Good morning everyone. I am president for the american percent your progress im honored to welcome all of you to todays event. As you know this is the 29th anniversary of the day of the ada was signed into law. This led part one landmark piece of legislation that millions of americans cannot be denied a job simply with a disability. It is also the reason they are guaranteed the same basic rights as every other person across the country from schools and shopping malls to Public Schools and restaurants. There is no question that over the past 29 years our nation has broken down many obstacles which used to confront those with disabilities but we still have a long path to travel that american with disabilities have fully achieved quality and justice. This moment one hour at five live below the poverty line and is too often the case and then from marginalized communities including women and people of color who continue to suffer the most. Recent events have a painful reminder the disabled community continues to face deep divisions based on issues of race and gender. Everyone in this room recognizes the time for disabled americans every background can come together for everybody within the Progressive Community because entering the white house has had a sweeping assault on disability rights. This administration has threatened regulation introduced by the department of education under obama to protect people of color and his allies in congress with the critical disregard. Here for the center of American Progress we understand opportunities is the intersection of nearly every issue recover from education to health care and criminal Justice Reform and the environment. Last year we were proud to have launched our initiative , the first dedicated disability project of any major thing taken the country. We are proud of everything our team has accomplished me look forward to the work they will do. That they were thrilled to release a new report for Economic Security for people love respond dash responsibility that every one had a fair shot to assign dignity. s and out to the keynote speaker at amazing leader toward advancing this exact mission claudia gorman. Vice president of assess ability but before assuming her current role she was sad spending seven years but also is a trailblazer of her own right in American History to graduate from law school and we are so grateful she could join us please give a warm round of applause. [applause] clerk. Good morning everyone. Happy 80th anniversary. It is truly an honor to be here with all of you. It is the Disability Justice institute. But i was here watching the program getting inaugurated on complicit. But now and then the amazing young lady. Your name preceded you. We could finally meet you. Congratulations but then the Educational Attainment and did not go beyond eighth grade. The society and the system that operated as designed without any interruption in that next test would surely be drastically different. It would not be the economically independent educated lawyer and advocates and then to include someone who has worked in Senior Leadership position in the nonprofit sector. In the federal government. Thats why i work at the white house in that so without those systems and of this would be possible today. I still shudder when i think about what my life would be like for me today. And those that are reserved for people like me to look at intersection of multiple marginalized patients so 1980 on another day, overnight. And then i needed to figure out my life and my worth and my destiny. Or so they thought. I spent my time twiddling my thumbs and doing housework but a hardworking single mom i could emigrate to new york where i could continue my education for the school for the death the death. But even there i was still forced to disrupt. They fit a social number that i happen to not fit. And i spoke about that topic and i still talk about that what it feels like to be an outsider within. So the example mentioned today is i have just too many to mention i hated. I absolutely hated. Theres nothing wrong with working at mcdonalds but i knew i was regulated to the worst shift and the most foul disgusting duties like having to watch all the pile of dirty dishes after breakfast and always clean the bathroom. I have to think mcdonalds. So when they came up with that notion yes i will definitely settle for this. This is cool. I know that i was destined for more. For better. They were very leery of her leaving me for four year college. She looked at me and said i was capable but i was not worthy of that investment from my mom that maybe i may have minor learning disability. But my mom and i were recently moved to the country. But we just continue to press forward. My desire to go to howard university. We keep that fire with us for that support that we need and deserve. And i graduated with honors by the way. There are so many stories that i could share today served to and lower expectations. Would eat them with this dash with even that system. Its harmful and then there are others that affect fund the unfitness on finish business of the ada. Things do organizations that i see my former office of obama federal complete program but with the Obama Administration we believe in those who happen to her great profit from taxpayer dollars. That means hiring , accommodating and promoting people with abilities. Including adding 7 percent ethical but to wage the range bill. Then raise the minimum wage also play 2025 the first time in the house of the senate, now we have a vote to get rid of that archaic requirement to allow players to pay people the minimum wage so, parade for that. But this is progress people at disability deserve an equal wage for their work. So now with ada and that as a grownup and with this joint society and with these accommodations and then to never even know any different i meet young and deaf people reminding them once upon a time you didnt have an iphone in your pocket when you could text people. I had to call my mom and a pay phone to come get me. [laughter] now young people 29 years dont know about these basic things and take them for granted. Because it is not the norm. They dont know any different. But when they decide to enter the market, too many of them find that door is so close. We must continue to push the door open and leave it open. Our youth and young adults will go as their hard work but