Consider How You Can Be An Ally

As a professional in the disabilities field and an advocate for inclusion and belonging, I tend to scroll for news related to disabilities. Sometimes I discover happy news about businesses, governmental entities, and communities improving inclusion for people with disabilities. Occasionally I run into articles that would fall under the definition of inspiration porn—a term used for stories and images that objectify disabled people to make people without disabilities feel good about themselves.

Often, I come across situations that give me chills—and not in a good way.

A recent horrifying example is a court case in New Jersey. The mother of a teenager with autism is suing a movie theater after being kicked out of the theater with a police escort. Her teen son needs support using the restroom and no family restroom was available. So mom took him into the women’s restroom with her. None of the women in the restroom raised concern.

But when mother and son exited the restroom, the theater manager accosted them in the crowded lobby, yelled at them, ordered them off the property, and instructed the assistant manager to call the police. The police arrived and escorted the family from the property, citing the property owner’s right to remove someone from their property if they don’t want them there.

 Ouch.

I’m no lawyer, and I’ll be following this case to see how it turns out. But this situation feels like not only an enormous failure in compassion and inclusion, but a textbook violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

The ADA includes this definition of discrimination in privately-owned businesses: “a failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities, unless the entity can demonstrate that making such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations.”

This concept is commonly referred to as “reasonable accommodations.” People with disabilities have the right to full access to their communities, including using facilities that are otherwise open to the public. Failure to make those facilities available is illegal.

What isn’t illegal, but equally distressing, are the observers and enablers who witness and contribute to discrimination under the guise of following rules and the instructions of authority figures. Witnesses in the lobby could have intervened when mom and son were accosted. The assistant manager could have stood up to the general manager. The police could have pointed out the discriminatory nature of the ejection.

Having even one ally in that situation could have reduced the burden on the mom and the trauma experienced by the son.

Where are those situations in our own lives where we could be better allies? How can we intervene when we see discrimination? Often all it takes is one person to turn a situation around.

 Consider committing to being that one person.