It's hard to feel celebratory on the 35th anniversary of the ADA when we've made so little progress. With Trump back in office, is the ADA doomed forever?
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I was 8 years old when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law. I didn’t yet understand legislation, or what “civil rights” meant. But I already knew there were places I couldn’t go — restaurants with steps and no ramp, bathrooms too narrow for my wheelchair. I understood, instinctively, that I was excluded. And when the ADA passed in July 1990, I was told everything would change.
Thirty-five years later, I’m still waiting.
The ADA is hailed as a historic civil rights milestone. For the first time, it formally recognized disabled people as a protected class, banned discrimination, and mandated reasonable accommodations in public life. It reshaped the built environment—adding curb cuts, closed captioning, ramps — and created a legal vocabulary to describe exclusion.
But the ADA was limited from the start. Enforcement depends on individuals filing lawsuits. Many private entities are exempt. Digital accessibility remains poorly regulated. And deeper systems — healthcare, housing, benefits — were never meaningfully addressed. As a disabled adult, I’ve had to fight to access basic services, find jobs, and navigate public life, all while watching the federal agencies tasked with protecting my rights slowly fall apart.
The Administrative State Is Under Attack — and So Are We
With Donald Trump back in the White House, what’s happening now isn’t incompetence — it’s a deliberate and strategic dismantling of the systems that protect civil rights. Project 2025, the authoritarian blueprint driving his administration, outlines a plan to centralize executive power, eliminate regulatory agencies, and reshape the federal government in service of a hard-right agenda.
For people with disabilities, this isn’t just abstract governance theory — it’s survival. We rely on what critics call the “administrative state” to enforce the ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and other laws that protect our rights.
Agencies like the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Education are responsible for everything from investigating discrimination to funding inclusive services. They are now under siege.
At the Department of Education, the threat goes beyond neglect. Project 2025 calls for eliminating the department entirely. That includes dismantling the Office of Special Education Programs, which monitors state compliance with IDEA and responds to systemic violations. The consequences would be devastating — millions of disabled students would lose all meaningful federal oversight.
And now, the Supreme Court has given its blessing, upholding Trump’s mass firings of Department of Education staff, including those overseeing civil rights enforcement. That ruling cleared the path for further agency destruction, signaling that the Court is not merely passive but actively complicit in the rollback of federal protections.
Meanwhile, safety net programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are also under attack. Trump’s team is reviving efforts to impose work requirements and block grant funding, which would shift responsibility to the states and slash support. These policies often target the most marginalized, including low-income disabled people who cannot meet rigid bureaucratic conditions.
Across the federal government, civil rights offices are being defunded or restructured to deprioritize enforcement. Guidance documents protecting access to gender-affirming care, long-term services, and home- and community-based supports are being quietly withdrawn.
And the courts are making it worse. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court overturned the long-standing Chevron deference doctrine, stripping agencies of their authority to interpret the very statutes they administer. That decision will make it dramatically harder for future administrations to issue or enforce disability-related regulations—and far easier for conservative judges to undo them.
This isn’t policy drift. It’s a targeted dismantling of the mechanisms that make civil rights real.
The Personal Stakes of Political Erasure
These attacks aren’t theoretical — they shape how I live every day.
I have arthrogryposis, a disability that affects my muscles and joints, limiting the use of my arms and legs. I use a power wheelchair and rely on state-funded personal care assistants. I need accessible housing, transportation, and healthcare—but none of these are guaranteed. If supports vanish, so does my independence.
And I’m not alone. Disabled people across the country are being forced into institutions, not because they want to live there, but because home-based care is underfunded and inaccessible. Parents are losing custody of disabled children because of the ableist child welfare system. Disabled people of color face higher rates of policing and incarceration, while disabled people are denied reproductive autonomy.
Yet, despite the enormity of what we’re facing, disabled people are routinely left out of national conversations about civil rights and democracy. We are rarely mentioned in coverage of Supreme Court decisions or policy rollbacks. Our lives — and our rights — are treated as peripheral.
We are not. We are the canary in the coal mine.
Beyond Commemoration: Toward Justice
So, what does it mean to mark the 35th anniversary of the ADA?
It means refusing to tell a story of uncomplicated progress. It means acknowledging that formal rights are meaningless without adequate infrastructure, effective enforcement, and a strong political will. And it means demanding more — because we deserve more.
We need a disability justice agenda that goes beyond lawsuits and ramps. We need real public investment in accessible infrastructure, healthcare, education, and long-term care. We need inclusive policy, not just representation. And we need to join forces with movements for racial, reproductive, economic, and climate justice, because our liberation is inextricably linked.
The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher
I’m proud of the activists who made the ADA possible, who crawled up the Capitol steps, sat in federal buildings, and refused to be erased. Their legacy made my life possible.
But they knew what many forget: Rights without power are hollow, and recognition without enforcement is just rhetoric.
Trump’s second term, and the courts enabling it, are not just rolling back regulations. They are unraveling the very premise that disabled people are entitled to exist on equal terms.
Thirty-five years after the ADA, we face a choice: Commemorate empty promises, or organize for real justice.
I choose the fight.