Short answer
- The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, state and local government programs, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transport and telecommunications. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, and was amended by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, with those changes effective on January 1, 2009. The ADA is divided into five titles. Title I covers employment, Title II covers state and local government services, Title III covers businesses and nonprofits open to the public, Title IV covers telecommunications, and Title V contains miscellaneous provisions, including rules against retaliation. The ADA is not a benefit program, and a person does not need to apply for coverage under it. Whether a particular person or organization is covered, and what action is required, depends on the relevant title, the facts involved and the regulations that apply to that title.
Introduction
The Americans with Disabilities Act, usually shortened to the ADA, is one of the main federal civil rights laws in the United States. It deals with disability discrimination in work, public services, businesses open to the public, transport and telecommunications. Many people have heard of the ADA in connection with wheelchair ramps, accessible parking spaces or assistance dogs, but the law is wider than any single feature. It sets rules for employers, state and local governments, businesses and other organizations, and it gives people with disabilities a route to challenge discrimination.
This article explains the ADA in general terms. It describes what the law is, who it protects, how its five titles work, what reasonable accommodation means, how the law treats service animals, and how enforcement works at a general level. It also clears up common misunderstandings, such as the idea that the ADA covers every situation or that every animal that provides comfort counts as a service animal under the law.
General information disclaimer: This article provides general information about the law only. It is not legal advice for any person’s situation, and it does not create a lawyer client relationship. Laws, regulations and agency guidance can change, and how a rule applies can depend on the facts of a particular case. Anyone who needs advice about a specific situation should consult a qualified lawyer or contact the relevant government agency.
What the ADA Is and What It Is Not
The ADA is a civil rights law. Its central idea is equal opportunity: people with disabilities should have the same opportunities as everyone else to work, to use public services, to buy goods and services, and to take part in public life. The U.S. Department of Justice describes the ADA in similar terms, comparing its protection against disability discrimination with the protection other civil rights laws give against discrimination on grounds such as race, color, sex, national origin, age and religion.
The ADA is also not a benefits law. It does not pay disability benefits, and it does not provide health care or income support. Other programs, such as Social Security disability programs, serve different purposes and have different eligibility rules. A person can be protected by the ADA even if they receive no disability benefit, and receiving a benefit does not by itself decide every ADA question.
The ADA does not cover everything. For example, while it applies to certain types of housing, such as housing at private and public universities and public housing programs, the Fair Housing Act applies to many types of housing more broadly. Disability discrimination in air travel is covered by a different law, the Air Carrier Access Act. Religious organizations are exempt from the requirements of Title III, although they may still have to comply with state or local building codes or other laws. State and local disability laws may also apply in a given case, and they can sometimes be broader than the federal ADA. Readers should therefore treat the ADA as one part of a wider set of disability rights laws, not as the only law that could matter.
Who the ADA Protects
Under the ADA, a person with a disability is someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, someone who has a history or record of such an impairment, or someone who is perceived by others as having such an impairment. The Department of Justice gives examples that illustrate each part of that definition. A person whose cancer is in remission may fall under the record of impairment part. A person with scars from a severe burn who is perceived by others as having an impairment may fall under the perceived impairment part.
The term substantially limits is interpreted broadly and is not meant to be a demanding standard, but not every condition meets it. The Department of Justice gives a mild allergy to pollen as an example of a condition that is not substantially limiting. Major life activities include everyday actions such as eating, sleeping, speaking and breathing, movements such as walking, standing, lifting and bending, cognitive functions such as thinking and concentrating, sensory functions such as seeing and hearing, tasks such as working, reading, learning and communicating, and the operation of major bodily functions such as circulation and reproduction.
Disabilities covered by the ADA are wide ranging, and they are not always visible. The Department of Justice lists examples including cancer, diabetes, post traumatic stress disorder, HIV, autism, cerebral palsy, deafness or hearing loss, blindness or low vision, epilepsy, mobility disabilities such as those requiring the use of a wheelchair, walker or cane, intellectual disabilities, major depressive disorder and traumatic brain injury. The list is illustrative, not exhaustive, and the ADA regulations do not list every disability.
The ADA also protects people in related situations. It makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person because of their association with a person with a disability, for example a parent of a child with a disability. It prohibits retaliation against a person who has asserted their rights under the ADA. And it states that a person with a disability is not required to accept an aid or accommodation if they do not want it. These related protections matter because discrimination is not always directed only at the person who has the disability.
A Short History: 1990 and the 2008 Amendments
The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush. It built on earlier civil rights protections and on the idea, already present in other civil rights laws, that equal opportunity requires both a ban on discrimination and, in some settings, practical steps to remove barriers. The law is codified in the United States Code, principally at 42 U.S.C. sections 12101 and following, and federal agencies have issued regulations and guidance explaining how each title works in practice.
