Why The ADA Act Was Bad For People With Disabilities
Stossel writes on TownHall:
The ADA was supposed to help more disabled people find jobs. But did it?Strangely, no. An MIT study found that employment of disabled men ages 21 to 58 declined after the ADA went into effect. Same for women ages 21 to 39.
How could employment among the disabled have declined?
Because the law turns "protected" people into potential lawsuits. Most ADA litigation occurs when an employee is fired, so the safest way to avoid those costs is not to hire the disabled in the first place.
Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the Overlawyered.com blog, says that the law was unnecessary. Many "hire the handicapped" programs existed before the ADA passed. Sadly, now most have been quietly discontinued, probably because of the threat of legal consequences if an employee doesn't work out.
Under the ADA, Olson notes, fairness does not mean treating disabled people the same as non-disabled people. Rather it means accommodating them. In other words, the law requires that people be treated unequally.
The law has also unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by "professional litigants" who file a hundred suits at a time. Disabled people visit businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally) extort settlement money from the businesses.
...Finally, the ADA has led to some truly bizarre results. Exxon gave ship captain Joseph Hazelwood a job after he completed alcohol rehab. Hazelwood then drank too much and let the Exxon Valdez run aground in Alaska. Exxon was sued for allowing it to happen. So Exxon prohibited employees who have had a drug or drinking problem from holding safety-sensitive jobs. The result? You guessed it -- employees with a history of alcohol abuse sued under the ADA, demanding their "right" to those jobs. The federal government (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) supported the employees. Courts are still trying to sort it out.
James T. writes in the comments:
Some years ago, the city fathers of NYC tired of complaints of people urinating in alleys (and worse) and planned to kiosk rest rooms along the streets. Every so often there would be one that met ADA standards. They were sued. All had to meet ADA standards. Result: Everyone, including the handicapped are still urinating against buildings. It was just too expensive. Project dropped. Another personal knowledge incident. A young couple started a decorating service on the second floor of an old building and prospered for several years. The one or two people who could not climb the stairs were perfectly happy with the youngsters hauling tons of samples, etc to their homes. Along comes the ADA litigation queen. Not good enough, they were a public business, they had to meet ADA standards. Business closed. Five workers, not including owners were out of jobs. The young couple went south, where the could rent a one story building. This is just another example of employment disappearing from the northeast.
Oh, that figures...we try to accommodate people with disabilities, but some of them, cultivating their victimhood mindset, make it their business to make us regret even trying.
I don't object to programs to benefit the disadvantaged. I just wish it wasn't so lucrative for some of them to put them in the position to abuse it.
The post office doesn't have access ramps for people with mobility issues, and the man in the wheelchair objects? Fine. So the courts order the post office to make the access ramps and fine them for every day after the deadline they are in non-compliance. However, the man in the wheelchair is not entitled to compensation.
Patrick at September 2, 2010 4:33 AM
The ADA and its supported have lost sight of the fact that disabled people are, in fact, disabled.
If you are disabled, there will be some restaurants you can't eat in, because they're up a steep set of stairs. There will be some businesses with no handy parking. Take your business and your money elsewhere, what's the problem? How does it make the world a better place if you force these businesses to close?
On a related note, I just got back from visiting the USA - the first visit in some years. I was shocked by the huge number of handicapped parking places - and even more shocked by the fact that they were all taken! In Europe, most businesses have one, or maybe two handicapped spots, and they are usually empty.
Does the USA classify everyone with any sort of health problem as disabled? Are handicapped stickers handed out as raffle prizes? What gives?
bradley13 at September 2, 2010 5:23 AM
Bradley, the answer is not quite. People not entitled to use the stickers/license plates of their handicapped relatives do so, and keep them after they die or no longer need them. The New York State Police confiscate some every year at the State Fair, due to non-handicapped people abusing them. This is in the newspaper, every year. Fat and stupid is no way to go through life.
Some people's sense of entitlement overwhelms their common sense.
MarkD at September 2, 2010 6:07 AM
Also, you should note that not every disability makes itself apparent.
