On July 26, Americans nationwide celebrated the 20th anniversary of a landmark event of modern governance: the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The original act compelled the Department of Justice to enforce its statutes, which were meant to provide equal access to education, employment, facilities, and transportation.
Since then, it has undergone a number of major updates, and on the 26th, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder both announced new updates that are currently vying for Congressional approval. In 2008, the Act was updated to include the struggles of people with emotional and mental disorders and those who do not have disabilities but who are discriminated against because someone believes they have a disability. In 2010, the administration launched the Year of Community Living, an initiative meant to help allow people with disabilities avoid institutionalization and remain in their own homes. This year also saw the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which has as one its main provisions is plan to eliminate insurance exclusions of people with pre-existing conditions, including people with disabilities.
New Coverage in New Places
Now, President Obama announced, “the Department of Justice is publishing two new rules…prohibiting disability-based discrimination by more than 80,000 state and local government entities and 7 million private businesses. And beginning 18 months from now, all new buildings must be constructed in a way that’s compliant with the new 2010 standards for the design of doors and windows and elevators and bathrooms-buildings like stores and restaurants and schools and stadiums and hospitals and hotels and theaters.”
According to President Obama, these changes were proposed under President George H.W. Bush in 2004, and since then were “improved upon with more than 4,000 comments from the public.” He explained, “That’s allowed us to do this in a way that makes sense economically and allows appropriate flexibility while ensuring Americans with disabilities full participation in our society.”
Access to Technology
Holder announced in a separate speech that the Department of Justice is “also working hard to ensure that the ADA keeps up with technological advances that were…unimaginable 20 years ago…. The department will soon publish four advanced notices of proposed rulemaking regarding accessibility requirements for websites, movies, equipment and furniture, and 911 call-taking technologies.”
He added, “And because, at its core, the ADA is about ensuring that all Americans can participate fully in our democracy, we are taking meaningful steps to offer fully accessible voter registration services at federal agencies, as intended by the National Voter Registration Act.” According the Washington Post, the technology-access legislation is already moving through Congress, where it has passed by 348 to 23 in the House. It delineates federal standards requiring that online television be captioned and mandating that telecom equipment used for calls over the Internet be hearing-aid compatible. The bill would also dictate that remote controls include a button for activating closed captioning.
To enforce these mandates, President Obama said, “We’ve followed through with a promise I made to create three new disability offices at the State Department and Department of Transportation and at FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency].”
Employment Access
During his speech, Obama acknowledged a report released in the second week of July announcing that just five percent of the federal workforce is made up of persons with disabilities, and just one percent of federal employees have “targeted disabilities,” which include limb loss, deafness, blindness, intellectual disabilities, and paralysis.
His response was to sign an executive order meant to “establish the federal government as a model employer of individuals with disabilities,” boosting recruitment, training, and retention of people with disabilities. “Each agency will have a senior official who’s accountable for achieving the goals we’ve set, and I expect regular reports,” he added. “And we’re going to post our progress online so that you can hold us accountable, too.”
Among other requirements, the order directs the Office of Personnel Management, in consultation with the Labor Department, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Management and Budget, to present within 60 days strategies for recruiting and hiring workers with disabilities.
Holder affirmed, “I am firmly committed to holding the department’s senior leadership accountable for encouraging the contributions of employees with disabilities and working to attract qualified candidates with disabilities. This is a top objective of mine-and it must be our shared priority.
Also under Holder’s purview are a set of rules currently being drafted that would prohibit general discrimination against people with disabilities by government agencies and private businesses.
President Obama concluded by saying that the equal-access rights advanced by the ADA “were guaranteed to us in our founding documents.” He recalled the story of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Stephen Hopkins. “He was a patriot, a scholar, a nine-time governor of Rhode Island,” the President said. “It’s also said he had a form of palsy. And on July 4, 1776, as he grasped his pen to sign his name to the Declaration of Independence, he said, ‘My hand trembles, but my heart does not.'”