AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT

Muncie resident shares personal stories of discrimination, hoping to prevent prejudice against disabled individuals.

A little boy and his mother were in a grocery store when the boy spotted a woman in a wheelchair. He asked his mother, "What's wrong with that lady?" His mother said, "Shhh."

The little boy was confused, and so he asked again, "Well, what's the matter? Can I ask her?"

His mother responded, "NO, you may not ask her. Just pretend like she isn't there."

According to Christina Maury, Muncie resident and trainer of the Americans with Disabilities Act, this scene is typical of peoples' reactions to disabled individuals.

"It's not that people are mean or hurtful on purpose," Maury explained, "But when you are treated as if you don't exist, it's just as hurtful."

Battling discrimination

Maury was stricken with polio as a young child and still walks with a leg brace and crutches. While she hasn't been discriminated against often, many of her handicapped friends have. She desperately wants to stop it.

One of her discrimination experiences stands out in her memory. She was applying for her first teaching job in the school system that she had attended as a child.

"I had to go through three interviews, and the last one had the school's attorney in it.

"The big question that they asked me was: `How would I teach someone to skip?' What does that have to do with anything?

"(All I would do) is get a kid who knows how to skip and say, `Teach that kid how to skip.'

"But you see, they were trying to keep me out, not let me in. And these are the very people who knew me from kindergarten, who rewarded me time after time, who I baby-sat for. Now see, I was OK to baby-sit, but I was not OK to teach.

"And I didn't even realize I was discriminated against until years later. . . . I kept going back and going back and finally they gave me a job as a special ed teacher. I wasn't trained to be a special ed teacher. . . . And you know what they told me my job was, (it) was to keep (students) out of the hallway. They didn't expect me to be a professional," she said.

An ADA expert

After ADA was passed, Maury was selected to attend a training session in Washington, D.C., to learn more about the law and how to train others. Chosen from more than 1,000 national applicants, she was one of 80 trained in the law's intricacies.

"Basically, (the training) was grueling," she said. "It was 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week. It was so specific.

"We were trained by attorneys and professional trainers. They really gave us a lot of intensive training on the different areas of the ADA. I was never so tired and so exhilarated at the same time."

Passed in 1990 and in effect since 1992, ADA is the law designed to prevent discrimination against individuals with disabilities.

Maury's job _ to educate people about the act _ is something she feels strongly about.

"I want to change people's minds, not make them mad. Because the big picture is I want doors opened."

Since her training, she has been traveling throughout Indiana, teaching businesses and schools what they need to do to comply with the act.

Anyone can become disabled

What Maury wants people to understand is that the young people of today are the disabled people of the future. Someday, they will be the ones in wheelchairs and on crutches, and people will be treating them the way others are treated now.

"It's just like that little boy in the story. What happens when he grows up and he's a personnel manager, and someone in a wheelchair comes in looking for a job? He just wants to pretend like she's not there," she continued.

According to the 1990 U.S. census, 45 million Americans have one or more physical or mental disabilities. This number is growing as the population gets older.

"The disabled population's one of the worst for getting any movement going because as a whole they don't want to cause waves" and because their disabilities prevent their mobility, said Maury. "And that's one of the things I've been trying to do, to keep people moving and mobilize them a little bit and empower them.

"Last Christmas, I was walking through a department store, and there was a little boy and his grandparents. I was just minding my own business, and as I walked by them, the grandfather grabbed the little kid. He pulled him away and said, `Get out of her way _ she will hit you with one of (her crutches)'

"And it just got to me. That's why children are afraid of people with disabilities."

Maury also wants to inform people about ways to help the handicapped be self-sufficient. Under ADA, she thinks the disabled are being empowered.

"It's independence," she said. "(Disabled) people are sick and tired of being treated like poster children. We don't want people doing it for us; we want to be able to do it ourselves."