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Americans with Disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed to address and eliminate the major forms of discrimination faced daily by people with disabilities, and represents the most important civil rights legislation passed since the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

How is disability defined by law? In order to receive the protections of the ADA, a person must satisfy at least one of three conditions:

• Have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, such as hearing, seeing, walking, breathing or speaking;
• Have a record of a substantially limiting impairment to a major life activity, such as a person who has recovered from cancer or an individual previously categorized as having a learning disability; or
• Be misperceived as having a substantially limiting impairment, which in reality is not substantial, such as controlled high blood pressure; or does not cause any substantial limitations, such as a facial scar or physical disfigurement.

Employment

The employment provisions of the ADA prohibit discrimination in all job-related practices and activities. The ADA requires that all employment decisions be made without reference to the existence or consequence of disability.

Employers are required to provide “reasonable accommodations” for workers with disabilities when such accommodations would not impose any “undue hardship” such as significant difficulty or expense to the overall business operation. The term “reasonable accommodation” may include such things as:

• Making the workspace physically accessible
• Acquisition or modification of equipment or devices
• Job restructuring, or modified work schedules
• Appropriate adjustment or modifications of training materials or policies
• Provision of qualified readers or interpreters

If an individual does not request an accommodation, an employer is not obligated to provide one.

Architectural and Communication Barriers

Inaccessibility affects the entire community, not only people with disabilities, but also other populations, such as pregnant women and elderly people. Title III of the ADA specifies that discrimination includes a failure to remove architectural or communication barriers in existing facilities if such removal is readily achievable (i.e., accomplishable without much difficulty or expense). Examples include adjustments such as adding grab bars in restrooms, lowering public telephones or adding Braille markings on elevator control buttons.

Discrimination and Other Barriers

An attitudinal barrier is defined as a way of thinking or feeling that results in behavior that limits the potential of people with disabilities to function independently. The vast majority of the American public is neither positive nor negative toward people with disabilities. Most people just prefer not to think about disability at all. In order to overcome these attitudinal barriers, it is important that people educate themselves about the facts of disability and participate in community programs that include all people.

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