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Ok, let's start with the disclaimer:
ALL LEGAL OR LAW RELATED INFORMATION ON THIS SITE IS OFFERED FOR INFORMATIONAL / EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. VISITORS SHOULD NOT RELY ON ANYTHING THEY SEE HERE AS LEGAL ADVICE. Persons who are wondering if they have a claim should consult a disability law attorney in their area.
That takes care of the disclaimer....As many know, the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed by Congress in 1990 and became effective in 1992. It was passed in response to a recognition on the part of Congress that individuals with disabilities face a significant amount of discrimination in their daily lives.
Upon becoming effective, the Act became the strongest and most far-reaching prohibition against discrimination on the basis of disability in the history of this nation. The statute the ADA was modeled extensively after, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, only covered entities which received federal funding. The ADA has no federal funding requirement, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local governments and services provided by them, and public accommodations.
While the ADA has been a huge step forward in protecting the rights of the disabled, I am concerned that there will be Congressional and/or judicial "cutbacks" to the protections afforded by the ADA because of an attitude of some in our society that accommodations for the disabled are "too expensive." While this viewpoint is hardly canonical, I believe there are many others who share this concern as well. Unfortunately, I believe the deaf have to be especially mindful of this risk due to the high cost of many accommodations for the deaf, such as interpreters, assistive listening devices, CART reporting and so on. For this reason, I hope that people of all disabilities will stand up for their rights under the ADA and let covered entities and their elected officials know that the protections of the ADA are badly needed and do not compare to the cost of allowing discrimination to occur. Such assertiveness will let people know that the ADA is a valuable statute, whereas silence may be taken as a sign of indifference to the ADA's protections. At the same time, however, to defeat arguments that a desired accommodation poses an undue hardship due to expense, it may be desirable for the disabled person to provide as much of the accommodation as they can themselves, such as a deaf person bringing an FM system they own. In this way, the entity is deprived of the argument that the accommodation is an undue hardship due to expense, and will be forced to argue that the accommodation is an undue hardship due to fundamentally altering the program or service provided. This strategy is not always guaranteed to work; I know of one public entity (which shall remain nameless for the time being) which has bought several different FM systems for a deaf individual even though he had his own FM system that worked well for him. (Not a very good use of taxpayers' money, IMO.) Nevertheless, this tactic does defeat an argument of undue hardship based on expense.
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