Kincart: An Inaccessible Government Means Nothing
Kevin Cody
A view of the Utah State Capitol Building in Salt Lake City on Saturday, August 21, 2021. (Photo by Kevin Cody | The Daily Utah Chronicle)
By Sydney Kincart, Print Chief, Opinion Writer
August 25, 2021
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This August, a biennial report from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights highlighted the U.S. Capitol’s inaccessibility. It identified 1,996 barriers within the Capitol complex, excluding the Hart Senate Office Building. The report also deemed eight barriers as “whole facility” barriers because they appear throughout the entire complex. Unfortunately, not many people have discussed this astounding report. The current rhetoric and action around accessible government buildings must be improved. Democracy and accessibility go hand in hand, and we can’t let accessibility issues remain invisible.
The Americans with Disabilities Act passed 31 years ago. Before 1990, discrimination on the basis of disability was technically legal. The U.S. House reconstructed the speaker’s rostrum in 2008 because of US Congressman Jim Langevin. As a wheelchair user, he had experienced the inaccessibility of the Capitol since his days as a Senate intern in 1984. The inaccessibility of government buildings affected him throughout the duration of [...]