In 2008, Congress passed the ADA Amendments Act, often shortened to the ADAAA. It was signed into law in 2008 and became effective on January 1, 2009. The amendments made significant changes to the definition of disability, and those changes apply to all titles of the ADA. In general terms, the amendments broadened how disability is understood, including by directing that the definition be construed in favor of broad coverage, and by addressing conditions that are episodic or in remission. The practical effect was that, in many cases, the focus of a dispute shifted away from a narrow argument about whether a person counted as having a disability at all, and toward the question of whether discrimination occurred or whether an accommodation or access measure was required.
Title I: Employment
Title I covers employment. It applies to private employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments as employers, employment agencies and labor unions. The general requirement is that employers must provide people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from employment related opportunities available to others. That covers recruitment, hiring, promotions, training, pay and social activities connected with work.
Title I prohibits discrimination against a qualified individual with a disability in job application procedures, hiring, advancement, discharge, compensation, job training and other terms, conditions and privileges of employment. A qualified individual is, in general terms, a person who meets the legitimate skill, experience, education or other requirements of the position and who can perform its essential functions, with or without a reasonable accommodation. Essential functions are the fundamental duties of the job, as distinct from marginal tasks that happen to be part of a role.
Title I also sets rules about medical inquiries and examinations. It prohibits pre employment medical examinations and inquiries designed to determine whether an applicant has a disability, and it restricts the use of employment tests and selection criteria that screen out or tend to screen out people with disabilities, unless those tests or criteria are shown to be job related and consistent with business necessity. Results of medical examinations must be kept confidential. An employer may still inquire about an applicant’s or employee’s ability to perform essential job related functions.
Enforcement of Title I is handled by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, known as the EEOC. A person who believes they have experienced employment discrimination under Title I generally files a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, which investigates and may take further action. Time limits apply to filing a charge, so delay can matter, and the EEOC’s own guidance is the place to check current deadlines and procedures.
Title II: State and Local Government
Title II covers state and local government. Subtitle A applies to all services, programs and activities of state and local governments, even if the government is small or does not receive federal money. Examples include public education, transport, recreation, health care, social services, courts, voting, emergency services and town meetings. The general requirement is that state and local governments must provide people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from all of their programs, services and activities.
In practice, Title II can involve physical access to government buildings, effective communication with people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or have low vision, or who have speech disabilities, and changes to policies, practices and procedures where needed to avoid discrimination. A government program offered in an inaccessible building, for example, may need to be relocated or delivered in another accessible way, depending on the facts and the rules that apply. Title II does not necessarily require every existing building to be rebuilt, but it does require that the program, viewed as a whole, be readily accessible.
Subtitle B of Title II covers public transit systems, requiring them to provide people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from their services. Private transit systems are also covered by the ADA, principally under Title III. Complaints under Title II may be filed with the Department of Justice, and transit complaints may also be filed with the Federal Transit Administration.
Title III: Businesses and Places Open to the Public
Title III covers businesses and nonprofits that serve the public, often called places of public accommodation, as well as commercial facilities. Examples of places of public accommodation include restaurants, hotels, retail stores, movie theaters, private schools, doctors’ offices and hospitals, day care centers, gyms, and organizations offering courses or examinations. Commercial facilities, such as office buildings, warehouses and factories, must comply with the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, even though they are not open to the public in the same way.
The general requirement under Title III is that businesses must provide people with disabilities an equal opportunity to access the goods or services they offer. That can involve removing architectural barriers where removal is readily achievable, providing auxiliary aids and services for effective communication, and modifying policies, practices and procedures where needed. Examples of barrier removal can include installing a ramp, widening a doorway, or rearranging furniture to create an accessible route, depending on what is readily achievable for that business. Examples of auxiliary aids can include qualified interpreters, assistive listening devices, or materials in accessible formats, depending on what is needed for effective communication in the situation.
Title III also covers privately operated transport, such as taxis, intercity and charter buses, and hotel and airport shuttles. Complaints under Title III may be filed with the Department of Justice. Private lawsuits are also possible under Title III, although the remedies available in a private Title III case differ from those in employment cases, and the details depend on the statute and the facts.
Title IV: Telecommunications
Title IV covers telecommunications. It requires telephone companies to provide services that allow callers with hearing and speech disabilities to communicate. The best known result is the telecommunications relay service system, which allows a person using a text telephone or another device to communicate with a person using a standard telephone through a relay operator or an automated service.
