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Full-Text Articles in Law

Rethinking The Americans With Disabilities Act’S Insurance Safe Harbor, Valarie K. Blake Jan 2017

Rethinking The Americans With Disabilities Act’S Insurance Safe Harbor, Valarie K. Blake

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Despite the importance of access to healthcare for the disabled, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has made little inroads in reducing disability-based discrimination by health insurers in the United States. One reason is undoubtedly the ADA’s insurance safe harbor, which explicitly permits insurers to discriminate on the basis of disability in health insurance so long as the differential treatment is supported by actuarial data and is not just intended to disadvantage the disabled. While the safe harbor’s harms are somewhat limited by the advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are not entirely neutralized. This article argues that …


Reasonable Accommodation As Professional Responsibility, Reasonable Accommodation As Professionalism, Alex B. Long Jun 2014

Reasonable Accommodation As Professional Responsibility, Reasonable Accommodation As Professionalism, Alex B. Long

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The American legal profession has been slow to remove the barriers that exclude individuals with disabilities. As a result, people with disabilities remain underrepresented in the practice of law. While the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employment discrimination and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities, there remain significant barriers to employment for lawyers with disabilities. This Article argues that the legal profession should view the legal requirements of reasonable accommodation and equal employment opportunities for lawyers with disabilities as fundamental components of professional responsibility and professionalism.


The Sins Of Hosanna-Tabor, Leslie C. Griffin Jan 2013

The Sins Of Hosanna-Tabor, Leslie C. Griffin

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The Supreme Court has lost sight of individual religious freedom. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, the Court for the first time recognized the ministerial exception, a court-created doctrine that holds that the First Amendment requires the dismissal of many employment discrimination cases against religious employers. The Court ruled unanimously that Cheryl Perich, an elementary school teacher who was fired after she tried to return to school from disability leave, could not pursue an antidiscrimination lawsuit against her employer.

This Article criticizes Hosanna-Tabor as a profound misinterpretation of the First Amendment. The Court mistakenly protected religious institutions' …


Introducing The New And Improved Americans With Disabilities Act: Assessing The Ada Amendments Act Of 2008, Alex B. Long Jan 2008

Introducing The New And Improved Americans With Disabilities Act: Assessing The Ada Amendments Act Of 2008, Alex B. Long

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This essay summarizes the changes to the Americans with Disabilities made by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The Act represents the first substantive revision to the ADA since its inception and contains some dramatic changes. This essay summarizes those changes and makes some preliminary assessments as to how the new amendments are likely to alter the current interpretation of the ADA.


The Troublemaker's Friend: Retaliation Against Third Parties And The Right Of Association In The Workplace, Alex B. Long Dec 2007

The Troublemaker's Friend: Retaliation Against Third Parties And The Right Of Association In The Workplace, Alex B. Long

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Title VII theoretically provides virtually unlimited protection from retaliation for one kind of workplace troublemaker - the employee who files a formal charge of discrimination. However, the protection from retaliation enjoyed by such individuals is significantly less when the troublemaker resorts to an employer's internal process for resolving discrimination complaints prior to the filing of a formal charge of discrimination. And what of the coworker who assists the troublemaker in pursuing such an internal grievance? Or the coworker who simply has some type of relationship with the troublemaker who files a formal charge of discrimination? What protection from retaliation do …


Other Civil Rights Decisions In The October 2005 Term: Title Vii, Idea, And Section 1981(Eighteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman Jan 2007

Other Civil Rights Decisions In The October 2005 Term: Title Vii, Idea, And Section 1981(Eighteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.