the strength of our work ethic and but also i am reminded of doctor Martin Luther king. He understood the simple truth that social justice is in the dna that brought us here. That is social justice. So without economic opportunit opportunity, think about that. Because the laws and regulations and bills hand policies are just words on a piece of paper. And too many with inter communities to this way led but when they try to get a foot in the door and then for Financial Security that can come from having a good job. And lets be clear and also fixing all of those other problems like healthcare sing, transportation but the point is whether or not they had which means they cannot get to work but we cannot just focus on an employment of population. So it is not simply about disability agenda. But paid family leave. Child care. Become parents, caregivers, as well as us but in closing yes, yes, but harvest cannot always happen in a Straight Line but federal discourse but then with that rhetoric that we must not considering the others. But after all talk about disability issues, republican parents and children with disabilities share the same hope, dream, and aspirations as parents without disabilities. The all of their children to grow up and be capable and selfreliant and a working member of society. And that their children will grow up and will be recognized for their inherent selfworth and values. I believe our collective commitment is what will continue to transform the ada promise and it will become a reality. I believe it and in fact i know it because look around. I see all of you here and it is overwhelming. Failure, giving up, is not an option for us. Too many lives depend on us and depend on our work so thank you all, thank you cat, rebecca, thank you for all you do, all that you see happening in this room even, thank you. Lead on. Thank you. Good morning. Happy ada. I want to start off, i have the pleasure of being director of the sub Disability Justice initiative for the center for American Progress and first i want to start by thanking near and claudia for an amazing kickoff. Both of your support for this work, this team has been so meaningful. Since its inception, we couldnt do it without folks like you who rally around us daily and remind us of the important work weve done at work we have ahead. I would love to introduce our amazing panel, that comes with a variety of types of experience in the employment and economic ability spaces relates to the experience of americans with disability starting with crosby cromwell, the founder since day one. This is week one of flexibility which is a search firm targeting seniorlevel folks with disabilities in communities of color which is phenomenal, the first of its kind, focused on the senior sector which a number of us are thrilled to see so congratulations, crosby. Karen williams, this is her first event, shes managing director of the poverty to Prosperity Team here, the center for American Progress. Carrie wade is director of programs at the American Association of people with disabilities and the ever so dapper mister neil carter, who is cofounder of new consulting. Lets be honest. We know this is been kind of an exciting week. There have been a number of challenges that if we are really honest these have been things festering in our community for a long time, we heard claudia address it. We have really far to go. Any framing of an economic narrative around the rights of people with disabilities and what true Economic Empowerment would look like is neglectful if it does not account for the center of excellence whether it is citizens abilities initiatives around disclosure or the intersection of dealing with a blizzard and racism, homophobia, xena phobia. How do you see this come up . We know this is an you but how have you seen this come up in your own career path or the work you have been dealing with . And you cant press finger to your toes and say not it. I would say i am a clear woman. I was born with cerebral palsy. Im also 30 so im at the start of ada generation. It has always been a fact of my life. I think actually my experience in the workplace and the world at large has largely been one of privilege and that has to do with whiteness and economic status. I come from a middleclass family. Everyone collegeeducated, now a question of where you go to college but how prestigious will university be. I am sort of i come from an interesting standpoint in terms of i didnt really have to think about my disability as a factor of my life experience. Certainly in an employment context until i was maybe in my mid20s, it was always framed as a sort of personal thing that i had to navigate and it was sort of you just have to find a different way to do things that you will be able to do the same things and achieve the same things as all your peers which is a great framework but also let me off of confronting these other intersections in any real way especially when it came to my employment status. I think i have gotten a very skewed perception from my personal experience of what employment and Economic Security and empowerment is like for disabled people because my dominant experience was one of privilege but i will say as somebody who runs youth based initiatives, i will say that one of the things that comes up on these various intersections is you can have for example participants of color in your program and love to keep people talk about that, they love to throw out the data of what percentage of your places people, what percentage lgbt q and what percentage is both and that sort of thing but not really have your programming acknowledge or reflect that in any way so you are still putting marginalized folks into a system designed for and by privileged white people and then you are surprised when that doesnt go well. When it is not an affirming experience, when it doesnt provide for everyone what it is supposed to provide and that is the thing i come facetoface with in my work with young people, how do i, particularly as a white person in leadership help to restructure these programs to make sure they are actually delivering on their promise and not just two people coming from already privileged backgrounds but making sure we are addressing and fully acknowledging the existence of oppression within the programming. Much like carrie coming from a place of privilege, good intentions and understanding how