The ten ADA & Accessible IT Centers are hosting the National ADA Symposium on the Americans with Disabilities Act and related disability issues. The Symposium will be held from April 10 – 12, 2006 at the America's Center in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri. You may visit the Symposium web site for registration information, a list of sessions and other general information about the event. The National ADA Symposium is the most comprehensive conference available on the Americans with Disabilities Act and related disability laws.
This premiere event offers:
If you have additional questions about the National ADA Symposium please contact the Great Lakes Center by calling 800-949-4232 (Voice/TTY) or by visiting our on-line Contact us form.
The ADA Audio Conference Series is a collaborative project of the ADA and IT Technical Assistance Centers. The sessions provide continuous education on regulations and trends under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Each sessions is scheduled from 1:00 to 2:30 pm Central Time (90 minutes). A written transcript and digital recording of each session is archived on the Great Lakes ADA Center web site.
Participation in the program is available in three formats: Teleconference, real-time captioning and a NEW Service: Real-time Streaming Audio via the Internet. Real-time streaming audio allows you to hear the session using Windows Media Player with a web interface to allow participation during the question and answer portion of the session.
This year the program offers series in an effort to provide participants with a concentration in one or more special topic areas. They include Employment and the ADA (4) and Issues Associated with the Built Environment (2).
There are many topics which are of interest to employers but the current trends in the courts and issues which have been raised through technical assistance calls indicate that "Leave as an accommodation" and "Pre-Employment Testing" are of particular interest to many. Recently courts are beginning to address this issue and employers are beginning to re-examine their testing practices.
Join us for this session as we explore the issues around pre-employment testing and exactly what constitutes a permissible "test" and what the "gray" areas of testing are under the ADA. In addition, this session will explore "leave as an accommodation" and clarify how "leave" applies under the ADA for qualified employees. The interplay between FMLA and the ADA will be discussed.
CEU Credits: CRC, SHRM
In support of participation at the National ADA Symposium (www.adasymposium.org) the Great Lakes ADA and Accessible IT Center is making a limited number of $600.00 scholarships available to assist with offsetting the cost of attendance. Applications will only be accepted from individuals who reside in the Great Lakes Region (IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI).
The scholarship will pay the Symposium registration fee plus the optional pre-conference and apply the remaining funds toward the cost of airfare, hotel or food. Awarding of the scholarships will be based on need and distributed on a first come first serve basis. Governmental entities are not eligible to apply for the scholarships.
We will accept applications through March 1, 2006 but cannot guarantee that all applications will be awarded the scholarship. Notification will be made no later than March 15, 2006 to enable finalization of travel plans.
If you are planning to attend the Symposium we would recommend that you make your hotel reservations early, they can be cancelled if you are unable to attend. This is especially important because of several other major events are happening at the same time.
Applications for the scholarships can be obtained from and also completed on-line at www.adagreatlakes.org. Individuals may contact the Center to receive a paper copy of the application and fax it back to our office at 312-413-1856. Additional information regarding the Scholarship or the Symposium can be found on the Great Lakes website or by contacting the Center at 800-949-4232 (Voice/TTY.)
New guidelines have been released under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that will assist states in ensuring access to all voters, including those with disabilities. The voluntary guidelines were created by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), as part of the HAVA legislation. The guidelines address access for voters as well as privacy and security concerns.
The Justice Department announced a settlement agreement with the City of Waukegan, Illinois to improve access to all aspects of civic life for persons with disabilities. The agreement is part of "Project Civic Access," a wide-ranging effort to ensure that cities, towns, and villages comply with the ADA.
Under the agreement, the City of Waukegan has agreed to:
The settlement agreement will remain in effect for four years or until the parties agree that full compliance has been achieved.
In addition, the Department has posted to its web site the following settlement agreements involving these covered entities:
The EEOC alleged in its lawsuit against Americall Group that it had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when it refused to hire a qualified applicant because she was blind and used a guide dog. Americall will pay $200,000 to the individual and have it's employees complete training on the requirements of the ADA regarding employment.
The EEOC filed the lawsuit on August 24, 2004, on behalf of an applicant who had applied for a position at Americall as a telemarketing service representative. She had come to the interview at Americall's Lansing, Illinois, facility with her guide dog. After the interview, the company sent her a letter telling her that they could not accommodate her guide dog.
