ADA - Americans With Disabilities Act
A Summary of Titles I, II and III

TITLE I

Like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ... "ADA seeks to ensure access to equal employment opportunities based on merit. It does not guarantee equal results, establish quotas, or require preferences favoring individuals with disabilities over those without."

ADA goes beyond the Civil Right Act by saying, "when an individual's disability creates a barrier to employment opportunities, the ADA requires employers to consider whether reasonable accommodation could remove the barrier." The ADA thus establishes a process in which the employer must assess a disabled individual's ability to perform the essential functions of the specific job held or desired.

While the ADA focuses on eradicating barriers, the ADA does not relieve a disabled employee or applicant from the obligation to perform essential functions of the job. To the contrary, the ADA is intended to enable disabled persons to compete in the workplace based on the same performance standards and requirements that employers expect of persons who are not disabled.

Where that individual's functional limitation impedes such job performance, an employer must take steps to reasonably accommodate, and thus help overcome the particular impediment, unless to do so would impose an undue hardship. Such accommodations usually take the form of adjustments to the way a job customarily is performed, or to the work environment itself.

This process of identifying whether, and to what extent, a reasonable accommodation is required should be flexible and involve both the employer and the individual with a disability. Of course, the determination of whether an individual is qualified for a particular position must necessarily be made on a case-by-case basis. No specific form of accommodation is guaranteed for all individuals with a particular disability. Instead, the ADA simply establishes parameters to guide employers in how to consider, and take into account, the disabling condition involved."

Simplified this means that everyone who is qualified to perform a specific job has an equal right to that job, and whenever an employer can remove physical or communication barriers to the specific job they must do so, within reason, to allow a disabled person an equal opportunity. We will discuss what remedies are needed to remove communication and physical barriers and what they mean by reasonable accommodation when we get into Government services and public places in Titles II and III.

So that is a brief summary of Title I. The only other important things to know is when did it become law, whom does it affect, and how are grievances handled. The law is now in effect as of July 26, 1992. Those affected by Title I of the ADA are "persons engaged in commerce who have 15 or more employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year except that, from July 26, 1992 through July 25, 1994, an employer means someone who has 25 or more employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding year:" 25 employees until July 1994 and 15 from then on. When a person with a disability has a grievance against an employer under Title I that grievance is brought before the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Besides being responsible for enforcement, the EEOC is also responsible for providing technical assistance for Title I.