damaging saying i dont see color, i dont see disability, we are all just people how that erases identity and understanding the actualization and recognization of identity is as important to the movement as the legislation component, the employment component so we walk into these spaces as ourselves, recognizing all these spaces. I will comment a little bit on this as a black woman who lived with a nonparent disability and been socialized in environments that are predominantly white and that is true of both education and employment. I have confronted both external ableis in and racism and internal able is about is him, often times that has taken the form of knowing that in order to be successful, in order to understand and be able to convey that i belong somewhere, i have to work twice as hard and have to work twice as long and i also know that if i make an error, and i have not requested bit of time, i may not be afforded the same level of grace as would someone who has more privilege or someone who is presumed to belong to that place in the perks. I also as a woman with a nonapparent disability, as a woman living with also read of colitis and arthritis, know that if i work twice as long or twice as hard that is a surefire way to land in the er or gw around the corner so as i have grappled with that throughout my career i can say quite frankly i dont yet have the answers. I do know that sometimes my act of resistance is to show up as my authentic self and understand that as i have grown in my career and have a seat at leadership tables i have a responsibility and the ability to educate others on how damaging ableis him can be, how damaging internalized racism can be in the ways in which implicit bias shows up in the structures we create. The reason we need the economic agenda we are released today, we are still actively producing institutions and policies that reinforce all of those iss and makes it much harder for us to really really truly realize justice. For the Disability Community and all communities of marginalized people. I will just add particularly being a were being an entrepreneur for most of my life and being in the capacity to hire other folks is something i never would have been able to think that i would be able to operate in a space of. Talking about that internalized ableis him and racism, a lot of that also comes with who is in her circle and recognizing some of those folks be them abled or disabled, may disrupt or cause harm to your actual growth as pertains to your lived experience so for me i can honestly say that for probably most of my career prior to getting into politics and public policy, it was skewed and different and it took a clear recognition for me to understand that i need to take for myself and not be concerned with what my family thinks, not be concerned with what my friends think in terms of where it should operate and what lane i should operate in, because for the most part i can only speak for myself but in my line of work i didnt have a direct mentor that could speak to my experience and help guide my path so i kind of had to create my own path and blaze my own trail individually and create space for others. How did the issues we have this continual debate in the Disability Community and im seeing it as it plays out ahead of 2020 which is people i like when is this person coming out with a disability agenda and at the same time we hear our community continually fight for inclusion, we want to be included alongside everybody else and one thing i thought was interesting in this report was how it was laid out, how these issues fit into the broader agenda. They are not short bus issues are segregated disability issues. The brilliant author and folks that worked on this report really fought to think about how this fits in the context of the broader Agenda Setting narrative right now and so how do you think that works . How do you think we engage on this conversation around creating a more integrated agenda versus creating a more silo disability agenda . I think for me i think what it comes down to is having more conversations like this one, having more folks who want to be here rather than folks who are required to be here. I know with respect that is for many of the folks in the room right now. What it comes down to is making sure the spaces in the conversation and especially the agendas have disabled folks at the table and make sure that table is accessible before you invite disabled people to that. A lot of times that table is not. It is a matter of creating the agenda, creating the policy, to generate this policy because it is something that hasnt been seen in the past, something the folks in that community talked about, it has never been on paper and i thank her again for taking the lead on that but also understanding that her individual report she put together with a great team is not the only report that needs to be done. We have 2 it has to be consistent, cant just be one report, great, thats it, policy set, we are done. It has to be consistent and has to be an ongoing conversation. And in order for the kind of landscape to change, the entire landscape of the accessibility space has to also adapt as well. I think of an economic agenda for people with disabilities as an economic agenda for individuals all across the country. Claudia talked about some of what is in this roadmap we released today for people with disabilities so i wont go through all the points. I do strongly encourage everyone to take a look at the report and the recommendations that are named there but i do want to highlight one example and that is the one of paid leave and sick days. I grew up in a family of black women so i tend to be a storyteller at heart so forgive me that. But i can tell you a story as me, as an only child a couple years ago when my father had the first of many falls, living in los angeles, it is because of paid sick leave, because of paid leave and Flexible Work that i was able to travel back and forth between dc and california for a couple years helping to care for him. When my mother had a problem a couple years ago, it is because of paid leave, the ability to take leave that i was able to go and be with her and care for her in that time, that is not good policy because i am a person with a disability, it is good policy because there are americans all across the country confronting decisions every day about taking