Disability Law Commons^™

The Americans With Disabilities Act At 25: The Highest Expression Of American Values, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Enacted in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a watershed piece of legislation which enshrines in law a social promise of equality and inclusion into all facets of life, while offering an inspiring model that much of the world has come to embrace. This editorial launches JAMA’s theme issue on the 25th anniversary of the ADA by detailing the Act’s history, main provisions, and far-reaching impacts on health, providing a context for the three Original Investigations and six scholarly Viewpoints that make up the theme issue. The editorial begins with a discussion of the ADA’s history, highlighting …

Advocates, Federal Agencies, And The Education Of Children With Disabilities, Eloise Pasachoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The aim of this essay, prepared for a symposium on dispute resolution in special education held at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in February 2014, is to highlight ways that advocates for children with disabilities can use federal agencies to improve the implementation and enforcement of federal laws protecting children with disabilities in schools—that is, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act as it relates to schools.

One can spend a lot of time engaging with the contemporary public conversation about the law surrounding …

The Ada Amendments Act Of 2008, Chai R. Feldblum, Kevin Barry, Emily A. Benfer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The goal of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was to create a civil rights law protecting people with disabilities from discrimination on the basis of their disabilities. Disability rights advocates in 1990 were victorious in their efforts to open doors for people with disabilities and to change the country's outlook and acceptance of people with disabilities. These advocates believed that the terms of the ADA, based as they were on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, combined with the legislative history of the ADA, would provide clear instructions to the courts that the ADA was intended to provide broad …

The Americans With Disabilities Act And The Corpus Of Anti-Discrimination Law: A Force For Change In The Future Of Public Health Regulation, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper the author reviews the constitutional history of the courts' attempts to check the powers of the public health department. He demonstrates how ineffective and inconsistent constitutional review has been, and suggests that adequate review criteria have not emerged. The author shows that, whether the courts are applying First, Fourth, or Fourteenth Amendment standards, ultimately they are highly deferential to public health officials. Then he carefully examines the key concepts in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as they apply to communicable disease. He reveals Congress' clear intention to include communicable disease, even asymptomatic infection, as a disability. …