These cards are totally bogus
Every morning I get a text message from my disabled grandmother’s nursing home telling me how many residents have died “COVID related deaths” since the pandemic began. As of Friday morning? Eighteen. Every night, I dread the possibility of waking the next morning to find the number has ticked even higher. Nationwide, more than 33,000 nursing home residents have been killed by COVID-19. Despite the promise of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, landmark civil rights legislation designed to guarantee the rights of disabled Americans, the United States has continually failed disabled people. Where were the ADA protections for those 33,000 nursing home residents? And our government isn’t even bothering to track, in any nationwide, systematic way, the number of disabled people dying in other institutional settings, like psychiatric facilities and group homes—where are their ADA protections?
Now nondisabled scammers want you to believe that the ADA “protects” them from having to wear a face mask in public. Don’t believe them.
An outfit calling itself the “Freedom to Breathe Agency” (both its Wix website and Facebook group have now been taken down) has been distributing a “Face Mask Exempt Card” designed to be presented to businesses. The card reads: “I am exempt from any ordinance requiring face mask usage in public. Wearing a face mask poses a mental and/or physical risk to me. Under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), I am not required to disclose my condition to you.” The card also features the seal of the U.S. Department of Justice and the threat “If found in violation of the ADA you could face steep penalties. Organizations and businesses can be fined up to $75,000 for your first violation and $150,000 for any subsequent violations.”
That might sound vaguely convincing if you aren’t familiar with the ADA. But it’s all nonsense—the Department of Justice has called the cards fraudulent. And it’s dangerous nonsense at that.
First, when we’re considering face masks, the ADA applies only to people who are actually disabled. It is absolutely true that there are people who cannot wear a face mask because they have a disability. And while there is no sort of master list of “ADA-approved” reasons for not wearing a mask, to give just a few examples, they may include people with COPD, asthma, cystic fibrosis, PTSD, and autism. These are the people the ADA is designed to protect—people who are actually disabled. The ADA does not apply to ableds lying about disability in order to spread a disease that disproportionately kills members of marginalized groups—e.g., the Black, Latinx, indigenous, poor, and, yes, disability communities.
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