care of their work life and their family life. I think you will see echoes of that in every single recommendation we have here in terms of a joint economic agenda for this country. It was written and produced in partnership with a lot of the teams here who recognize that if we are truly going to advance a Progressive Agenda it is inclusive of people with disabilities but it is good policy for all workers and all individuals who live in this country. Anybody else want to jump in on this . One thing i have taken to say whatever im invited to talk about this sort of thing, people will generally invite me as the disability representative whatever that means which is already a bizarre thing to do, but i will always say to people there is no such thing as disability issues, the phrase disability issues is one of my least favorite because it gives us this excuse to sort of separate the community from everyone which is to your point and saying if we remove that framework, certain issues a disability issues and certain issues are not been recognize the truth is if you work in policy, if you work in programming, wherever you work you are working with disabled people already whether you know what are not and that is just a key paradigm shift i am hoping to see and it does come up often in my work with young people thomas of like a major to some of them, that is an obvious point, the disabled people are everywhere and disability issues are all issues and also shifting the conversation away from just inclusion, the point you were making about make sure the table is accessible when we get there but shifting away from simply including disabled people and disability issues and how do you empower us once we arrive and understanding some of that, closing that gap, making that change will require discomfort on the part of people who have historically been in leadership around these particular conversations but thats where we need to go and that is what is most important. The thing i would add is a community, we need to be careful of celebrating small wins like major victories, mentions are not enough anymore. It needs to be platforms and exactly what karen said it is about the inclusion across the board, whether that be wage and hour, child care, whether that be living whatever that is across the platform it is time to have inclusion and not separation and more than mentions. Leading off of that we are starting to see the Disability Community galvanized behind issues that you saw, a good example was the public charge fight earlier this year, we saw the Disability Community come out for the first time and say this issue, Immigration Rights are a disability cause or something we need to be talking about and getting behind. We know the data tells us the Disability Community and Lgbt Community are the most likely folks to use paid family leave to care for somebody other than direct biological relatives. We are seeing with this sort of following the ada and the birth of this movement around parents and families with disabilities, conversations around accessible childcare in a way weve never seen before and not just accessibility from the standpoint of what is a facility look like to be accessible for disabled children from the front end, what does a Child Care Center or provider need to do to be accessible for disabled parents. What do you think is behind this . Do you think the Disability Community was like we need to get on this . Do you think what was the impetus and do you think previous policies will stick around for folks to get there or was it more a sort of social agenda . It was probably a little bit of both. There was certainly a push from individuals who live in multiple intersection in the Disability Community to speak up about justice issues, to speak up about lgbt q ia issues as well and how they intersect and part of the problem and i dont want to use that phrasing but i will is that i think when we talk about policy in the past, policies currently were policies Going Forward, part of the problem is we arent addressing the intersections at the forefront. We are waiting to say we need this person at this many intersections to speak up before we address this issue. Or raising the wage. All of these issues need to be addressed at the intersection consistently and we cant wait, one individual speaks up we have to empower, we have to do a better job empowering that voice and also protecting that voice because coming with empowering also comes strolling and vitriol and anger and negative response and why are you talking about this, why are you sideloading, why are you separating, why cant we all talk about things at the same time. We cant talk about things at the same time because you wait until this person spoke and now youre trying to silence them by saying they arent doing enough or are just one voice, when that one voice is speaking through experience and automatically silencing them out of the gate doesnt given the opportunity to lift up and speak their truth. Lets go to carry. You are wrapping up the latest year of the American Association of people with Disabilities Internship Program and you work closely on the ground with the whole cohort of the latest generation of disabled leaders, dont want to call the next Generation Leaders are emerging leaders because theyve clearly already emerged, we are not tapping them on the floor for the wand and sending them home without support for where they move forward but with every generation comes different priorities. Coming out of gen x is where we are seeing things like the movement around civil rights of parents with disabilities or the conversations we saw the conversations around violence with disabilities, what are you seeing out of this next generation of disabled leaders as sort of what are they focusing on and also what is the preparations they need, that we need to be doing to support them, to make the next step, make the steps of the careers they really want to have in the lives they want to lead . Absolutely and have they ever emerge kick you having spent the last 9 weeks working with disco entrance, it has been incredible learning experience for me as a leader, an incredible teaching moment for the organization and that is what the Internship Program should have always done and it is coming close to reaching that ideal, that the people we are working closely with, actually being the people that drive