Suchergebnisse

Building on the insights of both disability studies and civil rights scholars, Mark C. Weber frames his examination of disability harassment on the premise that disabled people are members of a minority group that must negotiate an artificial yet often damaging environment of physical and attitudinal barriers. The book considers courts' approaches to the problem of disability harassment, particularly the application of an analogy to race and sex harassment and the development of legal remedies and policy reforms under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While litigation under the ADA has addressed discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and education, Weber points out that the law has done little to combat disability harassment. He recommends that arguments based on unused provisions of the ADA should be developed and new legal remedies advanced to address the problem. Disability Harassment also draws on case law to explore special problems of harassment in the public schools, and closes with an appeal to judges and lawmakers for expanded legal protection against harassment

American disability discrimination laws contain few intent requirements. Yet courts frequently demand showings of intent in disability discrimination lawsuits. Intent requirements arose almost by accident: through a false statutory analogy; by repetition of obsolete judicial language; and by doctrine developed to avoid a nonexistent conflict with another law. Demanding that section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") claimants show intent imposes a burden not found in those statutes or their interpretive regulations. This Article provides reasons not to impose intent requirements for liability or monetary relief in section 504 and ADA cases concerning reasonable accommodations. It demonstrates that no intent requirement applies to ADA employment cases, then explains that the same conclusion should apply to cases under the ADA's state and local government provisions and section 504. It rebuts an analogy to caselaw under Title VI and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act that some courts use to impose intent requirements. It then discusses the reasoning of cases relying on the inappropriate analogy, cases resting on obsolete precedent, and cases refusing to apply remedies to avoid conflicting with federal law. This Article relies on a contextual reading of Supreme Court decisions, the history of the ADA, and policy considerations.