How ADA make people monsters

I will not go into too many details on this topic, just say that if there are “rules” people tend to forget the key idea, “spirit” of those rules. People tend to forget what their brains and hearts were used to be used for. They typically rely too much on those rules. As sad as it sounds, this is typically true. For example, Americans with Disability Act (ADA), despite the fact that it was passed to serve needy people, this law does not give the employee and employer any flexibility; instead the evidence suggests the opposite. The intention was excellent and, of course, out of questions, but the implementation many years later is driving people further and further from this intention. Everybody knows that disabled people are not “equally” disabled, they all have different problems; even if there is some classification that supposed to identify some groups of needs, the key point on this is that it is only theoretical. Most people try to “average” out some needs and make recommendations according to the descriptions, unfortunately, transformation of those recommendations into an obligation can be a disaster, because what helps one person can harm another that can be irreversible 3.

 

Moreover, no disabled person wants people to recognize the disability of his/her in a traditional way, because it normally hurts 2,3,4. The traditional view of disability often focuses on a defect or impairment and not on the person himself/herself 5. The ADA states disability as an advantage almost, so disabled person has “privileges” before others. This gives a person often at least weird looks and, as a normal reaction, hate and/or avoidance from others, especially combined with impossibility to explain everybody that “privilege” is not really a privilege. In addition to that, it offends the person 5,8. A lot of times it not only hurts, but this means excluding the person from any society activities, writing him/her off. It often almost feels as the society is burying the person alive, guided by the nice and kind motive “it is good for them, be easy on them” and so on.

 

The ADA offers a protection to disabled people on problems they may encounter during the life like discrimination regarding to the accessing the opportunity to get the “perfect” fitting job for their skills, discrimination at the work place of any kind, arranging appropriate accommodations. The reverse of this “medal” is the fact that, as everybody knows, everything has a price-tag and in this case the cost comes as overly protected rights. It means decreased opportunity for “perfect” job, because despite what the employer says he/she will think about circumstances and attaching the label for everybody to see the “abnormality” or “exclusivity”. Another adverse event is suggested by many researches, and it is the fact that a lot of people are pretending to be disabled and overall in serious health condition in order to get all the government help they can. As a result of this, often, really needy people cannot get a hold of things they were supposed to get, according to this law 1. There are two key reasons for that: the limited resources and the limited ability of the majority of disabled people speak for themselves for many reasons. For example, some of disabled individuals could be not good enough at knowing their rights, they could be not strong enough to “fight” against the bureaucratic machine, or they could be reluctant to the revealing their health condition if it is not apparent.

 

On the other hand, ADA dictates employers such rules that disabled people (or the ones pretending to be disabled) unfireable no matter what. So the individual can be a lousy personality nobody wants to work with, he/she can be a terrible worker, as well; yet, nobody can fire him/her. Furthermore, if the person feels abandoned or something he/she can sue the employer, so the employer see that person as a potential lawsuit even before hiring the individual with declared disability. Even though the employer is denying any discrimination and declaring offering equal opportunity rights for every person applied for the job. The employer will perhaps never get any problems and will only win hiring the disabled person because of his/her skills, but there is a potential chance for the employer to lose a lot of money and reputation, which sometimes is a deciding factor in the hiring process. Another potentially deciding factor for a negative answer to the incumbent is that the individual will ask for accommodations that are not very appealing for the employer to offer in regard to utilizing the money, time, and/or other resources 6,7.

 

The conclusion is simple - ADA was supposed to be a respectable and effective law when it was first publicised. However, since that time a lot of things have happened, a lot of changes took place, besides the fact that no law can consider all possible situations or it will be a huge pile of contradicting statues. Considering all of the above, all of the negative stuff about ADA could be avoided if people live by their heart more than by their rules, which, in fact, not always their particular will.

 

References

1. BustAThief.com. (2010). Disability fraud – disability scam. Retrieved from http://www.bustathief.com/disability-fraud-disability-scam/
2. Diversityworld.com. (2011). The ten commandments of communicating with people with disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.diversityshop.com/store/10comvid.html
3. Hartman, M. (March 2004). People with and without disabilities: Interacting & communicating. Retrieved from http://eeo.gsfc.nasa.gov/disability/publications.html
4. Henry, S.L. (2007). Interacting with people with disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/interact.html
5. Murugami, M.W. (2009). Disability and identity. The Society for Disability Studies, 29(4). . Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/979/1173
6. Olson, W. (July 26, 2010). ADA’s 20th Anniversary. Retrieved from http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/adas-20th-anniversary/
7. Sparks, K. (June 04, 2011). Pros & cons of ADA. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/info_8541954_pros-cons-ada.html
8. Youtube. (November 13, 2010). Stossel affirmative action bake sale. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn48t-X0uNU