[Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities. Interview with Zona Roberts, Ed Roberts' mother.]
“Disability is not a medical problem. The problem is the built environment and the barriers that society puts up. It’s not about the inability to move or to breathe without a ventilator; it’s about the inability to get into a classroom.”
-Joseph Shapiro, award-winning journalist and NPR news investigations correspondent
In 1962, Ed Roberts was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley. However, after finding out about Roberts' disability, the university was reluctant to admit him because his 800-pound iron lung could not fit in a dormitory room.
Unfortunately, this reluctance was not exclusive to Berkeley; it extended to countless universities across the United States, which often denied admission to students with disabilities—and did so legally.
"We've tried cripples before and it didn't work."
-Anonymous official at the University of California, Berkeley, regarding Roberts' residence at the university
After Roberts challenged university administration in court, he was admitted to Berkeley, making him the first severely disabled student to attend the institution. Within three years, a dozen students with disabilities had joined Roberts at Berkeley to pursue higher education—and together, they called themselves The Rolling Quads.
[Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities. Interview with Zona Roberts, Ed Roberts' mother.]
Despite these victories, Berkeley required that students with disabilities reside in the campus hospital, illustrating the lack of accessibility for students with disabilities on campus. The Rolling Quads sought to change that.