(Whatever Happened To) The Ada's Record Of Disability Prong(?), Alex B. Long Nov 2006

(Whatever Happened To) The Ada's Record Of Disability Prong(?), Alex B. Long

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The ADA's record of disability prong is the prong least likely to be used by ADA plaintiffs in claiming protection under the Act. Between the years 2000 and 2004, ADA and Rehabilitation Act plaintiffs in federal court who alleged employment discrimination relied upon the record of disability prong less than one-third as often as the actual and perceived disability prongs in claiming disability status. Nor have ADA plaintiffs enjoyed any greater success when asserting coverage under the record of disability prong during that time period. Congress, the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and the federal courts bear much of the blame …


Discrimination Cases In The October 2004 Term, Eileen Kaufman Jan 2006

Discrimination Cases In The October 2004 Term, Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.


Discrimination Cases Of The 2002 Term (Symposium: The Fifteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman Jan 2004

Discrimination Cases Of The 2002 Term (Symposium: The Fifteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.


Functionality Or Formalism? Partners And Shareholders As "Employees" Under The Anti-Discrimination Laws, Ann C. Mcginley Jan 2004

Functionality Or Formalism? Partners And Shareholders As "Employees" Under The Anti-Discrimination Laws, Ann C. Mcginley

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In Clackamas Gastroenterology Associates P.C. v. Wells, the United States Supreme Court established the standards for determining whether a shareholder in a professional corporation ("PC") is an "employee" as defined by Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA"). Characteristics the court saw as distinguishing partnerships are the profit sharing, contributions to capital, part ownership of partnership assets, and the right to share in management subject to agreement. Even if the partner's power is insufficient to avoid discrimination, courts should also consider whether the partner is more like an independent contractor in that he or she is …


Enabling Work For People With Disabilities: A Post-Integrationist Revision Of Underutilized Tax Incentives, Francine J. Lipman Jan 2003

Enabling Work For People With Disabilities: A Post-Integrationist Revision Of Underutilized Tax Incentives, Francine J. Lipman

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No abstract provided.


Discrimination Cases In The 2001 Term Of The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Fourteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman Jan 2002

Discrimination Cases In The 2001 Term Of The Supreme Court (Symposium: The Fourteenth Annual Supreme Court Review), Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.


Thou Shalt Not Put A Stumbling Block Before The Blind": The Americans With Disabilities Act And Public Transit For The Disabled, Michael Lewyn Jan 2001

Thou Shalt Not Put A Stumbling Block Before The Blind": The Americans With Disabilities Act And Public Transit For The Disabled, Michael Lewyn

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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), ordered local governments to make bus and train systems more accessible to the disabled, and imposed costly requirements upon local public transit systems - but did not give local governments funds with which to satisfy this mandate. By reducing the funds available to transit systems, the ADA has sometimes forced cutbacks in transit service for everyone including, ironically, the disabled to the extent that disabled people were able to use public transit before the ADA's enactment). Thus, the ADA has occasionally (at least in times of budgetary austerity) been counterproductive. The ADA's inadequacy is …


Discrimination Cases In The 2000 Term, Eileen Kaufman Jan 2001

Discrimination Cases In The 2000 Term, Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.


Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court’S 1998 Term, Eileen Kaufman Jan 2000

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court’S 1998 Term, Eileen Kaufman

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In the Supreme Court's 1997 Term, the Supreme Court had decided a record number of statutory discrimination cases. However, that record was exceeded in the Supreme Court's 1998 Term with the Court addressing issues arising under Title VII, which covers discrimination in employment; Title IX, which covers discrimination in schools; and most significantly, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. Overall, the term scored significant victories for employers who were given considerable latitude to set their own physical characteristic standards and who were, to a large extent, immunized from liability for punitive damages. There was an …


Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court's 1997 Term (The Supreme Court And State And Local Government Law: The 1997-1998 Term), Eileen Kaufman Jan 1999

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court's 1997 Term (The Supreme Court And State And Local Government Law: The 1997-1998 Term), Eileen Kaufman

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No abstract provided.


Introduction (Symposium On Municipal Liability), Patricia E. Salkin Jan 1993

Introduction (Symposium On Municipal Liability), Patricia E. Salkin

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No abstract provided.