our culture and things we are working on and im heartened to see this cohort of people is into that creating organizational change. I will say i have a skewed perception because these interns applied for an Internship Program in washington dc so theres a certain type of people that will find that interesting so this certainly isnt cutting across every young person who ever existed and every disabled young person who ever existed but i think the thing that sticks out to me about young folks i have been working with in recent years is to them they dont see the silo is making any sense, they dont see disability issues silo is making any sense, they see every issue applying to them as disabled people and wanting accessibility at the very least to be baked in from the very beginning as opposed to this grand achievement, which is what you are saying about small wins as grand achievements, that mindset is really at the forefront for a lot of these young folks so again, not thinking only about certain issues applying to the Disability Community but the other way around, we are everywhere, what are you doing for us . And in terms of employment it is interesting because a lot of them come here and they dont want anything to do with disability organizations or disability policies specifically, they are just excited to be here with other young disabled people to learn from each other but they want their Workplace Experience to be fully outside of whatever the Disability Community is and that is interesting. There is arguments to be made for the value of exposing people to disability policy in the community specifically and also an argument to be made for breaking that silo and getting us out into spaces where we have historically been underrepresented but we are still encountering with a lot of different places that we send interns and a lot of different organizations and companies and agencies in general that are interested in what they would call disability inclusive hiring. Sometimes in leadership there can be this idea that your hiring us because it is the right thing to do. Makes you feel good, not in an economically empowering way but a moral fiber way, that is why the value we are bringing to the workplace are things like loyalty and resilience and all these job skills. Im not your golden retriever, im your employee. My value to you is not that i will never leave you but im good at my job and because im good at my job and qualified i am eventually going to move on and you need to support that which you cant just be you brought me here because you knew i didnt have another option so i think that is a shift there has not been a lot of disposal there is exposure to disabled people, you see them bumping up against the thing where this persons coming in here and they are not giving them a cookie. Why arent you telling me what a good job i am doing . Getting away from the value of disabled people in the workplace being feelgood and actually give me a substantive job to do, may have to do with disability, it may not but seeing our value as more than the emotional boost we have historically given people. I want to turn it over to you, congratulations on the launch of flexibility this week, we are thrilled youre here with us. Historically we have seen firms focus on the supply side of frontline workers and entrylevel staff. What are your thoughts on how to deal with the steps as they are and keep disabled workers from it. A little more than a year ago at this point i was that a meeting for global employment for people with disabilities surrounded by incredibly smart people, incredibly connected people, corporate actors who had the bandwidth and breadth to build programs that could move the needle in the meeting opens up with an example of the Walgreens Distribution Center program. That was ten years ago. That was an important stake in the ground for a company to say we care about disability, it had moments but hearing that as an example of employment a year ago made me angry and it made me angry that if it was as important as we said it was, it didnt create momentum. Made me angry was being used 10 years later. It made me angry that we were sitting in the meeting eating our Chicken Salad and apparently accepting it. At the root of anger was hope and idealism, that we can change this, we can make a difference and out of that idea, meeting these perfect members for flexibly fixable he was born so we were a new kind of social impact firm, we are a for profit benefit corporation, things like ben and jerrys and we are stepping into this space because there is a marketplace for individuals with disabilities. There is a talent resource. There is money to be made in money to be had by realizing who we are as a community. It is not just executive search. It is entrylevel, midlevel, because the community is not a homogenous set. It is all those things. Its not the companies are comfortable, if they say they are serious, if they have a partner, we know we have to do this differently and we are here to have uncommon collaboration, uncommon conversations with we are here to be a partner who knows this change can be made and we have to do it in a different way and we are here to say companies, corporations, businesses need a safe space to try and fail and if they have that with us they will have that space knowing at the end the results of what we need and what we want. Im excited for a year from now to hear all that you have done in year one. Neil, you are an entrepreneur in this space, what are the things youve had to take into consideration as you build your business that you think would have been different had you joined some big boring conglomerate somewhere . Being in the industry that i am in i recognize that funny enough, i havent been approached by Membership Organizations or leadership organizations looking to transition me out. For those who dont know im in political consulting. Im really disability owned disability space and because we are the only one, we kind of have blazed a trail, right . While we have been blazing the trail and setting our own path, folks and who did you knock over, who did you push out of the way, who did you what organizations, to your question did you say no to before you decided to get into this space . I didnt decide to get into the space, people candidates and campaigns and policy organizations recognized there needed to be an