Business Ethics

ADA Compliance in Business

Abstract

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the most important civil rights legislation enacted to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. The ADA requires compliance in areas of employment, public transportation and services, public accommodations, and telecommunications. Conditions that affect work performance such as depression, arthritis, hearing loss, and high blood pressure would have to be examined on an individual basis to render a proper decision by a business manager. Some conditions will warrant legal protection under the ADA while others become an ethical decision for the management. The ADA is a federal government act designed to protect the civil rights of citizens with mental and physical disabilities.

Keywords: disability, compliance, accommodation

ADA Compliance and Business

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the most important civil rights legislation enacted to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. It was signed into law by President George Bush on July 26, 1990 as an extension of civil rights to those individuals with physical and mental disabilities. The ADA requires compliance in areas of employment, public transportation and services, public accommodations, and telecommunications. A disability is an impairment, either mental or physical, that limits one or more life activities. Those activities include the ability to care for oneself, learn, walk, see, hear, speak, breathe, work, or maintain social relationships. Certain mental disorders, like kleptomania and pyromania, current use of illegal substances and all sexual behavior disorders are not covered by the ADA (Center of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, 2010). Conditions that affect work performance such as depression, arthritis, hearing loss, and high blood pressure would have to be examined on an individual basis to render a proper decision by a business manager.

The variety of...