A major expansion of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) has been passed into law and was enacted on January 1. The
ADA Amendment Act of 2008 expands the definition of disability to
cover people who have disabilities that are mitigated with
medications or with devices such as orthoses or prostheses, and
people who experience discrimination because they are perceived as
having a disability, whether they actually have one or not. The new
law mandates that employers provide reasonable accommodations for
“individuals who can demonstrate they have an impairment that
substantially limits a major lifeactivity, or a record of such
impairment. Accommodations need not be provided to an individual
who is only ‘regarded as’ having an impairment.” According to a
September 2008 statement by the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and Labor (CEL), the new law was supported
by a coalition of more than 180 business and labor groups,
including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National
Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and the World Institute on
Disability (WID).
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