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Fighting to Fit In: Physical Access
One of the most persistent problems for physically Disabled students seeking education is the lack of wheelchair accessibility. There are barriers to building entrances and interior spaces like classrooms, bathrooms, libraries, cafeterias, and gyms. In a place like New York City, many buildings and transportation systems are old and were built without wheelchairs or other mobility aids in mind. Schools still operate in those buildings today, and students with disabilities are still denied access to an equal education due to architectural barriers.
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Even after compulsory school laws came into effect, many children with physical disabilities did not go to school because of their disability, and were given home instruction instead. The deadly poliovirus was discovered in Europe in 1908, and by the 1920s, polio outbreaks in the US were a regular occurrence. By the early 1950s, polio disabled 15,000 people a year in the US and hundreds of thousands around the world.1
Some children disabled by polio became disability rights activists as adults. After receiving home instruction for several years, Judy Heumann attended a special education class in 1956 with other physically disabled children.2 Her mother struggled to find a school to accept her, but she eventually made it to high school and college, hoping to become a teacher.
Congress passed the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968, and required government agencies who received federal money to make any buildings they designed, built, or altered wheelchair accessible. Another important federal law was Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which barred discrimination against Disabled people by government agencies receiving federal dollars. Since most schools and colleges receive federal money, these laws applied—but only when the school system renovated or altered buildings. The problem is that many existing school buildings remained inaccessible.
By 1970, Judy Heumann had graduated from college and was seeking a teaching position. The New York City Board of Education denied her application because she failed a physical exam. She filed the first federal civil rights lawsuit charging disability discrimination against the NYC Board of Education.3 That same year, student activists at Brooklyn College established S.O.F.E.D.U.P. (Students Organized for Every Disability United for Progress). Their organization had some success in improving their campus, demanding access to all majors and all classrooms. They also called attention to broader patterns of discrimination against people with various disabilities.
Physical access to schools is still a struggle today. As of March 2023, about 25% of school buildings are fully accessible and others are partially accessible.4 Parent advocates won a campaign to improve accessibility in schools, getting the city to budget $750 million for renovations in 2018.5 Dayniah Manderson, a teacher in the Bronx, won a lawsuit against the Department of Education in 2021 for failing to make the school’s bathroom wheelchair accessible. She won her suit after 13 years of teaching at the school.[^6]
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Linton Weeks, “Defeating Polio, The Disease That Paralyzed America,” NPR, April 10, 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/10/398515228/defeating-the-disease-that-paralyzed-america. ↩︎
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Andrew H. Malcolm, “Woman in Wheel Chair Sues to Become Teacher,” The New York Times, May 27, 1970, sec. Archives, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/27/archives/woman-in-wheel-chair-sues-to-become-teacher.html; Judith Heumann, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist (Boston: Beacon Press, 2020), 19-20. ↩︎
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NYC Department of Education, “Building Accessibility,” accessed July 28, 2023, https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/space-and-facilities/building-accessibility. ↩︎
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Advocates for Children - Oversight of 5-year Budget, accessed July 28, 2023, https://www.advocatesforchildren.org/sites/default/files/on_page/testimony_capital_plan_121818.pdf?pt=1. ↩︎
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Disability Rights Advocates, “Manderson v. New York City Department of Education,” accessed July 28, 2023, https://dralegal.org/case/manderson-v-new-york-city-department-of-education/. ↩︎
