t realize what kind of person she is and how strong she is. She’s tough, maybe even a little too tough at times.”

Brooke started her college career at the University of Montevallo. The cobblestoned terrain proved too difficult to navigate, however. She left after a single semester and transferred to Calhoun Community College in Decatur. Last fall, Brooke made her third and final move, this time to UNA.

“When I saw the geography at UNA, of course I had pause,” Jill Weckwarth said of the hilly campus replete with uneven sidewalks and flights of stairs. “I told her if she fell to just tuck and roll.”

Getting around UNA has proven fairly easy, but Brooke concedes she has tripped and fallen a few times. Between 2002 and 2005, the campus underwent a major renovation to make it more pedestrian friendly.

“If I don’t watch what I’m doing, even if for a second, I might trip over an inch of sidewalk sticking up,” Brooke said. “To get up stairs without a handrail, I’ll have to shift my body weight so I don’t fall.”

Cerebral palsy has affected her ability to walk, but it hasn’t inhibited her intellect. At UNA, she’s studying to become an accountant or work in the computer industry.

Brooke gets help at UNA through the Office of Disability Services.

Mary Bowers, the director, coordinates with Brooke’s teachers and helps arrange tests, but Brooke had to make the first move.

“Estimates are as much as 10 percent of our population has some kind of disability,” Bowers said. “We see around 100, which is just more than 1 percent, so we know that many aren’t

self-identifying.”

UNA has about 7,000 full-time students. Within her office, Bowers said, she sees the gamut of difficulties, from physical to psychiatric to learning.

“What happens is that some, such as those with ADD, want to make a clean break when they come to UNA,” she said. “They’ve carried this label with them throughout high school, so that when they come here, they can leave it behind. Unfortunately, they begin to have trouble in their second semester or during their sophomore year, and then they seek out our help.”

As a public university, UNA is federally mandated to meet the needs of the students who have identified themselves with the Office of Disability Services. This could mean installing automatic doors for those in wheelchairs or providing closed-circuit televisions for the visually impaired.

With an annual budget of $92,681, this becomes a difficult task, Bowers said, especially when a single braille textbook can cost as much as $25,000.

Money becomes a problem outside the university setting as well.

Tandy Crosswhite, planning director in Muscle Shoals, said small businesses often have the most difficulty upgrading their facilities to meet ADA standards.

“Most of the problems I run into are with small churches,” he said. “They’ll rent a building. I go over and tell them it has to be handicapped accessible. They tell me they can’t afford to do it so they will go somewhere else. Most of the time, they’ll move into the county because there’s no one there to enforce it.”

Without money to hire an inspector for Colbert and Lauderdale counties, commissioners say the situation for the disabled isn’t likely to change any time soon.

“My sympathies are with the disabled, but I don’t feel like we have the resources in the private sector to bring every single building in Colbert County up to ADA code,” said Roger Creekmore, Colbert County Commission chairman.

“For us to try to enforce that law is utterly ridiculous.”

In 2004, Tuscumbia was sued by an individual who uses a wheelchair to add curb cuts to its public sidewalks. Since then, the city has gone through the process of adding the curb cuts as well as other improvements, Mayor Bill Shoemaker said.

“People with disabilities need to have an opportunity to be able to walk without having obstacles in their way,” he said. “We picked up the cost on this project, but we had to work it out over more than one fiscal year, as it was in the five-figure range.”

Tuscumbia is also home to Ivy Green, Helen Keller’s birthplace.

Sue Pilkilton, museum director, said Keller, who lost her hearing and sight in childhood, started the work later picked up by the ADA.

Like the surrounding city, however, the historic building had to undergo a renovation to accommodate guests who share Keller’s disabilities.

“Being on the National Historic Registry, it was hard to do,” Pilkilton said. “But we’ve been able to redo the walks leading into the main house and allow visitors in wheelchairs to come into the birthplace cottage and go up to the water pump. The restrooms also have been updated.”

There is a disparity in the services available to people with disabilities in less urban areas, such as the Shoals, and those in larger metropolitan cities, according to Lynne Hanner, director of institutional advancement for the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind.

The organization was founded in 1858 and serves more than 20,000 Alabamians from birth through life with visual and hearing disabilities.

Hanner said the legislation will take on an entirely new meaning in the next 20 years as baby boomers age.

“They are, as a group, going to push and demand and be more aggressive about seeing these codes enacted and enforced,” Hanner said. “They’re going to want it done yesterday.”