Something exciting is happening in Rochester. New York State is building a 40-acre state park at High Falls in the heart of downtown — centered around the iconic Genesee River gorge and waterfall. The project’s vision describes the park as “an oasis of natural beauty” that “connects communities and visitors” with the area’s ecological, cultural, and industrial history. The planning process is organized around five core themes: Ecology, Equity, Programming, Connectivity, and Heritage

We want to focus on one of those themes. Equity is not just a theme of the park — it is a stated goal. The project’s own goals and objectives page commits the park to “Express equity in access, engagement, design, and cultural interpretation.” The equity objectives include ensuring access for all residents, improving accessibility and implementing universal design principles, and coordinating with the City of Rochester on equitable development policies. The project’s discovery research acknowledges that Rochester has an above-average number of Disabled residents and highlights the importance of inclusive design features.

As Disabled Rochesterians and neighbors to the new state park, we took that commitment seriously. The Center for Disability Rights has been actively engaged in the planning process, attending advisory meetings and providing detailed feedback to the design team. And we’ve been pushing — hard — on a distinction that may seem subtle but is actually transformative: the difference between compliance and equity.

What we are asking for is not something beyond the project’s vision. It is a logical extension of the equity goal the project has already articulated. If the park is committed to expressing equity in access, engagement, design, and cultural interpretation, then the question is not whether Disabled people are included — it is how deeply and meaningfully that inclusion is realized.

DEI Is a Powerful Framework — But It Has Often Left Disabled People Behind

Before we get to the specifics of the park, let’s talk about the broader framework. Diversity, equity, and inclusion — DEI — is one of the most important tools our society has developed for addressing systemic inequality. At its best, DEI is a commitment to examining who benefits from the way systems are designed, who is excluded, and what structural changes are needed to create genuine fairness. It challenges organizations to move beyond surface-level representation and grapple with the deeper question of whether their policies, spaces, and culture actually work for everyone.

DEI has driven meaningful progress for communities that have been historically marginalized. It has changed hiring practices, reshaped how public institutions engage with the communities they serve, and created frameworks for accountability that did not exist a generation ago. When powerful political voices attack DEI, they are attacking the principle that institutions have a responsibility to examine and address structural inequality. That principle matters, and it is worth defending.
But we also have to be honest about where DEI has fallen short. And one of the most consistent failures of DEI work is the exclusion of Disabled people.

When organizations list the communities they uplift through DEI efforts, Disability is frequently absent or added as an afterthought. When presentations celebrate a city’s diversity, like the City of Rochester, Disabled people are often invisible. When equity frameworks guide public investments, the specific barriers Disabled people face are addressed through a compliance checklist rather than a genuine equity analysis. That is if they are even addressed. The High Falls project’s own community engagement feedback includes entries like “ADA” and “universal design and inclusivity” as standalone items — shorthand that often signals a compliance mindset rather than an equity conversation.

This matters because Disabled people are – ourselves – marginalized and are part of every other marginalized community. We are Black, Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and elders. When DEI fails to include Disability, it fails members of every community it claims to support. And when a project like High Falls State Park commits to equity as a core theme — with specific goals around equitable access, engagement, and cultural interpretation — Disabled people have a right to expect that commitment to be fulfilled with the same depth and intentionality applied to every other community.

The development of High Falls State Park is a chance to show what genuine DEI looks like when it fully includes Disability. And Rochester, with its deep but largely unrecognized connection to the disability rights movement, is the right place to do that.

Compliance vs. Equity: Two Very Different Parks

To understand why this distinction matters, imagine two versions of the same park.

The Compliance Park

A compliance-driven park checks the boxes required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are curb cuts at the entrances and a paved accessible route. The restroom is accessible. There’s a wheelchair-accessible picnic table — probably one, set apart from the others. The playground has a transfer platform so a wheelchair user can theoretically get onto the equipment. There might be a Braille sign at the entrance.

Everything here is organized around minimum thresholds. Can a Disabled person get in and technically use the space? Yes, in the narrowest sense. The park is legally defensible.

Even a “universal design” approach often just applies these minimums more consistently — wider paths, lever-style fountains, smoother surfaces. It’s better, but it still starts from the same question: What do we have to do so Disabled people can access what we’ve already designed for non-disabled people?

The fundamental power relationship hasn’t shifted. Non-disabled experience is the default. Disabled access is the accommodation.

The Equity Park

An equity-driven park starts from a completely different question: What would it take for Disabled people to experience this park with the same richness, autonomy, pleasure, and social belonging as everyone else?

That reframe changes everything.

Sensory richness, not just sensory access. The compliance park puts up a Braille sign. The equity park is designed so that a Blind person has a rich experience — textured path edges that guide wayfinding through touch, gardens designed around fragrance and sound, tactile sculpture and auditory signage that describe the surroundings, tactile maps that allow independent exploration. A Deaf visitor doesn’t just get an interpreter at a scheduled event; the park’s seating arrangements, sightlines, and lighting are designed so that signed conversation is as easy and comfortable as spoken conversation.

Autonomy, not just access. The compliance park gives you a paved path. But does a wheelchair user get to choose to go off the beaten path? Can they explore, wander, be spontaneous? Or are they confined to the one accessible route while everyone else gets the whole park?

Social integration, not separate-but-equal. The compliance playground has a transfer platform — which in practice means a Disabled child watches from the sidelines while their friends climb. An equity playground designs play structures so Disabled and non-disabled children play together in the same spaces. The accessible picnic table isn’t the one lonely table off by the accessible path — all gathering spaces accommodate everyone naturally.

Temporal equity. Is the park equally usable in all seasons? Are accessible paths maintained in winter, or does snow removal leave the park unusable for months? Does evening lighting support someone who lip-reads?

Governance equity. Who decides? The compliance park was designed by a non-disabled architect who consulted a checklist. The equity park has Disabled people on the design committee — not as token consultants asked to review a finished plan, but as decision-makers shaping the vision from the start.

In Part 2, we’ll look at specific features that could be missed if High Falls is designed through a compliance lens rather than an equity lens — and talk about why Rochester’s Disability history deserves a place in this park.

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The Center for Disability Rights is working to ensure the full integration, independence, and civil rights of Disabled people.