BEHS 320 Week 5 Discussion
Briefly describe any two of the five titles of the ADA (employment, public services, public accommodations, telecommunications, miscellaneous), summarized in the link below. How do you think these 5 tenets were selected by advocates and lawmakers, and what purpose do they serve towards creating a more equitable society?
I think they were selected because they are key aspects of the part of life. You have to work, services support society- public transport etc- and oyur ability to communicate -telecommunications-.
2. Why was the ADAAA necessary and how could it have been avoided – i.e. do you think the original intent of the ADA could have been preserved and how? I dont think the original content could have been preserved, i feel that was just the opening salvo to set some boundaries to push and discover. I feel the adaaa in 2008 really helped us bring it home. Make it focused on specific disabilities to stop playing legalese on what a disability is or isnt.
3. How do you think the legal protections and accessibility mandated by the ADA and ADAAA might impact a young person born with a disability today as compared to 30 years ago?
I think people now have more comprehensive support and recourses. I also feel people are better educated to accept and support folks with disabilities.
This week we will study the purpose and scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and how the vision of the ADA was curtailed by a series of court cases, giving rise to the need for the ADA Amendments Act.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990 as the first comprehensive landmark disability rights law in the United States.
Almost immediately, businesses and private entities began lawsuits to challenge its protections for people with disabilities. Mainly, these lawsuits targeted the accessibility modifications for people with disabilities because business owners felt that it was too burdensome and expensive to comply with accessibility. However, lawyers found it easiest to challenge the ADA’s provisions establishing who and what counted as “disabled.”
As a result, almost 30 years of chipping-away at the definition of disability in the ADA meant it was nearly impossible for many people with disabilities to qualify for the protections of the ADA, or to enforce its accessibility provisions. We’ve also studied in this course how critical it is to establish one’s disability and claim a disability identity in order to access the protections of disability rights laws.
Then, in 2008, groups of Americans with disabilities organized all across the US to propose amending the ADA to restore its former protections and its promise of a truly accessible world. I was proud to work on this effort while I worked for the American Association of People with Disabilities – instrumental in organizing those voices into a political force for change. We were successful in persuading Congress to pass the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), signed by President George W. Bush in 2008.
The chief accomplishments of the ADAAA were to restore the broader definition of what it means to be disabled, as originally intended in the ADA. You can read more
The ADAAA also lists specific disabilities that are protected so that there is much less confusion for the courts in establishing that a person with a disability qualifies for its protections. You can see how each group of people with disabilities has been impacted by the passage of the ADAAA in this week’s readings.
After reviewing the ADA and the ADAAA guide and this week’s readings:
1. Briefly describe any two of the five titles of the ADA (employment, public services, public accommodations, telecommunications, miscellaneous), summarized in the link below. How do you think these 5 tenets were selected by advocates and lawmakers, and what purpose do they serve towards creating a more equitable society?
2. Why was the ADAAA necessary and how could it have been avoided – i.e. do you think the original intent of the ADA could have been preserved and how?
3. How do you think the legal protections and accessibility mandated by the ADA and ADAAA might impact a young person born with a disability today as compared to 30 years ago?
The first title of employment helps to “provide qualified individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from the full range of employment-related opportunities available to others.” (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). This helps to make it more difficult for employers to deny individuals with disabilities employment just because of their disability. The second title of public transportation helps offer “accessibility in newly purchased vehicles, make good faith efforts to purchase or lease accessible used buses, remanufacture buses in an accessible manner, and, unless it would result in an undue burden, provide paratransit where they operate fixed-route bus or rail systems.” (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). Any individual should be able to utilize public transportation or be able to drive a car if they are capable. Also, people with disabilities should not have to pay more just to make some accessible to them.
The ADAAA was needed to overturn “a series of Supreme Court decisions that interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 in a way that made it difficult to prove that an impairment is a “disability.”” (Ada amendments act of 2008 frequently asked questions, n.d.). This caused people to not take those with diabetes serious when they in fact were disabled. The ADAAA gave rights to those that needed disability rights that were not included in the ADA. This could have possibly been avoided if we had more research into the effects of diabetes on the body at the time of the ADA.
I think that a young person today will not know the struggle that individuals went through 30 years ago. However, I’m sure that that’s the point of advocating for rights, is to make the future better for those of the same struggle as you had to endure in the past. Hopefully, we can continue to strive for change and make the next 30 years better for those with disabilities.
References:
U.S. Department of Justice. (2009). A Guide to Disability Rights Laws.
Ada amendments act of 2008 frequently asked questions. United States Department of Labor. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2022, from
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