Legal Guidance
Signed into law in July 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights act for people with disabilities. The ADA guarantees equal access for people with disabilities in places of public accommodation, employment, transportation, and telecommunications. It also requires the provision of reasonable accommodations in state and local government services. It extends nondiscriminatory policies already established in the federal employment sector to employment in the private sector.
Implications of the ADA
- All employers with 15 or more employees must comply with the law.
- Employers may not discriminate against qualified disabled individuals in any part of the employment process, including job application procedures, hiring, compensation, job training, advancement, employer-sponsored activities, and discharge.
- Employers can ask about an individuals ability to perform a job, but not whether the person has a disability. Employers also cannot subject applicants to tests that tend to screen out those with disabilities; tests or other selection criteria must be related to the job in question and consistent with business needs.
- Employers must provide reasonable accommodation to people with disabilities unless undue hardship would result or significant risk of substantial harm cannot be eliminated or reduced by reasonable accommodation.
Legal Definitions for Employers
- Disability: A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual, a record of such impairment, or being regarded as having a substantially limiting impairment.
- Qualified Disabled Applicant: An individual with a disability who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position.
- Reasonable Accommodations: Measures may include making existing facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; job restructuring; part-time or modified work schedules; reassignment to a vacant position; acquisition or modification of examinations, training materials, or policies; the provision of interpreters; and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
- Undue hardship: This is defined as an action requiring significant difficulty or expense for a business. Factors to be considered include the nature and cost of the accommodation; the overall financial resources of the employer involved; the number of employees; and the effect on the expenses, resources, and operations of the employing organization.
- Direct threat to health and safety: This refers to a significant risk of substantial harm that cannot be eliminated or reduced by reasonable accommodation. The risk need not be eliminated entirely for it to fall below the direct threat definition. The standard must apply to all individuals, not just those with disabilities. Any risk must be measured by objective evidence, and not by subjective criteria, including bias or unwarranted assumptions.
Telecommunications
Companies offering telephone voice transmission service also must offer telephone relay services. All states have telephone relay services in operation.
