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Analyzing the Americans with Disabilities Act

Lennard Davis

Watch the Morgan Lecture live online

In the first event of its spring semester theme, “Disability,” The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues will host a lecture by author and professor of disability and human development Lennard J. Davis focusing on the history of one of the most significant civil-rights acts of the 20th century, its effects and work that remains to be done. The Morgan Lecture, “The Americans with Disabilities Act: Civil Rights Then, Now and in the Future,” will be held Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. in the Stern Center Great Room and will be available via live stream for Dickinsonians around the world.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990, legally prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications and governmental activities. The ADA cemented the concept that the exclusion of people with disabilities was a form of discrimination. Though the passage of this act was a monumental step forward, 25 years later many persons with disabilities in the United States still face forms of discrimination in the workplace and lack the appropriate accommodations to be integrated members of society.

Davis is a distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences and teaches English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he also is a professor of disability and human development in the School of Applied Health Sciences. He is director of Project Biocultures, a think tank devoted to issues around the intersection of culture, medicine, disability, biotechnology and the biosphere. Davis grew up in a Deaf family where he spoke sign language. His involvement with the organization Children of Deaf Adults (CODA) shifted his writing focus from novels to disability studies. He is the author of Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest U.S. Minority Its Rights. This book will be available for sale and signing following the lecture.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, and the Morgan Lecture Fund and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund and the Department of History. The Morgan Lectureship was endowed by the Board of Trustees in 1992, in appreciation of the service of James Henry Morgan of the class of 1878, professor of Greek, dean and president of Dickinson. The lectureship brings to campus a scholar in residence to meet informally with individuals and class groups and to deliver the Morgan Lecture on topics in the social sciences and humanities.

This event is also part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty series.

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Published February 9, 2016

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