organization like mine, a firm like mine and i took that as a sign to create the firm that i did. It wasnt i also tried to make sure probably early when i started i probably had taken advantage of more than i am now because i probably didnt recognize or have the wherewithal to understand the difference of folks gladhanding their way into taking pictures and putting me on panels and putting me in spaces whether they be inclusive spaces are noninclusive spaces to speak and be the black disabled guyana mostly white space was my industry is mostly a white male space. I know that when i see that i have to do good, i have to play two roles simultaneously. In doing so i have to make sure while i am also blazing the trail, i am creating space, making space for others in a capacity to higher, which i dont think there are firms like mine can say that explicitly without putting caveats when they are on a panel like this. They will usually say things like we have to consider, we have so many considerations before we even bring you on and that is why a lot of Membership Organizations in my industry kind of look to me now all of a sudden 12 years later and say now, lets bring you on and bring you part of the membership and have you speak at our panel and now you dont have to pay to be on it but previously you did. Or you didnt have to be part of the Membership Organization or i am sorry you did have to pay previously but now you dont because now we see you are black and disabled and i have always been here. Nothing changed. I recognize i am creating space while setting new trends and for me it is a matter of being available. For conversations like this one, for individuals that want to actively do the work and i think that is part of the problem, a lot of folks in our space kind of segment ourselves out of conversations by pitting different parts of our communities against each other rather than saying that we are in all inclusive space and bringing everyone to that inclusive table we talk about. What neil said. What are your thoughts on structural policy changes that could really make an impact . I already talked about a few. Paid leave, sick days, really paying attention to what is the availability of leave for workers, particularly not only for their families, their bloodlines as we say but also for their chosen family. I want to go back and highlight something claudia mentioned because it has to be stated yet again. Last week was a historic occasion, it was because the chamber actually voted to raise the minimum wage, that is a big deal but in doing so they also voted to eliminate 14 c, that provision of the fair labor standards act that allows us to continue to pay people with disabilities pennies on the hour. I cannot state enough how important that is, by allowing the system to persist, by codifying in statute that system we are saying that it is okay to have a permanent underclass of people with disabilities, we are contributing to the attitude barriers and the physical barriers that prevent us from truly seeing justice. When i think of some of the structural barriers we need to begin to teardown, those are two that come to mind. There are many more. That is why i point you to the economic agenda that we released today because this fight, in a perfect, ideal world, we will come together again and it will be a big deal because we will be in one year celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ada and we will be able to point to progress toward some of these recommendations. We will be able to point to an increase in public drive and public will to adopt these provisions not just because they are good for people with disabilities but because they are good for individuals across the country. Regardless of where you are and who you are, be it race, gender, sexuality, disability. I get very animated about these things as you know but those are a couple things i would highlight. Lets say, this is my last question. Lets say you could go back in time to that really hot, nasty muggy day, july 26, 1990, where you remind yourself of the 450th time that our Founding Fathers built this Nations Capital on a swamp and they are getting ready to sign the ada, Justin Darden and congressman major owens all surrounding president George Hw Bush as he signs the bill into law or further back to when the republication act was signed in section 504 when it was codified. Knowing what you all know now are there things that you would have included or elaborated on to ensure that we were not at this. 29 years later or 36 years later or 46 years later with the rehab act, to think about we still havent fixed that thing other than sub minimum wage, that would be a key piece. I am going to age myself but under that administration i can remember that administration vividly and i can remember when the ada was signed and if i take myself back i would say this administration and the subsequent act that was signed at the time did not have the peace or the people in this room right now in the folks who were not in this room watching live that are advocating. It didnt have a level of checks and balances with it at the time, it was an act that was passed and pictures were taken similar to other reports that year and it is not that the passage at the time was not taken seriously but at the time if you looked at what the disability leadership, disability advocacy looked like back then versus what it looks like now you would say 29 years later going to 30 years next year, now is when we need to readjust but also recognize disability space as a whole has changed, grown, adapted. Back then it was mostly too pale to mail. Now it is not. So the folks now at the table, folks going to the table look vastly different than the folks from 29 years ago and because we need we set multiple intersections, we need to make sure those multiple intersections are represented at this new table. When we talk about going back, i dont like going back because the Current Administration campaigned on taking the country back and to a certain extent they did and we are still dealing with that and there are previous administrations prior to that one that rolled back certain things for the Disability Community that can be addressed in another panel. But as far as Going Forward and not looking back we have to make sure that when we are bringing other people to the table there is a consistent accountability to what