Ableism shows up in laws, buildings, jobs and attitudes that treat disabled people as less capable or less valuable. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many US cities passed so-called ugly laws that banned visibly disabled people from appearing in public. Chicago did not repeal its version until 1974. Eugenics laws led to the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of disabled people.
Disability activists won major protections. The 1977 sit-in at a federal building in San Francisco forced the government to issue rules for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed on July 26, 1990, banned disability discrimination in jobs, public places and services. In Olmstead v. L.C. in 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that unnecessary segregation of disabled people in institutions is discrimination.
About 1 in 4 US adults has a disability, according to the CDC. Ableism still allows employers with special certificates to pay some disabled workers below the minimum wage. It also overlaps with racism: Black disabled people face higher rates of police violence, school discipline and poverty.