Yesterday, July 26, marked the 36th anniversary of the day President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. That is reason to celebrate. But we cannot afford to be complacent.

The ADA is more threatened right now than at any point in its 36-year history, not because Congress has changed the law, but because the Justice Department has stopped enforcing it.

Consider what has happened in just the past year and a half.

In March 2025, the Justice Department withdrew 11 pieces of ADA guidance from ADA.gov. That guidance helped businesses understand exactly what compliance required. Removing it doesn't change the law, but it makes compliance murkier and gives businesses less reason to get it right.

Then, this summer, the Department went further. In June, DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel issued a legal opinion arguing that the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act never actually required states to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated community setting appropriate, narrowing 25 years of settled understanding of the Supreme Court's landmark Olmstead decision.

And on July 20, just days before this anniversary, DOJ made it official: it published a notice in the Federal Register saying it will no longer rely on its own longstanding Olmstead guidance when enforcing the ADA, and that the guidance is "not enforceable."

Let's be clear about what Olmstead said: when a person with a disability wants to live and receive services in their community rather than in an institution, and that placement is appropriate, the ADA requires it. That has been the law. The Justice Department has just told the country it does not intend to enforce it.

Taken together, these actions send an unmistakable signal: this Administration is willing to return to the days when people with disabilities were isolated and segregated. It means the government will not enforce the basic tenets of a law that bipartisan leaders in Congress passed and a Republican president signed.

For me, this is personal. The ADA, and the enforcement of that law, meant my son John could get a public education alongside his brothers and friends. Because of that, he has started his own business, created jobs, and become an advocate for people with differing abilities in his own right.

The best way to celebrate the ADA's anniversary is to work to keep it alive. Write to your members of Congress. Ask them to require the Administration to enforce the law it already passed. This is an election year: ask every candidate where they stand.

In 1990, the nation came together, Democrats and Republicans alike, to say that people with disabilities deserved equal rights. The ADA was born from that conviction.

We cannot fail John, and we cannot fail the millions of people like him. On this 36th anniversary of the ADA, let's come together and renew our commitment to the law that changed millions of lives.