the accessibility table looks like because again it didnt look like it did 29 years ago. Anybody else . My answer could appear to be a little fluffy or soft, there is real work, not fluffy and soft but you wish then and now, a real pairing of the hearts and minds campaign, real money for storytelling, when it is on our tvs and you open up who or youtube, when you walk into schools, that we are telling the story of disability and intersection alley of the world we live in, in a way that is changing hearts, minds and attitudes and that has to be paired with legislation because storytelling is where we will get people to understand. I dont know that this answers your question, thinking retrospectively about the ada but something i have been grappling with recently is to what extent we as a community are still driven by fear particularly as it relates to the statute, fear that if we go back and start to fight for more, if we really go back and start to talk about and advocate for policy as if the ada is the floor as opposed to an aspiration then we might lose what we have already gained. That is the urge to have conversations about what the ada has been for us and what it still needs to be. I think keeps us from really having true True Conversations and Movement Towards action around the intersections of what it has not done for all people with disabilities. We are afraid to peel back those layers and to explore how it might have been amazing for really advancing the physical infrastructure for this country but it has not yet done what we need it to do you to universally design a country where all individuals with disabilities can be successful. And then i would question what does success actually mean, but that can wait for the qa day. I will leave right there. I think that you all said it well. The only thing i would say the combination of what you all have said but the one specific thing that has always irked me, getting a little more granular is the historic conventions, how that is used against a lot of students on University Campuses for buildings that are historic, they got grandfathered in and you dont have to create Accessible College experiences for people. If we are looking at a specific thing, that largely it is an ideological shift, not just resting on the laurels of the ada is the gold standard, congratulations, we can go home but you are seeing it is the floor, not the ceiling. Lasting i would add before we go to qa day, i want to recommend someone in the room im thrilled is here, doctor jordan, the first deaf president of galleon university and seeing the activism of our young disabled leaders of color, and over this last month took me back to the days of the fight by the a d a to have their leadership represent themselves and it is the same fight we are seeing reenacted today, we have a right to choose leadership that represent our value, our community, that stands with us rather than continually trying to divide us. It is an interesting reflection on where we have been and continue to go in the leadership of our movements has always been defined by the passionate intelligence of young people and where they continue to push our community to listen to its better angels as it were. Before we go to q and i wanted to take a moment to recognize the importance of that and highlight the importance of frankly that leadership, that space and that time that we are still seeing reflected in the leadership of disabled folks of color today. Do we have questions, for accessibility purposes im going to ask that you say your name and where you are from. My name is diego. I work for an Organization Called together international. I am excited to see a number of people in the panel. Entrepreneurship is a way to equalize employment, specifically for people with disabilities because we are entrepreneurial by default, it is the way we live our lives, how you get dressed, how you drive, how you communicate. So im curious what your thoughts are on sort of entrepreneurship, Workforce Development strategy or the mechanism to sort of move the needle forward on the unemployment of disabled people. Want to ask an entrepreneur in week one . As long as it is yes and what is needed is access to capital we have to make sure theres access to capital so that these are sustainable growing businesses. We have to make sure the debbie certification matters that is taken seriously by companies and that they are reporting on that so yes 100 it is one avenue, we need to support it, grow it, develop it and make sure at the same time those workforce opportunities if that is what you so choose are growing and helping us as well. I will just add, keep your hands up if you have questions but in terms of Workforce Development, to balance what crosby said it is a matter of addressing not just as i spoke to earlier, not just creating space but also not just making sure the capital is there but also creating opportunity. And making sure those opportunities remain available and are consistent. I talked a lot about consistency today. Opportunities, make sure they arent disability specific opportunities as well in terms of employment because that is part of the issue as well. It is about filling quotas for the disability, disabled person rather than saying i am going to fill this position because this person is qualified for this position so it is a matter of making sure the position is there and not making sure, making sure there are multiple positions there and also making sure those multiple positions are not disability specific. I would put on a bit of a labor had Workforce Development strategy and say it is clearly demonstrated in research that entrepreneurship is a sure fire pathway to employment for people with disabilities. It is something we need to continue to drive forward, recognizing it takes quite a bit of social capital at times for individuals to find success as they launch their own businesses so we need to be careful not to amplify the examples that really rested in the privilege you carry with you because of, say, your family and your Community Good connections. The university of pennsylvania. My question is around a the day. We are 29 and going into our 30th year and this is a very i forget the word, partisan time. How do you deal with, the a the a, signed by president bush and lots of republicans how you going into this environment where you talk about why should