All web documents should be divided into short sections for readability and should be organized using a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings. This is true regardless of whether the document is delivered using HTML, Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, or another document format.
In all formats, it's important that headings be explicitly defined as headings, rather than simply formatted as larger or bolder, in which case they may look like headings but they aren't actually headings. In HTML, headings should be defined using valid HTML heading elements such as H1, H2, and H3. In Microsoft Word, headings should be defined by selecting appropriate heading styles from the Formatting Toolbar. When a PDF is created from Microsoft Word, these heading styles can be passed on to the PDF as bookmark which facilitates navigation within the PDF document.
Using a clear, explicitly-defined heading structure helps all users to understand the document contents, but it especially helps users of assistive technologies such as screen readers. Most screen readers include functionality that allows users to jump between headings with a single keystroke, so blind users can effectively scan the document looking for sections that particularly interest them, just as sighted users typically do.
Another technique for facilitating navigation within a web page is to include a same-page link that allows users to jump from the top of a document to a particular anchor within the document. This technique is most commonly used for allowing users to skip past a redundant navigational menu and go straight to the main contents of the page.
For additional information about this topic, contact the Great Lakes Center Accessible IT staff at 800-949-4232 (Voice/TTY) or via our on-line Contact Us form.
You may also view these additional articles, What is a "skip navigation" link?
And Is it a good idea to make "skip navigation" links invisible?
to get further information.
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has introduced S. 2124, the Emergency Preparedness and Response for Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2005. This legislation will address the needs of individuals with disabilities in emergency planning and relief efforts.
This legislation would require the creation of a Disability Coordinator in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Coordinator would be responsible for:
The legislation would also require that 30 percent of temporary housing for disaster victims be accessible, and usable by individuals with disabilities. It would also provide incentives to create more accessible housing during the reconstruction of impacted regions.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are not immune from lawsuits seeking monetary damages when the suits allege violations of the U.S. Constitution and are permitted under the ADA. In the opinion, Justice Scalia wrote that the Court accepted the 11th Circuit's ruling that the plaintiff had alleged a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
In the case, Tony Goodman alleged that prison officials kept him for 23 hours a day in a cell so small that he could not turn his wheelchair. The Court remanded the case to allow Goodman to pursue his Title II claims.
The Department of Justice has reached resolution in their lawsuit against American Multi-Cinema, Inc. and AMC Entertainment Inc., operators of one of the nation's largest chains of movie theaters. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered AMC to remedy violations at all AMC movie theaters that do not provide equal wheel chair access.
"Providing the same movie going experience for individuals in wheelchairs that other patrons enjoy delivers on the promise of the ADA," said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "These improvements will make the goals of the ADA a reality for thousands of Americans who want to enjoy this popular form of entertainment."
This resolution affirms the requirements of the ADA for places of public accommodation, such as movie theaters, to provide equal access to persons with disabilities and prevents them from providing persons with disabilities a lower quality of goods and services than they provide other members of the general public. This decision will impact approximately 1,200 of AMC's 1,933 stadium style auditoriums, which includes providing ramps in over 360 auditoriums. Further, this decision will have a significant impact on future AMC theaters. In addition, AMC is ordered to pay $200,000 in damages to the complainants and a $100,000 civil penalty for violation of the ADA.
This case adds to a string of successes that the Department of Justice has had related to making stadium-style movie theaters more accessible. Previous theatre entities that have been found to be in violation of the ADA include Cinemark USA, Inc., Regal Entertainment Group, which includes Hoyt's Cinemas and National Amusements Inc., a movie theater chain based in Massachusetts.
The Annual Disability Policy Seminar brings national, state and local disability organizations as well as self-advocates, families and providers to our nation's capital for three days of intense public policy discussions and meetings focused on issues affecting people with disabilities.
The 2006 Disability Policy Seminar is an opportunity for the disability community to educate the U.S. Congress and their constituents on how to preserve and strengthen federal policies and programs important to people with disabilities.
In/Dependence: Disability, Welfare, and Age is a one-day interdisciplinary symposium at the Center for 21st Century Studies interrogating the meanings and implications of dependency and independence in American life. The focus will be on ways in which issues of dependency affect the personal lives and self-understandings of individuals and groups, and on the challenges these issues pose for public policy and social justice. The theme reaches deep into some persisting and central concerns of the humanities, raising questions about the nature and boundaries of the self and, especially, about the relation between self and others. We believe that interdisciplinary discussion within the humanities along axes of age, ability, gender, race, class, and geo-political relations can play a crucial role in deepening our understanding of a set of challenges that is of increasing concern.