Title V: Miscellaneous Provisions
Title V contains miscellaneous provisions that support the rest of the law. It prohibits retaliation against a person who has asserted their rights under the ADA, and it prohibits coercion, intimidation, threats or interference with a person exercising ADA rights or helping someone else to do so. It states that a person with a disability is not required to accept an aid or accommodation if they do not want it. It authorizes courts to award attorneys’ fees to the winning party in a lawsuit under the ADA, subject to the statute’s terms. It also directs certain federal agencies to issue guidance explaining the law, and it addresses the relationship between the ADA and other laws, including a provision stating that the ADA does not invalidate or limit other federal or state laws that provide equal or greater protection.
Reasonable Accommodation at Work
Reasonable accommodation is one of the most important, and most misunderstood, ideas in the ADA. Under Title I, a covered employer must provide a reasonable accommodation to a qualified applicant or employee with a disability, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer. The EEOC describes a reasonable accommodation, in general terms, as any change in the work environment or in the way things are customarily done that enables an individual with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities.
Common examples include making existing facilities accessible, restructuring a job by reassigning non essential tasks or changing when or how essential tasks are performed, offering part time or modified work schedules, modifying workplace policies, acquiring assistive technology or adaptive equipment, changing tests, training materials or formats, providing qualified interpreters, captioners, readers or job coaches, and reassigning an employee to a vacant position where that is appropriate. Leave can also be a reasonable accommodation in some cases, including modifying a leave policy where an employee needs additional leave for a disability related reason. There is no exhaustive list, because what is reasonable depends on the job, the employee’s needs, and the employer’s operations.
Undue hardship means significant difficulty or expense for the employer. That assessment takes account of factors such as the nature and cost of the accommodation, the size and resources of the employer, and the effect on operations. An accommodation that is an undue hardship for a small employer might not be an undue hardship for a large employer, and vice versa. Cost alone does not automatically prove undue hardship, and an employer cannot refuse an accommodation simply because it prefers not to change a practice.
The accommodation process is usually interactive. The employee, or someone on their behalf, requests an accommodation or indicates that a change is needed because of a disability related limitation. The employer and employee then discuss the limitation, the job’s essential functions, and possible accommodations. An employer may ask for reasonable documentation where a disability or the need for accommodation is not obvious, subject to the rules on confidentiality and medical inquiries. The employee does not always get the exact accommodation they prefer, if another effective accommodation is offered instead, but the employer must engage in the process in good faith.
Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals
Few ADA topics cause more confusion than animals. Under Titles II and III, a service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks directly related to the person’s disability. Examples include guiding a person who is blind, alerting a person who is deaf to sounds, pulling a wheelchair, retrieving dropped items, reminding a person to take medication, providing a safety check or room search for a person with post traumatic stress disorder, and interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviors. The task must be directly related to the disability, and the animal must be individually trained to perform it.
In limited circumstances, a miniature horse that has been individually trained to perform work or tasks for a person with a disability may also be treated as a service animal under Titles II and III, subject to assessment factors such as the size and weight of the horse, whether the facility can accommodate it, and whether its presence compromises legitimate safety requirements. Other species, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, do not qualify as service animals under Titles II and III.
Emotional support animals, comfort animals and therapy animals are not service animals under Titles II and III. An animal whose sole function is to provide emotional support, well being, comfort or companionship does not meet the definition, because it has not been individually trained to perform a specific disability related task. A doctor’s letter stating that a person needs an animal for emotional support does not turn that animal into a service animal under the ADA. That distinction does not mean emotional support animals have no legal protection in any setting. Other laws, such as housing law, and some state or local laws, may provide different rules for animals in residential or other settings. The point is specific to the ADA’s Titles II and III: the public access right in those titles applies to service animals as defined there.
Staff at a place of public accommodation or a government facility may ask only two questions when it is not obvious that an animal is a service animal: whether the animal is required because of a disability, and what work or task the animal has been trained to perform. They may not ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation, or require the animal to demonstrate its task. A service animal must be under the control of its handler, and a facility may ask for an animal to be removed in limited circumstances, for example if the animal is out of control and the handler does not take effective action, or if the animal is not housebroken, subject to the rules that apply in that setting.
At work, the rules are different in form, because Title I treats a service animal as a possible reasonable accommodation. An employee who needs a service animal at work generally requests it as an accommodation, and the employer considers it through the interactive process, subject to undue hardship and direct threat considerations. The Title II and Title III public access definition does not automatically decide a Title I workplace question, and the workplace process allows a fuller discussion of the job, the animal and any safety issues.
