Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The Americans with Disabilities Act is the latest federal disability law. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is the short title of United States Public Law signed into law on July 26, 1990 by President George H. W. Bush. The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination on the basis of disability. Its purpose is to protect people with disabilities from discrimination in employment (Title I), in the programs and activities offered by state and local governments (Title II), and in accessing the goods and services offered in places like stores, hotels, restaurants, football stadiums, doctors’ offices, beauty parlors, and so on (Title III). The focus of this course is Title II and Title III of the ADA, because these Titles guide design and construction.

The ADA itself is the newest Federal disability law. It’s basically – the ADA is a short title of a United States public law. It was signed by President George H.W. Bush. It was signed back in 1990, the summer of 1990. It is a civil rights law because it is protecting against discrimination. A lot of people don’t realize that all of the disability laws and accessibility laws are basically civil rights law because it is equaling out the playing field of making equal opportunities for folks to be able to work, to be able to access things. It is about keeping discrimination away from those folks who might have a disability. This disability law is very similar to the civil rights act where it affords the same type of protection from that Civil Rights Act of 1964. Basically that was protecting folks from discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin and as well disability.
So, this is the newest of a very long line of disability laws and in fact, if you’re at all interested, there’s everything from transportation disability laws to health communication laws. There’s a lot of different types of laws out there to protect those with disabilities.