National Center for Disability and Journalism
Destiny Dash, one of millions of American with disabilities, had trouble finding a job, despite protections afforded by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“I don’t think this job is for you.”
Six years later, the words still sting for Destiny Dash. The recent college graduate had been sitting with her mother in the lobby of a potential employer’s company, reviewing materials for her upcoming interview.
The job, selling magazine subscriptions over the phone, had seemed easy enough. As a theater studies major at the University of Illinois, Dash had plenty of experience memorizing and delivering lines, and she was rehearsing the agency’s scripts with her mother that morning as she waited for the interview to begin.
It was hardly an ideal job for Dash, but she was growing increasingly anxious for employment and the sense of independence it might finally afford her. Born with spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy, she has used a wheelchair most of her life. But as badly as she wanted a job – and a place to live on her own – she was having trouble finding something suitable.
“A job search is tough for any student fresh out of college,” Dash said. “But it’s like 20 times scarier, 20 times tougher, for someone like me than for an able-bodied person.”
That morning, when her interviewer emerged from her office to start the interview, Dash could tell from her face that something had already gone wrong.
Continue reading →