Enforcement Routes at a General Level
Enforcement depends on the title involved. Title I employment complaints are filed with the EEOC, as described above. Title II and Title III complaints may be filed with the Department of Justice, which receives complaints, conducts investigations, and issues regulations and guidance. Title IV telecommunications complaints involve the Federal Communications Commission and its relay service contacts. Private lawsuits are also possible under the ADA, but the available remedies, procedures and time limits differ by title, and a private case under Title III, for example, works differently from an employment case under Title I.
Common Misconceptions
Several misconceptions about the ADA recur, and each is worth correcting plainly.
First, the ADA does not require every business to be fully accessible in every respect at once. Title III barrier removal is governed by a readily achievable standard, and other titles use their own standards, such as program accessibility under Title II. A small business is not judged by the same practical standard as a large chain in every case, although the duty not to discriminate applies broadly.
Second, the ADA does not protect every condition or every difficulty. A condition must meet the definition of disability, as amended in 2008, and the person must meet the other requirements of the relevant title, such as being a qualified individual for a job. Temporary, minor conditions that do not substantially limit a major life activity will often fall outside the definition, although the regarded as part of the definition can apply in some discrimination cases even where no substantial limitation is shown.
Third, a business or employer may not demand proof that the ADA does not allow it to demand. Under Titles II and III, staff may not require documentation, identification or a demonstration from a person with a service animal, beyond the two permitted questions. In employment, medical inquiries are restricted, and medical information must be kept confidential. Knowing those limits helps both sides: covered entities avoid unlawful inquiries, and people with disabilities know what they can and cannot be asked.
Fourth, the ADA does not override every other rule. Safety requirements that are legitimate and based on actual risk, rather than stereotypes, can matter. A place of public accommodation may apply legitimate safety requirements, and an employer may consider whether an individual poses a direct threat, under the standards the law sets. Those exceptions are narrow and fact specific, and they do not permit a general exclusion of people with disabilities.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does ADA stand for?
ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, state and local government programs, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transport and telecommunications.
When did the ADA become law?
The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990. It was amended by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, with those amendments effective on January 1, 2009. Those dates matter because the 2008 amendments broadened the definition of disability that applies to all titles.
Who is protected by the ADA?
A person is protected if they have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, have a record of such an impairment, or are regarded as having such an impairment. Protection also extends, in related ways, to people discriminated against because of their association with a person with a disability, and to people who face retaliation for asserting ADA rights.
Does the ADA apply to small employers?
Title I applies to private employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments as employers, employment agencies and labor unions. Smaller private employers are not covered by Title I, although state or local employment discrimination laws may apply to smaller employers, and other ADA titles may still apply to the same business in its role as a place of public accommodation or a provider of a public service.
What is a reasonable accommodation?
A reasonable accommodation is a change in the work environment or in the way things are customarily done that enables a qualified person with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities. Examples include modified schedules, job restructuring, assistive technology, modified policies, and reassignment to a vacant position. An employer need not provide an accommodation that would impose an undue hardship, meaning significant difficulty or expense.
Are emotional support animals covered by the ADA?
No, not under Titles II and III. Under those titles, a service animal is a dog individually trained to perform work or tasks directly related to the person’s disability, with miniature horses treated as service animals in limited circumstances. Animals that provide only emotional support, comfort, therapy or companionship are not service animals under Titles II and III, although other laws may apply in housing or other settings, and a service animal at work is considered as a possible reasonable accommodation under Title I.
How do I file an ADA complaint?
It depends on the title. Employment complaints under Title I go to the EEOC. Complaints about state and local government services under Title II and about businesses open to the public under Title III go to the Department of Justice. Telecommunications complaints under Title IV involve the Federal Communications Commission. Filing deadlines apply, so check the relevant agency’s current procedures promptly.
Does the ADA cover housing?
Only in part. The ADA applies to certain types of housing, such as housing at private and public universities and public housing programs, but the Fair Housing Act applies to many types of housing more broadly. A housing dispute should therefore be checked under both laws, and under any applicable state or local law, rather than assuming the ADA alone decides it.
Sources & references
- U.S. Department of Justice, ADA.gov, Introduction to the Americans with Disabilities Act: https://www.ada.gov/topics/intro-to-ada/
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/employer-provided-leave-and-americans-disabilities-act
- U.S. Department of Justice, ADA.gov archive, Fact Sheet: Highlights of the Final Rule to Amend the Department of Justice Regulation Implementing Title III of the ADA: https://Archive.ada.gov/regs2010/factsheets/title3_factsheet.html
- ADA National Network, What is a service animal?: https://adata.org/faq/what-service-animal/
- ADA National Network, What Is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?: https://adata.org/learn-about-ada/
