Batavia’s consumer-run human service and advocacy agency for people with disabilities, Independent Living of the Genesee Region (ILGR) held an ADA Picnic to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The picnic was open to the general public and offered free food, fun, and games at Kiwanis Park on West Main street road in Batavia.
At the time the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed in 1990, a patchwork of laws existed to protect the civil rights of citizens with disabilities only in certain situations, such as access to airports, fairness in housing, and non-discrimination by federally funded institutions.
The ADA broadly bars disability-based discrimination in employment, telecommunications, by state and local governments, in places of public accommodation such as stores, restaurants, banks, theaters, hotels, and stadia, among other protections. This has made it the single most important body of law for a particular population, the disability community, since the protections for racial and ethnic minorities and women of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which inspired some of the ADA’s provisions.