Rehabilitation Act and ADA: The Rights of Disabled Americans on the Job and in School
People with disabilities often face many difficulties: getting to work or school, receiving an education, or doing the chores, tasks, and activities of everyday life. To address the legal hurdles the disabled encounter in the schools, the workplace, and in America’s public spaces, Congress enacted two laws, the Rehabilitation Act of 1974 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.
The Rehabilitation Act is a federal laws designed to improve the lot of disabled persons. The law outlines the guidelines for specialized job training, workplace support, independent living, and overall assistance for disabled individuals; it also lists the rights and protections of people with disabilities and encourages advocacy for them. Moreover, the Rehabilitation Act authorizes the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research and the National Council on Disability to research and conduct and publish studies on disabled persons and help raise awareness of and provide better education on disabilities, thus improving disabled individuals’ lot.
The ADA is also a federal law designed to assist people with disabilities. The ADA is structured similarly to civil rights laws, which prohibit racial, sexist, national, and religious discrimination, but the ADA gives civil protections to disabled persons. The law ensures that people with disabilities have the same access in jobs, in public spaces, to transportation services, to state and municipal services, and to telecommunications devices and services as people without disabilities do. In the workplace, employers cannot refuse to hire or promote an employee, fire an employee, or disallow an employee to enjoy workplace privileges and request a better working environment just because he or she has a disability. However, employers can ask an employee questions concerning his or her physical or mental health and can perform physical or psychological examinations if they see such examinations fit. Although the ADA protects some former drug users, the law does not protect current users and allows employers to perform drug tests on their employees.
The Rehabilitation Act and ADA mainly address workplace and everyday problems of disabled individuals, but they apply to education in two ways. First, going to and participating in school can be viewed as the job of a student, and if a student needs special support and assistance, these laws can ensure that his or her needs are met. For instance, the Rehabilitation Act could compel the school to provide additional tutoring services to the student while the ADA could compel the school to provide the student with special communication aids or to alter physical spaces so that the student can access them more easily. Second, these laws help teachers with disabilities themselves when they face unfair treatment from colleagues or supervisors. For example, the ADA could ensure disabled teachers’ job security, and the Rehabilitation Act could make sure that the teachers receive specialized or additional support from their employer or vocational services.
If you are facing disability-based discrimination in the workplace, at school, in gaining access to public accommodations, or in everyday life, or if you have questions about the Rehabilitation Act and/or the Americans with Disabilities Act, ask Attorney Perry A. Craft. He will answer your questions and fight for you.
Perry A. Craft has dedicated his life to helping people in need. He has tried, settled, or resolved numerous civil and criminal cases in State and Federal courts, and has represented teachers and administrators before school boards, administrative judges, and the state Board of Education. Learn more about Attorney Craft.