People with disabilities in the United States and other countries often face different challenges in their workplaces and other spaces in society. The Americans with Disabilities Act is among the laws that protect disabled people from problems like discrimination and other forms of unfair treatment. This paper explores some of the potentials and limitations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Potentials
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) aims to protect individuals with disabilities and to ensure they do not face discrimination based on the disabilities’ immutable characteristics. This Act increases physical accessibility in people’s daily environments. By doing so, the ADA brings additional opportunities for people with no disabilities to interact with those with various disabilities (Wu et al., 2022). With more exposure, people’s potential prejudices towards persons living with disabilities can be reduced, thus increasing their willingness to interact with and accommodate those with disabilities.
ADA is among the laws that act as critical steps to make improvements in society for people with disabilities, which enhances the reciprocal processes adopted to reduce stigmatization and increase accessibility. According to Wu et al. (2022), students taught about ADA generally report increased positive attitudes toward associating with disabled people. Therefore, policies and laws are significant elements that help reduce stigmatizing behaviors and attitudes toward minorities. This study also concluded that norm clarity, achieved through laws prohibiting discrimination like the DA, is crucial to the efficacy of stigma. Besides, the norm clarity discourages discriminatory actions. Through the ADA and other efforts, such as the CRPD (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), freedoms are now more protected or accessible for persons with disabilities (Wu et al., 2022).
The ADA Title 11 Part A holds that agencies with the authority to enforce actions alleging discrimination in employment must establish procedures that ensure proper consideration of administrative complaints (ADA, 2024). The measures to deal with these complaints aim to avoid effort duplication and prevent cases of imposing conflicting or inconsistent standards. In this part of the ADA, the Act ensures that qualified people with disabilities can freely participate and benefit from public entities’ programs, activities and services. Besides, the Act prohibits any form of discrimination by all public entities. The development of the ADA has improved how people with disabilities access public services and public accommodations (ADA, 2024). Persons with disabilities can now easily access recreation centers, libraries, and parks. The ADA also succeeded in making public transport more accessible for disabled people. Also, the ADA mandates every covered employer to offer reasonable accommodation for workers with disabilities. By doing so, the ADA ensures that employment causes no undue hardships to people with disabilities.
Limitations
Although the ADA has positive impacts on society, societies are far from diminishing discrimination towards people living with disabilities. Some cases of discrimination result from people’s “norm of being kind,” where individuals with no disabilities offer overly optimistic responses to those with disabilities. Despite this norm discouraging negativity towards persons with disabilities, the beliefs can smother more advancement of people with various disabilities. For example, in workplaces, people with disabilities can be misguided if they try to develop skills or gain promotions and raises by mostly positive and less accurate feedback concerning their performances (Wu et al., 2022). Similarly, the kindness norms can make people infer “incompetent and warm” stereotypes when they place individuals with various disabilities in certain occupations. Often, such stereotypes imply the idea that disabled people can only fit in employments that do not require supervision or those with no interpersonal contact in terms of competence. Adding to these explicit and subtle types of discrimination, Wu et al. (2022) suggest that the Americans with Disabilities Act has either failed to influence or aggravate employment disparities. In this case, there may be people with disabilities who are in employment, but others are discriminated against and denied job opportunities.
As the ADA explains, designated public transport is transportation by rail, bus, or another conveyance that offers special or general service to the public (ADA, 2024). The ADA requires public transit to be designed in ways that suit all people, including those with disabilities. However, despite the ADA putting more effort into improving public transportation for people with disabilities, this is still a concerning issue since some people with disability still find problems accessing the transport. Also, Wu et al. (2022) argue that at some point, the ADA falls short of its intention to reduce employment discrimination against disabled people. For example, the Act fails to consider people who develop disabilities when in the workplace. In some cases, people who become disabled in their places of work receive disability benefits and lack the opportunity to continue working. Some individuals wish to continue working in addition to receiving disability benefits.
In conclusion, the Americans with Disabilities Act has various potentials and limitations. This Act increases physical accessibility in people’s environments and brings opportunities for people with no disabilities to interact with disabled people. Also, the ADA ensures that people with disabilities can participate in public entities’ programs, activities and services and benefit from them. However, despite the ADA’s efforts, societies are far from diminishing discrimination towards disabled people. For example, disabled people often face discrimination in public transportation. Besides, some people with disabilities still experience employment discrimination. The ADA should adopt more regulations that individuals and organizations follow when handling disabled people and clarify the consequences of breaking such regulations.
References
ADA. (2024). Part A. Prohibition Against Discrimination and Other Generally Applicable Provisions.
Wu, F. Y., Nittrouer, C., Nguyen, V., Hebl, M., Oswald, F. L., & Frieden, L. (2022). Now protected or still stigmatized? A 25-year outlook on the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 41(3), 383-403.