Read on Twitter
On this #ADA30, I want to talk about a place where the ADA gets so twisted it’s almost as though it doesn’t exist: the parking lot.
I have a disability (RA, severe, not going away) that qualifies me for a permanent disabled parking placard. A few years ago I moved to a new state and needed a placard issued by the new state. My new dr refused to sign the paperwork bc ‘that’s only for people with oxygen tanks.’
She eventually signed. But it took a while. Being a law professor helped me convince her. Who knows what she said to others.
I parked my car in a disabled spot in my work parking lot. I’d purchased a parking permit for the lot. The decal for the lot was affixed to my windshield. My state-issued disabled parking permit was also displayed. Still, I got a ticket.
I work for the state university. But the state university also requires people with state-issued parking permits to obtain another permit from the university parking office.
To do so, you had to trek to the parking office in person. Show the papers (I’m not kidding) underlying your state-issued placard to someone in that office. Obtain another, yellow decal that you had to affix to your wieldshield and keep there.
The yellow decal had the letters ‘DIS’ on it. I kid you not. I refused.
I managed to get the university to change some of its policy.
You no longer have to go in person to the parking office. Like every other kind of permit, disabled permits can now be purchased online.
For a time, disabled people had to buy the most expensive parking lot permits bc that’s where the disabled spots are. That is no more.
But the show me your disability papers and yellow sticker? They wouldn’t budge. I could not convince the university that this was disparate treatment. Why were they so stubborn? They wanted to make sure no one is taking advantage of the state-issued placard.
[no comment]
For a semester in law school I parked in a disabled spot on the ground floor of our parking garage. I was petrified that a classmate would spot me doing so.
Someone eventually did. ‘You’re so lucky,’ she said.
One day the parking lot attendant accosted me and told me the spots were only for disabled people. He was angry.
So I stopped parking there. I parked on the streets around the law school for the next five semesters because I didn’t want to run into him.
People have yelled at me about using a disabled spot quite a few times—in a Target parking lot and even at a hospital.
I have internalized this so much that I only park in a disabled spot when I ‘really need it.’ But even even if I’m not in pain when I park, a shorter walk inside or back to the car really helps. I always really need it.
When I park in a disabled parking spot and someone talks to me after I get out of my car, I flinch. I’m worried I’m going to get yelled at.
So what’s the point? Just the existence of those disabled spots and ramps and curb cuts and automatic doors is not enough. Don’t get comfortable.
Equality is the goal. We’re not there yet, in the parking lot or anywhere else.
