Global Breaking News - Tuesday, May 14, 2024

The Americans With Disabilities Act, 25 Years Later
The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on July 26, 1990. Twenty-five years later, beyond mandated changes in the built environment, has the A.D.A. really made a difference in providing the disabled with equal opportunity and access? What more needs to be done?
* Americans with Disabilities Act(ADA) = 미국 장애인법/ be signed into law = 법으로 제정되다/ mandated = 법에 규정된/ equal opportunity and access = 기회의 균등과 접근  

 미국 장애인법은 정말로 장애인에게 기회의 균등과 접근을 제공했나요? 무엇이 더 필요한가요?

1. Disabled People Must Make Themselves Visible
All of us will be disabled at some point, either by injury, age or illness. Disability is not a problem to fix, but a part of the human experience.

2. Laws Are Not Enough to Combat Discrimination
Some disabled Americans are kept out of the work force by employment discrimination, and others find barriers before they have the opportunity to apply for jobs.

3. A Bright Spot in the Law: Including Obesity
Unfortunately, however, the A.D.A. does not extend coverage for individuals at lower levels of obesity, and for these people, few, if any, legal options exist.

4. There’s Much More Work to Be Done
Noncompliance with the mandates of the A.D.A. is routine. The unmet needs of people with disabilities extend beyond education, employment and public accommodation.


Sample Essay

Disability Laws Are Not Enough to Combat Discrimination

A little perspective helps us understand the truly revolutionary effects that the Americans with Disabilities Act has had on American society. Schools, stores, stadiums, government buildings and business enterprises of all kinds are accessible to people with all sorts of disabilities here — as are the sidewalks and public transit systems that enable people to enjoy the basic right “to live in the world,” as the great disability rights activist Jacobus tenBroek put it. Americans with disabilities participate as full and visible members of our society to a degree unmatched even in other advanced industrialized countries, and the A.D.A. is the reason.

In recent years, advocates and government agencies have invoked the A.D.A. to achieve yet further gains for disability equality. As a result of A.D.A. litigation, thousands of individuals with psychiatric, developmental and physical disabilities have received high-quality community-based services that have enabled them to leave hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions. And, in response to cases brought under the A.D.A., the digital divide that has excluded people with disabilities from educational, employment and recreational opportunities has begun to break down.

The one area where the A.D.A.has most clearly failed to achieve its goals is in employment. Department of Labor statistics show that roughly two-thirds of working-age people with disabilities remain out of the work force (compared to about a quarter of working-age people without disabilities). Those numbers are not materially different than they were when Congress adopted the A.D.A. in 1990.

This failure reflects the inherent limitations of an antidiscrimination law. Some disabled Americans are kept out of the work force by employment discrimination. For many others, though, barriers to employment occur long before they have the opportunity even to apply for jobs: the structure of our health care system, under which people with disabilities can lose important Medicaid coverage if they take remunerative jobs; the continuing lack of accessible transportation and technology; and the failure of the government to fund personal attendant services and employment supports.

If we are to achieve the goal of making people with disabilities full and equal members of the work force, we will need not just antidiscrimination laws but social welfare programs that will overcome these barriers.