American With Disabilities Act Summary

Americans With Disabilities Act Of 1990

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits 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, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.

What Are Three Examples Of Disability Discrimination

5 Cases of Discrimination in the Workplace Because of a Disability

• The following are examples of disability discrimination: Example #1: Refusing to Hire A Candidate Because of His Disability.
• Example #2: Failing to Accommodate An Employees Disability.
• Example #3: Harassing Someone Who Has A Disability.
• Example #4: Requiring An Applicant to Take A Medical Exam Before A Job Offer Has Been Made.

Barden V The City Of Sacramento

Barden v. The City of Sacramento, filed in March 1999, claimed that the City of Sacramento failed to comply with the ADA when, while making public street improvements, it did not bring its sidewalks into compliance with the ADA. Certain issues were resolved in Federal Court. One issue, whether sidewalks were covered by the ADA, was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that sidewalks were a “program” under ADA and must be made accessible to persons with disabilities. The ruling was later appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case, letting stand the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court.

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How Can You Make Your Website Accessible

An understanding of the requirements set out by WCAG and how to implement them is the first step. You can view the WCAG 2.0 requirements in their

For those who are not up for the steep learning curve of what and how to implement the WCAG requirements, hiring an accessibility professional is the best choice. Get ADA works with businesses, schools and web agencies who have clients with accessibility needs.

• The process begins with an accessibility audit of your existing website to determine what errors are present.
• With an Accessibility Report in hand, your team or ours can then made the needed changes shown on the Accessibility Report. Post change, we again audit the areas initially found to have issues to confirm the needed changes are complete.
• Documents and PDFs must also be accessible. They are reviewed for their accessibility level. Remediation of the documents is performed.

The Ada In Workplaces

The ADA applies to businesses with 15 or more employees. Employers cant discriminate against workers because of a disability. They also cant ask workers about a disability.

Employees can ask for accommodations at work. For example, a person might need frequent work breaks because of ADHD. It doesnt happen automatically. Employees must disclose their disability and make the request. In most cases, employers must grant it. But there are times when they dont have to.

The ADA doesnt guarantee a job. People with disabilities must still be qualified. And they must have the right skills, experience, and education.

Find out more about ADA rights in the workplace.

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What Parts Of My Website Must Be Accessible

Any text content, images, buttons, links, items for sale, documents, forms and any other types of content you offer must be made available to people who have disabilities.

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative published international guidelines on December 11, 2008, called Web Content Accessibility Guidelines . On June 5, 2018, WCAG 2.1 which provides 17 additional success criteria to address mobile accessibility, people with low vision and people with cognitive and learning disabilities.

The guides are divided into four principles addressing specific areas of accessibility P.O.U.R

• Perceivable
• Robust

Planning And Reporting Requirements

The Act requires that organizations:

• prepare and publish accessibility plans:
• make accessibility plans to identify, remove and prevent barriers in the priority areas in their:
• policies

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Challenges To Coverage Design

After ruling that discriminatory intent was not necessary to make out a Section 504 claim, Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing for a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court, made clear that in the Courts view, the claim amounted to a challenge to benefit design, that is, a direct attack on the content of coverage, as well as a request for individually tailored coverage, rather than a case to address discriminatory plan administration. Section 504, the Court held, required only that persons with handicaps be given meaningful access to the benefit that the offers. Rejecting arguments that the benefit offered in this case was inpatient hospital care and that limits on the benefit therefore were a matter of plan administration, the court characterized the 14-day benefit as an embedded aspect of the plans coverage design itself. The question thus became simply whether all persons, regardless of disability, had equal access to the coverage:

In essence, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the effort to equate coverage with adequacy of care and assumed that the equality of treatment standard was met under Section 504 as long as all persons, regardless of handicap, had equal access to whatever coverage was available. It rejected any notion that Section 504 somehow altered the discretion of state Medicaid programs, acting under federal Medicaid law, over matters of benefit design:

Not All Employers Are Subject To Eeoc Laws

Only employers with a certain number of employees are subject to EEOC laws. The number of employees changes depending on the type of employer and the kind of discrimination alleged.

• Businesses, state, and local governments must follow most EEOC laws if they have 15 or more employees.

