Middle school is tough for any child—let alone one with a disability. 

Mat McCollough, SPA/MPA ’04, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age two, was successful academically, but struggled socially. “I wasn’t cool, and I didn’t understand why the other kids would be mean to someone with a disability,” he says. 

As he grew older, however, McCollough worried less about fitting in and became more comfortable standing out. “I am an individual with a disability, but that is only one element of who I am. There is real strength and comfort in being different.”

Now, as director of the DC Office of Disability Rights (ODR) under Mayor Muriel Bowser, SPA/MPP ’00, McCollough is empowering other Washingtonians with disabilities to live with dignity, purpose, and self-determination. 

McCollough joined ODR in 2017 after seven years as executive director of the DC Developmental Disabilities Council. He leads a team of about a dozen people who investigate discrimination complaints, provide trainings for city agencies, conduct accessibility assessments, and ensure the District meets its obligations under the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, which mandates justice, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodations for the 42.5 million people with hearing, vision, cognitive, walking, self-care, or independent living challenges. 

“The purpose of the ADA is community integration,” says McCollough, who was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve two terms on the US Access Board, the independent federal agency that develops and maintains design criteria for built environments, transit vehicles, telecommunications equipment, and information technology to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities. 

“In the words of the great John Lewis, the ADA gives us permission to cause ‘good trouble’ by implementing the necessary changes to [help] our loved ones with disabilities lead life as they choose.” 

Disability Rights: A Timeline 

1867: San Francisco passes one of the country’s first ordinances deeming it illegal for “any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or deformed to expose [themselves] to public view.” It will be more than a century before Chicago repeals the last of these so-called “ugly laws.”
 
1887: Journalist Nellie Bly’s exposé, Ten Days in a Mad-House, chronicling her undercover stay at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on what is now New York’s Roosevelt Island, leads to more funding for and oversight of the city’s Department of Public Charities and Corrections. 
 
1907: Indiana is the first of 24 states to enact a eugenic sterilization law for “confirmed idiots, imbeciles, and rapists.” The law is ruled unconstitutional 20 years later. In 2001, Virginia becomes the first state to formally apologize for the involuntary sterilization of more than 8,000 people. 
 
1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was permanently paralyzed from the waist down in 1921 from polio, becomes the first person with a disability to be elected president—although he goes to great lengths to conceal it from the public.
 
1935: The League of the Physically Handicapped forms during the Great Depression to protest the Works Progress Administration’s unwillingness to hire those with disabilities. Following a sit-in at WPA headquarters, 1,500 people are given jobs.
 
The Social Security Act establishes permanent assistance for adults with disabilities. 
 
1955: Delaware notches another first, becoming the first state to mandate accessible parking spaces. 
 
1964: The landmark Civil Rights Act passes—but it does not include any provisions for people with disabilities. 
 
1968: The Architectural Barriers Act requires that buildings designed, built, altered, or leased with federal dollars be accessible—thus removing one of the most significant barriers to employment for people with disabilities. But other challenges remain: According to the most recent census, Americans with disabilities earn nearly 31 percent less than their peers.
 
1970: Judy Heumann sues the New York City Board of Education when her teaching license is denied because her wheelchair is a “fire hazard.” Heumann’s ensuing advocacy leads her to Washington, where she serves in the US Department of Education under President Bill Clinton. 
 
1971: Deaf actress Linda Bove makes her debut on Sesame Street, introducing millions of youngsters to American Sign Language. 
 
1975: The individual education plan (IEP) is introduced as part of what is now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Today, 15 percent of public school students have an IEP.
 
1977: Demonstrators gather outside government buildings across the US to demand regulations enforcing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits recipients of federal aid from discriminating against those with a disability. After the longest sit-in in American history—25 days—the regulations are approved.
 
1978: The “Gang of 19” abandon their wheelchairs at one of the busiest intersections in Denver and lie down in the street for 24 hours to protest the inaccessibility of the city’s bus system. Thanks to their efforts, the Mile High City becomes one of the first places in the country with accessible mass transit. 

1982: The National Organization on Disability successfully lobbies to include a statue of Roosevelt in his wheelchair at the DC memorial that bears his name. 
 
1990: Demonstrators anxiously awaiting the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act—which had stalled due to a debate around transportation—crawl up the steps of the Capitol to underscore the injustices of inaccessibility. Four months later, President George H.W. Bush signs into law the act, which prohibits discrimination in employment, education, and more.
 
Boston hosts the first-ever Disability Pride Day. Today, the national commemoration—which recognizes the 13.5 percent of Americans living with a disability—lasts the entire month of July. 
 
1993: Jim Sinclair, cofounder of Autism Network International, addresses parents who feel a sense of loss after their child’s diagnosis. “Grieve if you must for your own lost dreams. But don’t mourn for us. We are alive. We are real.” Today, 1 in 36 children is on the autism spectrum.
 
1999: In Olmstead v. L.C., the US Supreme Court rules that people with intellectual disabilities have the right to live in a community rather than being institutionalized. The decision paves the way for the expansion nine years later of the ADA to include “invisible” disabilities like mental illness. Today, nearly 40 percent of Americans report symptoms of anxiety or depression.
 
2004: After the Blackhawk helicopter she was piloting is shot down, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) becomes the first female double amputee from the Iraq War. Eight years later, she becomes the first woman with a disability elected to Congress.
 
2008: West Virginia becomes the first state to mandate that the history of the disability rights movement be taught in grades K–12.
 
2009: President Barack Obama signs Rosa’s Law—named for a 9-year-old girl with Down syndrome—which replaces the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability” in federal health, education, and labor policy.
 
2014: Following the deaths of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and Freddie Gray, the Ruderman Family Foundation publishes a white paper positing that 30–50 percent of all people killed by law enforcement are disabled.