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Durbin Comments on Americans with Disabilities Act Anniversary
Monday was the 20-year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act becoming law.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was a member of the House of Representatives when the ADA was passed, and was signed into law on this date in 1990 by the first President Bush. He recalls that though there was opposition, the passage of the act was bipartisan. It passed the House 377-28, and passed the Senate 91-6.

What's still needed, Durbin says, is more employment opportunities for the disabled.

In a speech on the subject today, Durbin recalled the place of the University of Illinois in creating access for wheelchair users. The U. of I. had the first wheelchair accessible fixed-route bus system, and the first accessible university residence halls, as early as the 1950s.

However, it wasn't done out of benevolence. The university adopted accessibility kicking and screaming, and under pressure from disabled students, many of them veterans, who had attended a wheelchair accessible satellite campus at an old VA hospital in Galesburg. Few of the disabled students who applied were admitted in those early years.

(Illinois Radio Network)
07 26 10 by Newsroom
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