• Federal agencies must follow all EEOC laws, no matter how many employees they have.

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How The Americans With Disabilities Act Increased Accessibility

The ADA established standards for accessible design for public accommodations that include creating automatic doorways, ramps, and elevators to accommodate wheelchairs. Water fountains must be made available at heights that individuals with disabilities can reach.

Some examples of accommodations in the workplace include supplying a hearing-impaired applicant with a sign language interpreter during a job interview, modifying a work schedule to meet the needs of a person who needs treatment, or restructuring an existing facility to make it readily accessible to people with disabilities. An employer is not required by the ADA to make reasonable accommodations if doing so presents an undue hardship for the business and requires significant expenses compared with the size of the company.

Title IV of the ADA requires telephone companies to provide telephone relay services, or similar devices, for the hearing- and speech-impaired.

Although there is no regulation requiring ADA compliance by websites and online platforms, accessibility for internet users has become an issue of increasing importance. Best practices are increasingly prescribed to promote website accessibility.

Reasonable Accommodations Under The Ada

The ADA protects against discrimination. But it also provides another important right. This is the right to reasonable accommodations.

An accommodation is a change that gives access to a person with a disability. For example, a school may provide an audiobook to a student with low vision, rather than a textbook. Or a child with asthma may be able to remove a mask indoors.

The right to accommodations isnt absolute. The key word is reasonable. Thats going to depend on the specific situation.

Learn more about accommodations.

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Physical Access To Health Care Services

The essential starting point for understanding the significance of the ADA in a health care context is the common law, the basic set of judicially fashioned legal principles that form the foundation of the American legal system. As part of common law, health care professionals and institutions were considered to have no legal duty of care. As private enterprises, they were not considered places of public accommodation in the nature of inns and common carriers as a result, and regardless of the threat posed, they had no legal obligation either to undertake care or to refrain from discriminatory practices in the selection of their customers.

The ADA fundamentally expanded on this abrogation of the common law by explicitly classifying health care services as a public accommodation. No legislative history accompanies this significant expansion of the concept of place of public accommodation. Indeed, discussions by the author with persons involved in the drafting of Title III suggests that, perhaps in a sign of the times, by 1990 it simply did not occur to anyone that health care was anything other than a place of public accommodation.

More Information About The Ada Is Available From The Ada National Network

The ADA National Network provides information, guidance and training on the Americans with Disabilities Act , tailored to meet the needs of business, government and individuals at local, regional and national levels.

ADA National Network publications include:

• Disability Law Handbook

ADA National Network webcourses include:

• ADA Building Blocks. This course is a free, introductoy webcourse that explores the legal requirements and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The course takes 2-3 hours and includes quizzes and a Post Test. The Southeast ADA Center, a member of the ADA National Network, developed the course.
• ADA Employment Course. This course is a free, self-paced webcourse on the employment requirements in the ADA, including the important changes made to the ADA by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The course takes approximately 2.5 hours and includes real life scenarios, quizzes and a final exam. The New England ADA Center, a member of the ADA National Network, deveoped the course.
• Disability Rights Laws Overview. This course is a free, self-paced webcourse that provides an overview of federal disability rights laws. The course takes approximately 1.5 – 2 hours and includes real life scenarios, quizzes and a final exam. The New England ADA Center, a member of the ADA National Network, deveoped the course.

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The Ada For Goods And Services Offered To The Public

The ADA applies to anyone who offers goods and services to the public. The law says that people with disabilities cant be segregated or excluded. And they cant be treated unequally.

The ADA has many specific rules for different categories of goods and services. Here are just a few examples. Restaurants must make some doors and tables accessible. Theaters must provide closed captions and audio description. Shopping malls must have accessible parking, curbs, ramps, and more.

Anyone offering goods and services must also make reasonable accommodations. But that varies by situation. Lets say a child with ADHD wants to go to a privately owned kids camp. Giving a child with ADHD a locker to put medication in might be reasonable. But giving the child their own separate cabin might not be.

How Are Essential Functions Determined

Essential functions are the basic job duties that an employee must be able to perform, with or without reasonable accommodation. You should carefully examine each job to determine which functions or tasks are essential to performance. .

