Disability

The purpose of the Vocational Rehabilitation and Other Rehabilitation Services Act is to empower individuals with disabilities to maximize employment, economic self-sufficiency, independence, and inclusion and integration into society.

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution limit the power of the federal and state governments to discriminate. The private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, also known as the ADA, is the Federal Law that prohibits Employment Discrimination on the basis of a person's disability. In addition to its impact on employment discrimination, the ADA also requires that companies provide accommodations both to their employees and in some cases the public, such as requiring doors to be at least three feet wide so that a wheelchair can pass. The ADA prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities by employers, employment agencies, labor organizations, and joint labor management committees.

In June 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principle objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sexually discriminatory practices in education programs such as sexual harassment and employment discrimination, and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. Many of these education program providers/recipients became subject to Title IX regulations when the Title IX final common rule was published on August 30, 2000.

The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave annually for any of several reasons, including the onset of a "serious health condition" in an employee's spouse, child, or parent.

In order to determine an appropriate reasonable accommodation, the employer must initiate an informal, interactive process when he learns that the qualified individual with a disability is in need of accommodation.

A person with asymptomatic human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has an impairment that substantially limits her ability to engage in a major life activity - reproduction.

Sleeping is a major life activity under the ADA.

The California legislature amended the FEHA in 1992 defining physical disability as a physiological condition that 'limits' major life activities. The legislature later clarified in the Poppink Act of 2000 that a physical disability under the FEHA does not require the federal test's 'substantial limitation' of a major life activity, but instead the CA law's 'limit.'

Monocular vision is not invariably a disability, but must be analyzed on an individual basis, taking into account mitigating measures such as the individual's ability to compensate for the impairment by wearing eyeglasses.

An employee with high blood pressure was not "disabled" because his use of mitigating measures - blood pressure medication - allowed him to function in everyday activities.

No agency has been given the authority to issue regulations interpreting the term "disability" in the ADA. The EEOC has done so anyway, and we assume that it is a reasonable definition without deciding whether it is or is not.

To qualify as disabled under subsection (A) of the ADA's definition of disability, a claimant must initially prove that he or she has a physical or mental impairment.

No agency has been delegated authority to interpret the term 'disability.'

Severely myopic twin sisters with uncorrected visual acuity of 20/200 or worse were not "disabled" because their use of mitigating measures - corrective lenses - allowed them to function identically to individuals without similar impairments.

An employer cannot discriminate against a person because of his interracial association with another, such as by an interracial marriage.