Just because you don't see a wheelchair, cane or crutches, doesn't mean that a person is not disabled and shouldn't be accommodated for their disability.
Patrick at September 2, 2010 6:42 AM
Patrick's right, but then, there are also the "bullshit handicapped," as I've blogged before, quoting Marie Standing that "being cheap is not a medical condition." The actual handicapped guy on their block can't park in his spot thanks to all the people who've gotten placards from their doctors. Read the whole thing at the link. An excerpt:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/10/07/the_bullshit_di.html
Amy Alkon at September 2, 2010 6:50 AM
Oh, yeah. Walter Olson, quoted above, will be on Stossel's show tonight, and some of the subjects they'll discuss:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/on-tonights-john-stossel-show-fbn/
Amy Alkon at September 2, 2010 6:52 AM
Some regulations are sensible... like having new buildings build ramps (old ones can be grandfathered in) as well as public buildings like post offices and train stations and places people generally need to have access to.
Ye old tavern on the third floor of ye old rickety stairs building should be grandfathered in.
NicoleK at September 2, 2010 8:32 AM
My 9 year old daughter uses, depending on her ability on any given day, canes, a walker, a wheelchair, or just a hand to hold on to. She has a mitochondrial disorder. Flaming anti-government right wing crazy conservative that I am, am glad we have this law. I just got back from two weeks on business to England and Ireland, and realized while I was there that I could never take my daughter there. No way to get on/off transportation (amazing number of stairs in the tube), no ramps, uneven brick/paver/rock sidewalks, tiny narrow doors, etc. I saw much fewer physically handicapped folks about than I do even in my smaller town. Yes, the law is abused: by the same sort of people who sue McDonalds for serving their coffee hot, or who get handicapped placards for their hangnail, or who are in general out for whatever they can get without working for it.
Lesley at September 2, 2010 9:48 AM
Lesley, you have a good point: Just because a law is abused doesn't mean the law is bad and should be done away with. ADA has done a lot of good in providing people with disabilities access to life. We just need to tweak it so it's less open to abuse.
MonicaP at September 2, 2010 10:31 AM
I have handicapped friends and am glad the law benefits them (just as we are collectively pissed off when the non-handicapped take the parking spaces they need). On the other hand, I have defended a number of abusive claims against my clients - including one by a "lady" disciplined for sleeping on the job. She cried "sleep apnea!" [she should have tried narcolepsy]. When I cheekily asked the government agent mediating the claim how we could / should accommodate her - providing a job she can perform in her sleep? - he suggested it was our duty to buy her a CPAP machine. Once I regained the capacity for speech, I asked him to provide me legal support for that notion. We made the claim go away. Scary, though ...
Mr. Teflon at September 2, 2010 10:40 AM
Too many economic parasites in America. Crippled people, the military, farmers, retirees, etc.
The productive people are getting overloaded.
BOTU at September 2, 2010 10:52 AM
One of my employer's top workers is in a wheelchair. We set up a special parking area for his van and the whole dept moved to the ground floor, and he's been here ever since.
Then they hired another guy in a wheelchair who was terrible. His dept bent over backwards trying to boost his confidence and even gave him some sort of award for a sale that others had set up for him. Then they came to realize how slow he was, but were scared to death to let him go for fear of a discrimination suit. Not sure how it worked out but he's gone now.
That fear is real because for a federal discrim suit plaintiff can get attys fees and punitive damages IIRC.
carol at September 2, 2010 1:03 PM
I have no issue with the concept of the ADA. My issue is the implementation.
There should be no reason for needing consultants to make sure you're ADA compliant. The same with any other set of regulations or laws.
If you make a market for employing consultants and lawyers -- it is very hard to rid of.
Jim P. at September 2, 2010 9:58 PM
Lesley,
I have wondered at the lack of disabled people I see in Europe. I think the reason we don't see them is because they cannot get out of their homes to be seen. Look around in any city in Europe and try to find a sidewalk someone in a wheelchair can access, or a building they could enter if they could get onto that sidewalk.
Unfortunately, there always seem to be people who take advantage of something good, then abuse it.
Ingrid at September 3, 2010 12:20 PM
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