How Widespread Are Low Expectations About Disabled People?

Or: Disabled People Are Everywhere and So Are Low Expectations About Them

Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash

Image Description: A person wearing a dark navy shirt with white writing that reads “Good Intentions Are Not Enough.”

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In the previous newsletter I wrote about a number of experiences in my life that disrupted the low expectations society holds about disabled people. But you may be wondering or thinking: “This is just one person, this isn’t a commonly prevalent issue for disabled people generally. You can not be serious!” (Okay, that last part may only be if you are, in fact, the tennis player John McEnroe.)

So sorry to burst any bubbles, but that would be incorrect. Unfortunately, low expectations of society and therefore widespread surprise at disabled aspirations (frequently resulting in discrimination, accessibility barriers, and other efforts to thwart disabled lives) is rampant. Honestly, it’s more common than not.

More Real-Life Examples

Previously I cited the history of Ed Roberts and the Rolling Quads at Berkeley University as an example from the 1970s of significantly disabled students who fought for the right and supports to go to college. Looking back a bit further, Judy Heumann was denied integrated grade school education in the 1950s when the school principal declared her a “fire risk” as a hopeful Kindergartner trying to go to school in her wheelchair. (I know, a small child in a wheelchair — super scary and flamey!) She subsequently received only a few hours a week of home schooling until she was mainstreamed in high school, yet she always felt a little inadequate in her education due to these educational gaps despite later graduating from college and earning an MS in Public Health.

These individuals fought for educational inclusion and eventually won after many delays and obstructive barriers established and enforced by society. Namely: everyone said disabled children or youth can’t learn or shouldn’t learn or (even worse) we don’t want them in the same classroom as the nondisabled. Because the low expectations were set, it became hardened beliefs that were difficult to change.

Legislating to Support Raised (or Merely Realistic) Expectations

Due to the efforts of advocates like these who overturned the low educational expectations held about people with disabilities, the first legislation mandating equal education and inclusion opportunities was passed in 1975. Eventually named the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the law mandated inclusion and accommodations where previously most children with disabilities never had opportunity to receive any education at all.

Incidentally, this law was of crucial importance in my childhood because it was the basis on which my parents demanded my own educational opportunities, which opened doors to a thriving life later on. Without education, who knows where I would be — just like any child! The kids just need to have opportunities to learn, people.

All of this is to say that low expectations about disabled people start from a young age (even before a disabled child is born!) and grow like a terrible virus into every aspect of life. If we don’t expect disabled children to learn, we certainly won’t expect them to work. This means we expect them to live in poverty, or worse: shut in institutions or prisons. If they are poor or institutionalized, we then cannot expect disabled people to need transportation, housing, or horrors: travel about the nation or even internationally! Gasp!

The Tyranny of Low Expectations

Low expectations snowball to bolster how we exclude disabled people and continue denying accommodations and accessibility improvements. If disabled people aren’t out and about living their lives, then we don’t have to build ramps, make accessible vehicles, provide accommodations and accessible services. It’s sort of like closing our eyes and ears to the reality of disabled lives while singing “la la la” loudly to ourselves and hoping that the disabled people right in front of us vanish like David Copperfield disappeared the Statue of Liberty. Spoiler alert! He didn’t — it was there all along! Just like disabled people — boop!

The tyranny of low expectations society holds for disabled people is a pox on us all. It harms disabled people in the here and now just trying to live their best lives like anyone else. It harms nondisabled people not to know and benefit from the brilliance of people with disabilities. As I’ve previously covered, society pays more across the board. It ultimately harms everyone, as we all will experience disability in our lifetimes and will need the accessibility, accommodations, and will need inclusion to adapt and continue living our best lives.

To return the focus back to educational limitations set by low expectations, this is why the continuing effort to defund (or never fully fund and therefore failure to fulfill the promise of the IDEA) and the current actions to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and, more specifically, offices that assist disabled students is both so distressing and depressing. It is willfully taking us back to the old ways of excluding disabled kids (and later adults) from education and beyond — from having opportunities to create good lives. These willfully ignorant and discriminatory activities will set back 15% of the population (at least) for 100 years or more.

So many disabled lives would be impossible without the opening of a school door. Even before this most recent nonsense began, it wasn’t easy being a disabled student and having to fight for every scrap of inclusion, accessibility, and necessary accommodations. But without even that, how can disabled people build their lives if we deny them the opportunity to learn through stripping expectations back down to zero?

My only hope is that people exist now who know better, who clawed their way through, and won’t relent to these reversals hell bent on reversing the minimum opportunities for disabled people now available.

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Welcome to the third year of Rolling With It! So glad you are hear and hope you find these essays thought-provoking. I love hearing from readers, so comments are warmly welcomed. If you enjoy this newsletter, please “like” it to let people know it is worth checking out. Thanks so much for your support!

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