Happy 20th Birthday to the ADA (Americans with Disability Act)! Since becoming the law on July 26, 1990 the ADA has protected the rights of the disabled including access to public places, enforcing non-discrimination and requiring “reasonable accomodation” in the workplace. Further protections for the disabled were provided by the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA). This law made clear that courts needed to focus their attention on the illegal discrimination – not on whether the victim was disabled within the meaning of the law. So how effective has the ADA been in the past 20 years? Unfortunately discrimination against those with disabilities continues in the workplace. Consider the following statistics from the EEOC website:
1993: 15,274 charges of discrimination filed with EEOC, which obtained $15,496,811 in relief for 1,851 people though its administrative process;
2009: 21,451 charges of discrimination filed, roughly a 30% increase. EEOC got $67,826,112 in relief for 3,238 people;
From 1993 to 2009, ADA charges rose from 17.4% of all charges filed with the EEOC to 23% of all charges filed as ADA charges became a greater part of the EEOC’s workload;
During the same period, the EEOC filed 874 lawsuits claiming violations of the ADA, collecting a total of $86,633,804 for victims of disability discrimination.
Join the conversation: What is your experience hiring a disabled person or as a disabled person applying for work?