the ada still be around next year, 10 years from now, 50 years from now, whatever it is i worry about that. I will just say in an age where we are in contention, and thank you for your question. We shouldnt be afraid to have these conversations. The problem is the fear is so stoked within spaces in general and communities in general that we are afraid to have those continued conversations and because of that fear, the fear has been arrested in us and we have lived with that fear and to be honest that fear was prior to who was occupying the white house right now for certain folks including myself. So while that fear is rested in the i also recognize that in order to progress forward and make sure ada is still a part of a conversation going into our 30th year in our 29th, we have to make sure these conversations are consistently happening. We cant just rest on our laurels and say it is our anniversary of the a da, happy a d a and walk away and expect a conversation to not happen. Whether it is Disability Awareness or not, we have to consistently have these conversations and not be afraid to have them. The only thing i would add is having tough conversations with our friends, the ada was passed in a bipartisan under bipartisan leadership and it is important to remember last years hr 620, the lead sponsors of it were people who called themselves progressive and it would have titled decimated title iii. It is important in having a holistic take on news with us, how do we have these conversations around the shared dignity of people with disabilities, how do we have this conversation around what folks with disabilities are capable of and not just have it with folks we expect to always be with us because sometimes those folks arent with us and how do we have those conversations with people who would have traditionally aligned with our values and our perspectives but instead frame disabled folks as moneymakers and i think we have one last question. My name is angie with csn and i am on the council for people in disabilities. What i say is i stand up for young people with disabilities, the over 50 crowd for employment sake, what is being done. It is an important question and it is all sides of the spectrum. We need all of us, all in this room to put it to work, that is not age you out, there are chapters and phases and stages and that is it. Need to work regardless of the age. The importance, a lot of the rhetoric, the association for Community Living, ive never seen a bigger fight than when we are were writing our Mission Statement and the ministration for Community Living brought together the administration on aging and the fight about the use of the word empower versus enable where the aging community really liked the word enable because they didnt need to be empowered because they had power and the Disability Community didnt like the word enable. They liked empower because enable implies lack of ability. And i think, i would say this about our loving elders in the Disability Community, because of changes in healthcare we are seeing folks age with disability and people age into disability and it is not a conversation we have had. I had a conversation with my great uncle and asked him what are your conferences like . This will sound like a bad joke and it is my family that his response is it is a really dead crowd and he said they get smaller and smaller every year and for him it is hard to find a doctor who treats polio in the United States because people dont go to school to learn to treat people with polio anymore and he is in his 70s and has worked for a large part of his life but when his disability got too significantly retired. And it really is that challenge around the economic conversation too, how this is something for another time but for folks who cant work, how do we Start Talking about asset limits which is another piece of the report and hit on those other recommendations. I wanted to thank you all for joining us. I want to make one last exciting announcement, joining our team here at the Disability Justice initiative as nonresidential senior fellow, violet thompson, the founder of ramp your voice, creator of disability too light who will be working with us on reproductive justice, disability work that we are very excited about, she will be working remotely for us and we are thrilled to have her join our team and i want to take a moment to thank our events team for pulling this together. You all amaze me every time. The number of times i send you Text Messages it is like already taken care of, why are you texting me. Is somebody in the disability space, work that is highly qualified and phenomenal attachment, it is truly a gift. I want to thank our arts and Editorial Team for all their work and labor in pulling this report together. They are amazing. And last but certainly not least i want to take a moment to thank our interpreters and cart providers and everybody who works to pull together. I have to tell you when i came here, they were clear in telling me to be a leader in this space not just in terms of the content that we produce the policy we rollout but also set the bar in terms of accessibility for all our events here in house and in public space and our events team does it every time so thank you all for joining us today. [applause]. And this weekend former bushed a managers cybersecurity adviser Richard Clark is on after words to talk about how to make cyberspace less dangerous. And advice are columnist e. Gene carroll discussed Sexual Assault including an alleged assault by donald trump in the mid 1990s. Also this weekend well bring you a few author programs from freedom fest, the annual libertarian conference in las vegas. Youll hear about gun control, space and former congressman bob barr be on president ial impeachment and freedom fest founder on the politics of author jack london. Check your cable guide for more information. Now we kick off the weekend with journalist andrew blum on how weather reports are created. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everybody, im bradley graham, the coowner of politics and prose along with my wife, lissa miss ca teen, and welcome. Thank you so much for coming and congratulations on braving the weather and getting here. What a great day to have a book about the weather, isnt it . And if youve been following the weather and who doesnt these days you will have noticed at least t