Factors to consider in determining if a function is essential include:

• whether the reason the position exists is to perform that function,
• the number of other employees available to perform the function or among whom the performance of the function can be distributed, and
• the degree of expertise or skill required to perform the function.

Your judgment as to which functions are essential, and a written job description prepared before advertising or interviewing for a job will be considered by EEOC as evidence of essential functions. Other kinds of evidence that EEOC will consider include:

• the actual work experience of present or past employees in the job,
• the time spent performing a function,
• the consequences of not requiring that an employee perform a function, and
• the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

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Attorneys’ Fees And Damages

The ADA allows a court, in its discretion, to award attorneys’ fees to a prevailing party.64 In Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc., v. West Virginia Department of Human Resources,65 the Supreme Court addressed the “catalyst theory” of attorneys’ fees which posits that a plaintiff is a prevailing party if the lawsuit brings about a voluntary change in the defendant’s conduct. The Court rejected this theory finding that attorneys’ fees are only available where there is a judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties.

The exact implications of Gorman are not clear. Justice Stevens argued that the reasoning used in Justice Scalia’s opinion has “potentially far-reaching consequences that go well beyond the issues briefed and argued in this case” although he also noted that Justice Scalia did “cabin the potential reach of today’s decision by stating that we do not imply, for example, that suits under Spending Clause legislation are suits in contract, or that contract-law principles apply to all issues that they raise.”

What Is The Best Way To Identify A Reasonable Accommodation

Frequently, when a qualified individual with a disability requests a reasonable accommodation, the appropriate accommodation is obvious. The individual may suggest a reasonable accommodation based upon her own life or work experience. However, when the appropriate accommodation is not readily apparent, you must make a reasonable effort to identify one. The best way to do this is to consult informally with the applicant or employee about potential accommodations that would enable the individual to participate in the application process or perform the essential functions of the job. If this consultation does not identify an appropriate accommodation, you may contact the EEOC, State or local vocational rehabilitation agencies, or State or local organizations representing or providing services to individuals with disabilities. Another resource is the Job Accommodation Network . JAN is a free consultant service that helps employers make individualized accommodations. The telephone number is 1-800-526-7234.

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Equal Employment Opportunity For Individuals With Disabilities

This title is designed to help people with disabilities access the same employment opportunities and benefits available to people without disabilities. Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants or employees. A reasonable accommodation is any modification or adjustment to a job or the work environment that will enable an applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions.

This portion of the law is regulated and enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Employers with 15 or more employees must comply with this law. The regulations for Title I define disability, establish guidelines for the reasonable accommodation process, address medical examinations and inquiries, and define direct threat when there is significant risk of substantial harm to the health or safety of the individual employee with a disability or others.

Rehiring Of Individuals Who Had Been Terminated For Illegal Drug Use

In Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez,40 the Supreme Court was presented with the issue of whether the ADA confers preferential rehiring rights on employees who have been lawfully terminated for misconduct, in this case illegal drug use. However, the Court, in an opinion by Justice Thomas, did not reach this issue, finding that the ninth circuit had improperly applied a disparate impact analysis in a disparate treatment case and remanding the case. The Court observed that it “has consistently recognized a distinction between claims of discrimination based on disparate treatment and claims of discrimination based on disparate impact.” Disparate treatment was described as when an employer treats some people less favorably than others because of a protected characteristic such as race, and liability depends on whether the protected trait actually motivated the employer’s decision. Disparate impact, in contrast, involves practices that are facially neutral but in fact impact a protected group more harshly and cannot be justified by business necessity. Disparate impact cases do not required evidence of an employer’s subjective intent.41

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How People With Disabilities Utilize A Website

If you wear glasses or contacts, you are using assistive technology to be able to see properly. For those with visual impairments which require more than glasses, such as color blind, low vision, and blind use special alternative views or may also use screen readers.

For website users who are hearing impaired, closed captioning allows them the use of video and a downloadable transcription of audio can be provided.

People with a physical handicap which makes it impossible to use a keyboard use special equipment, such as head pointers, eye movement devices, text to speech can be used as well. People with blindness, dyslexia and other learning disabilities also use text to speech.

This is a very brief list of assistive technologies. Because of the needed behaviors of a website to work properly with assistive technologies, a website should follow the WCAG guidelines.