We can get more evidence. We did it once to get the ADA passed. We can do it again. Why are NOD -- and the National Council on Disability and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, for that matter -- not using their resources to gather and organize the evidence of disability discrimination in such a way as to silence the ADA opposition? Even AARP gathers stories on discrimination. Why don't we?

I do not believe we gain much information by asking people with severe disabilities whether they believe the ADA has improved their lives. Likewise, we gain little by research that examines the attitudes of employers or other entities covered by the ADA. Research into attitudes and opinions about the ADA suggests the research question is, "do people like the ADA or not?"I do not care if they like it or not. What is needed is research that tracks what ADA does in terms of actual behaviors such as requests for accommodation and barrier removal. That way we can consider how disability discrimination actually functions and what, if any, changes need to be made to overcome those behaviors.

It is obvious that the redress process through the EEOC and the Dept. of Justice is ineffective. But in order to devise a successful mechanism for redress, or to propose changes to the law, we need a cross-disability, shared expression of how disability discrimination under the ADA actually functions.

The refusal to accommodate is a subtle and varied process, but it is not endlessly complex. I believe we all have experienced it. Many of my request experiences as a person who is blind are very likely exactly the same as the experiences of people with other disabilities. We need to communicate these to the nation, to the nation's leaders, and even more, we need to share this among ourselves.

Anita Hill defined sexual harassment by citing precise behaviors. Granted, Clarence Thomas got appointed to the Supreme Court anyway, but the national television exposure empowered women everywhere with concrete examples that helped them to describe and resist gender discrimination.

In the disability community we continue to cite -- and focus on -- barriers that emphasize our inability to function in the created disabling environment. But that should no longer be our focus -- the ADA is the law of the land, and the ADA says we have a right to have barriers to access removed. The issue for those of us facing barriers is the way the law is circumscribed and ignored. What happens when you request accommodation? Or, are you being intimidated into not making any requests? If we describe this, and expose this, we can defeat it. Some people think there is no way to objectively assess the ADA; they insist it all has to be on a case-by-case basis, but I strongly disagree. My research indicates that there are commonly experienced types of disability discrimination . I believe these offer the most important assessment of the ADA.

Further research needs to be conducted into whether people with disabilities request accommodation or barrier removal under the ADA; to what extent they request accommodation; and what responses they receive to their requests. We also need to find out whether, when accommodation is received, it is effective or not.

The survey questions I suggest are: (1) Have you ever requested an accommodation you believed was covered by the ADA? (2) What did you request? and (3) From whom? (A brief description of the entity will suggest whether it was covered by the ADA.) (4) For how many different situations did you request accommodation? (in the last year or in the past 14 years, or for some other time frame) (5) What was the response to your request? (6) Did you receive what you requested or a substitute? (7) Was what you received effective for you? (8) Did the people to whom you made the request seem willing to provide the accommodation? (Or, was the request process difficult or easy for you to go through?) Take Ragged Edge's own quick online survey -- click here.

These questions can be directed to everyone with a disability, or to people with a certain type of readily understood disability and easy to understand accommodation need. I recently completed research on problems that people who are blind encountered with employment-related requests for print-access accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, for example.

What I am calling for is not research about the law, or about the techniques or costs of providing accommodation. It is not about the opinions or actions of lawyers, courts or legislators, or rehabilitation professionals, and it is not about what employers, or other covered entities, or the media thinks. It is about people with severe impairments who face disabilities -- that is, barriers in the environment that should be removed.

We seem to have little or no success trying to follow the path of proving illegal behaviors. We seem to have little or no success trying to follow the path of studying the best techniques for accommodation. Instead of beating our heads against those walls that lawyers and technicians built for us, let us remember where this journey began.

The ADA came into being because of our stories of barriers that could be readily removed. I believe assessing the implementation of the ADA and deciding what sorts of changes or other actions need to be taken, if any, will and should come from our stories of the barriers we face in using the law. I do not know what the changes and the solutions might be. For that, we can use the experts. But I do know that we people with disabilities must first tell our stories.

Posted July 26, 2004.

John Jay Frank Ph.D. is a research scientist with the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision at Mississippi State University.

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