ADAAA Definition

Reasonable accommodation

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990 with the purpose to prevent discrimination of a disability in the workplace or in an educational setting. However, the ADA too narrowly defined the definition of a disability and this term was more broadly defined in the 2008 passing of American with Disabilities Act Amendment Act (ADAAA). The ADAAA is now the standard used to define disability and determine the accommodation necessary of the institution. This paper examines what defines a disability and what is considered a reasonable accommodation in order to answer whether or not permanent absence is considered a reasonable accommodation. To answer this question I employ a scenario of a person with anxiety

This definition was then further narrowed by the Supreme Court in Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that if a person has taken measures to correct the impairment this must be considered in order to judge whether the person is “substantially limited” in major life activities. Consequently, this ruling implied that if a person was positively responding or could benefit from treatment for their disability they might no longer be considered disabled. Therefore, significantly narrowing the definition of disabled. The term disabled was then further narrowed in Toyota v. Williams, in which the supreme court asserted that substantially limited be defined strictly by the ADA standard of something that “prevents or severely restricts the individual from doing activities that are of central importance to most people’s daily lives”(ADA). The court’s narrow definition created a reality where “Individuals disabled enough to meet the Court’s narrow interpretation of an ‘individual with a disability’ were often too disabled to be qualified for the job; and if they could do the job, they often were not individuals with a disability”(Chen). The ADAAA attempts to resolve these conflicts by broadening the definition of disability. The ADAAA attempts to redefine the definition of disability of rejecting the precedents set forth in Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc. and Toyota v. Williams. Also, the ADAAA asserts that the question whether or not the individual is disabled does not demand extensive research rather the question whether the institution has complied with the regulations takes precedent. However, while the ADAAA attempts to resolve the issues of the ADA definition of a disability