The Americans With Disabilities Act Is a Law

The Americans with Disabilities act is a law that was created by the US congress in 1990 and signed into law by George W. Bush on July 26, 1990. The ADA is civil rights act that prohibits discrimination on people with disabilities. In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed. Before this act was passed only one out of five children with disabilities attended a public school, according to the U. S. department of Education (L. S).

There was a Civil Rights Act of 1964 created that made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and other characteristics illegal. The original intent of the law was to create a civil rights law for people with disabilities that would be permanent, would not be able to be weakened, and would stop all discrimination. The ADA was suppose to be a flexible set of laws that could only be strengthened and never weakened. Title 1. 1 of the Americans with disabilities act is employment, and explains how people shall not discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities. Title I prohibits employers with fifteen or more employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in a job application procedures, hiring, DORRIS 2 advancement, compensation, job training, and other conditions and privileges of employment simply because they have disabilities” (K, S). Title 1. 2 of the ADA discusses public entities and public transportation. It prohibits discrimination by all public entities. This includes physical access for Accessible Design. Public entities and transportation have to have accessible utilities for disabled people.

Title II applies to public transportation provided by public entities through regulations by the U. S. Department of transportation. Title II also applies to all state and local public housing, housing assistance, and housing referrals. Title 1. 3 of the ADA prohibits discrimination of disability in the activities of places of public accommodation. This law indicates that all restaurants, movie theatres, buildings, etc. are accessible for people with disabilities. Title III has had more effect on the lives of Americans with Disabilities than any other ADA title.

Individuals with and without disabilities should be accessible to do the same things throughout life. Title 1. 4 of the ADA is Telecommunications. “The law requires that all telephone companies that provide telephone voice transmission services, whether interstate or intrastate, also provide telephone relay services that allow people who are hearing or speech impaired to place and receive calls through devices to or from people who do not use such devices” (American Rehabilitation). This act led to installing public teletypewriter machines and other TDDs. TDD’s are the telecommunication devices for the deaf.

For blind people they will change all written texts into voice messages and will change all voice recordings into texts for the deaf. DORRIS 3 The last title of the ADA is miscellaneous provisions. Title V includes technical provisions and this law applies to and person that prevents an individual from exercising his or her rights. This is any form of retaliation including threats, intimidation, or interference is not allowed if it is intended to interfere in a negative way. Any person who exercises their rights under the ADA or helps someone else in exercising their rights is protected from retaliation.

Since the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 was created, there have been a lot of changes made that have positively affected people with disabilities. “This long awaited piece of federal legislation was expected to protect individuals with disabilities from discrimination in employment opportunities and ensure and access to various social institutions” (Bowman). The ADA helped people with disabilities get jobs, make social places and transportation accessible for them and even created phone operator systems to help translate messages to deaf and blind people.

The Americans With Disabilities Act made disabled individuals feel accepted and they were not discriminated anymore in things they wished to do. Contrary to the positive outcomes of the ADA there were also still downfalls for people who had disabilities. “Pro-business conservative commentators mentioned that the Americans With Disabilities Act was an expensive headache to millions”(Doherty 18).

Because of all the changes that had to be made to make things accessible for people with disabilities it ended up being very costly for everyone. Even though the ADA was created some cases of disabilities were not DORRIS 4 covered. Some courts even found that individuals with serious conditions such as diabetes and cancer were not covered by the ADA” (B,L). Unfortunately some bars and clubs were not changed to fit the needs of people with disabilities. Even though the Americans with Disabilities act had many positive affects, some individuals still unable to do certain things. After researching about the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, I think that it was a great idea to create such an amazing act. I feel as if people with disabilities should be able to do as much as they can in order to live a happy and normal life just like everyone else.

Even though there are downfalls of the ADA individuals have a lot more rights then they ever had several years ago before the act was established. If I was disabled I would want to be able to live my life just like every other person, and the ADA helped people feel that they could. The most interesting and best idea that the ADA had was title 1. 4 telecommunications. This was an amazing idea and helped both the deaf and blind.