Policies and Procedures
Appendix F: The Law, Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990
(Derived Primarily from the "ADA Compliance Guide", Thompson Publishing Group, Washington, DC, 1995)
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) extends federal civil rights protection in several areas to people who are considered 'disabled'.
To be considered a `disabled' person and one who is eligible for accommodations under the ADA, a person must have a current condition that impairs a major life activity, i.e., caring for oneself, executing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, sitting, standing, lifting, reaching, thinking, concentrating, reading, interacting with others, learning or working.
For the purpose of anti-discrimination only, the ADA also addresses persons with a history of disability and persons regarded as having a disability.
Built upon a body of existing legislation, particularly the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Act states its purpose as providing “a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities”.
The ADA is not an affirmative action statute. Instead, it seeks to dispel stereotypes and assumptions about disabilities, and to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency for disabled people.
To achieve these objectives, the law prohibits covered entities (the University) from excluding people from jobs, services, activities or benefits based on disability. The law provides penalties for discrimination.
A disabled person must be qualified for the job, program or activity to which he or she seeks access.
To be qualified, a person with a disability must be able to perform the essential functions of a job or meet the essential eligibility requirements of the program or benefit, with or without an accommodation to his/her condition.
The Act allows `essential functions' to be defined on a case-by-case basis.
The University's obligation to students under the ADA generally derives from Titles II and III of the Act. Title II of the ADA protects individuals from discrimination on the basis of disability by public entities, namely state and local governments.
Basically, everything a state or local governmental entity does, from providing social services and sponsoring cultural and recreational events to building facilities and offering job opportunities, must be accessible to disabled individuals.
Title III extends the same mandate to privately operated public accommodations. Each of these Titles to the Act may require making reasonable accommodations for a disabled person by providing an auxiliary aid, such as an interpreter, or rearranging a meeting to an accessible room.
Titles II and III of the Act focus on programmatic, rather than structural accessibility. For example, if an English Department of a university were to hold all of its mandatory freshman writing classes on an inaccessible second floor of the building, it would violate the ADA.
However, if it were to reschedule one or two sections of that course to the first floor, the program, when viewed in its entirety, would be accessible and comply with the ADA.
Likewise, when you, as a professor at the University of Rhode Island, assist in the arrangement of a notetaker for a student, you are making your course and an education at the University accessible to a student with a disability.
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