Civil Rights Policy protects all Americans free from reprisal or discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital or familial status, political beliefs, parental status, receipt of public assistance, or protected genetic information.
“Twenty years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush with a clear and comprehensive national mandate to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities.”1 The Americans with Disabilities Act of is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009. “The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal.”2
The ADA mandates that individuals with disabilities shall have access to jobs, public accommodations, government services, public transportation, telecommunications in short, participation in, and full access to, all aspects of society. The law is designed to be flexible in the way which businesses can comply with ADA requirements and further recognizes that certain accommodations may be too costly or burdensome for a particular business. The ADA was designed to ensure that individuals with disabilities are afforded an equal opportunity to participate in all aspects of society.
Contents of ADA
ADA Title I - Employment
The ADA states that a covered entity shall not discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability. This applies to job application procedures, hiring, advancement and discharge of employees, workers' compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. Covered entity can refer to an employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee, and is generally an employer engaged in interstate commerce.
“Discrimination may include, among other things, limiting or classifying a job applicant or employee in an adverse way, denying employment opportunities to people who truly qualify, or not making reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of disabled employees, not advancing employees with disabilities in the business, and/or not providing needed accommodations in training.”3
Business must provide reasonable accommodations to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities in all aspects of employment. Possible changes may include restructuring jobs, altering the layout of workstations, or modifying equipment. Employment aspects may include the application process, hiring, wages, benefits, and all other aspects of employment. Medical examinations are highly regulated.
ADA Title II - Public Entities and public transportation
“Title II prohibits disability discrimination by all public entities at the local (i.e. school district, municipal, city, county) and state level. Access includes physical access described in the ADA Standards for Accessible Design and programmatic access that might be obstructed by discriminatory policies or procedures of the entity.”4
Public transportation authorities may not discriminate against people with disabilities in the provision of their services. They must comply with requirements for accessibility in newly purchased vehicles, make good faith efforts to purchase or lease accessible used buses, remanufacture buses in an accessible manner.
Public services, which include state and local government instrumentalities, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, and other commuter authorities, cannot deny services to people with disabilities or participation in programs or activities which are available to people without disabilities. In addition, public transportation systems, such as public transit buses, must be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
ADA Title III - Public Accommodations and Commercial Facilities
“Under Title III, no individual may be discriminated against on the basis of disability with regards to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, or operates a place of public accommodation.”5
Title III covers businesses and nonprofit service providers that are public accommodations, privately operated transportation, and commercial facilities. Public accommodations must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific requirements related to architectural standards for new and altered buildings; reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures; effective communication with people with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities; and other access requirements. Additionally, public accommodations must remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, given the public accommodation's resources.
Commercial facilities, such as factories and warehouses, must comply with the “ADA's architectural standards”6 for new construction and alterations. All new construction and modifications must be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
ADA Title IV -- Telecommunications
Title IV of the ADA requires that all telecommunications companies in the U.S. take steps to ensure functionally equivalent services for consumers with disabilities, notably those who are deaf or hard of hearing and those with speech impairments. Telecommunications companies offering telephone service to the general public must have telephone relay service to individuals who use telecommunication devices for the deaf or similar devices. “The Title requires common carriers telephone companies to establish interstate and intrastate telecommunications relay services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. TRS enables callers with hearing and speech disabilities who use telecommunications devices for the deaf, which are also known as teletypewriters, and callers who use voice telephones to communicate with each other through a third party communications assistant.”7
ADA Title V -- Miscellaneous Provisions
“Title V clarifies that both States and Congress are covered by all provisions of the ADA. It also provides for recovery of legal fees for successful proceedings pursuant to the Act and establishes a mechanism for technical assistance along with specific instructions to many Federal agencies required to implement the Act.”8
Additionally, Title V includes a provision prohibiting either coercing or threatening or retaliating against the disabled or those attempting to aid people with disabilities in asserting their rights under the ADA. Individuals who exercise their rights under the ADA, or assist others in exercising their rights, are protected from retaliation. “The prohibition against retaliation or coercion applies broadly to any individual or entity that seeks to prevent an individual from exercising his or her rights or to retaliate against him or her for having exercised those rights.”9
Ten years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, this landmark federal law has proved a remarkable success, defying the gloom and doom predictions of many members of Congress that the law, designed to open up American society to its 54 million citizens with disabilities, would bankrupt the economy.
The ADA has profoundly changed how society views and accommodates its citizens with disabilities. The practice of designing products, buildings and public spaces and programs to be usable by the greatest number of people has helped create a society where curb cuts, ramps, lifts on buses, and other access designs are increasingly common. An accessible society is good for everyone, not just people with disabilities.
Curb cuts designed for wheelchair users are also used by people with baby carriages, delivery people, and people on skateboards and roller blades. With the Baby Boom generation poised to enter the population of seniors, the number of Americans needing access and universal design will grow enormously.
The ADA has created a more inclusive climate where companies, institutions, and organizations are reaching out far more often to people with disabilities. Colleges and universities, for example, now accommodate more people with disabilities than they did before ADA.
ENDNOTES
1. President Bush Signs ADA Changes into Law. HR.BLR.com. 2008-09-25.
2. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Pub.L. 101-336, 104 Stat. 327, enacted July 26, 1990, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 12101.
3. Bush, George H. W., Remarks of President George Bush at the Signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Available on-line.
4. See 42 U.S.C. § 12111–12117. Title 42 of the United States Code is the title of the United States Code dealing with public health, social welfare, and civil rights.
5. See 42 U.S.C. § 12131–12165. Title 42 of the United States Code is the title of the United States Code dealing with public health, social welfare, and civil rights.
6. ADA's architectural standards Basically all new construction commercial facilities and areas that are altered on added to are required to meet the requirements of the ADA. It applies to public accommodation so there for it excludes private dwelling units.
7. Section 255 and Section 251 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, require manufacturers of telecommunications equipment and providers of telecommunications services to ensure that such equipment and services are accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities, if readily achievable.
8. See 42 U.S.C. § 12201–12213. Title 42 of the United States Code is the title of the United States Code dealing with public health, social welfare, and civil rights.
9. The U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by Federal agencies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Acemoglu, Daron & Angrist, Joshua D. (2001). The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Journal of Political Economy, volume 109 (2001), pages 915–957.
2. Fielder, J. F. Mental Disabilities and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 2004.
3. Schall, Carol M. (Jun 1998). An Analysis of the Effect of the ADA on the Employment of Persons with Disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, v10 n3 p191-203.
4. Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003.
5. O’Brien, Ruth, ed. Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act. New York: Oxford, 2004.
WEBSITE LINKS
1. http://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm
2. http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=3&TopicID=110
3. http://www.workworld.org/wwwebhelp/americans_with_disabilities_act_ada_.htm
4. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Life-is-Better-for-Americans-With-Disabilities-on-20th-Anniversary-of-Bill-99313114.html