The symposium In/Dependence: Disability, Welfare, and Age will convene at 10 AM on Friday, April 7, in Curtin Hall, Room 175, 3243 North Downer Avenue, on the UW-Milwaukee campus. For more information, including registration materials and information about accommodations, please contact Center deputy director Kate Kramer at 414-229-5044 or kkramer@uwm.edu. Please visit the Center website for further information and updates: www.21st.uwm.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Center for 21st Century Studies, College of Letters & Science, with support from the Graduate School, and the Center on Age & Community, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Humanities Council, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
ADA-Ohio is participating in the annual Multiple Perspective Conference being held April 17-18, 2006, at the Pfahl Executive Education and Conference Center on the campus of Ohio State University.
The goal is to encourage presenters and participants to reflect on how personal experiences create and transform social, cultural, and legal realities - a look into what the psychologist Theodore Sarbin referred to as "the storied nature of human conduct."
For more information regarding the Conference, please go to web site http://ada.osu.edu/conferences/location.htm, or contact Scott Lissner, ADA Coordinator, Ohio State University, Phone 614-292-6207 (Voice), 614-688-8605 (TTY), 614-688-3665 (Fax) or Email ada-osu@osu.edu
The Illinois ADA Project's next Steering Committee Meeting will be held on February 1st. The ADA Project has invited Karen McCulloh, Executive Director of Chicago's disabilityworks initiative, to join the Steering Committee as employment has been a focus of the Project. The ADA Project has been working with disabilityworks to increase ADA Awareness in the employment community and help employers recognize the benefits of ADA compliance and employing people with disabilities.
Recently, the Project met with the Chicago Jobs Council to discuss information regarding reasonable accommodations at trainings that they provide. Further collaborations were also discussed. In addition, the ADA Project is part of a recently formed Employment Leadership Group that is dedicated to taking action to improve the employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. At the January meeting, Project representatives discussed the need for ADA training for job developers, employers, service providers, and interested individuals as part of this process, and this was recognized by the individuals at the meeting.
In collaboration with fiscal agent, Equip for Equality, the ADA Project is preparing a Fact Sheet on Personality Testing based on a recent case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Karraker V. Rent-A-Center. In Karraker, the Court held that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was a "medical examination" and therefore could not be given to job applicants prior to extending a job offer. An article about this decision will appear soon in the Chicago Chamber of Commerce Newsletter.
Employment and the ADA Audio Conference Series in Indiana
ADA-Indiana is sponsoring the four-part Employment and the ADA Audio Conference Series in six Indiana communities in January, February, March, and April. The first session in the series was attended by 43 participants across the six sites. The site locations sponsored by ADA-Indiana are free and open to the public and no pre-registration is required. The site locations and times are available on the ADA-Indiana website (www.adaindiana.org).
Upcoming Video Conference on Title I and Reasonable Accommodation
This spring, ADA-Indiana and Great Lakes are collaborating with East Central Opportunities, a workforce development organization, in Muncie, Indiana to provide training on Title I of the ADA. The training will utilize video conferencing technology to connect the trainers and participants in five counties in East Central Indiana. It will be promoted to employers, human resource professionals, and other employment specialists in the area.
Member Spotlight: Ric Edwards, Indiana Department of Natural Resources
Ric Edwards has been with ADA-Indiana since the organization began in 1991. He works as the ADA Compliance Director for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and is involved in advocacy work in his hometown of Indianapolis as well.
This past December, Ric shared his knowledge and years of experience in implementing the ADA with the 2005-2006 Indiana Partners in Policymaking participants (a program sponsored by the Indiana Governor's Council for People with Disabilities). The training for the Partners was conducted during Indiana's Annual Disability Conference and focused on a general overview of the ADA and advocacy skills. Ric has performed this training for the Partners now for several years.
Visit the ADA-Indiana website at www.adaindiana.org for updates on projects and events.
The Michigan ADA Steering Committee will be providing half-day training about how to perform accessibility site surveys at The Disability Network in Flint, MI on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 from 10AM - 2AM. The training is FREE and lunch will be provided. Michigan ADA Steering Committee members will be discussing the basics of surveying sites, sample forms, measuring tools, advocacy strategies and programmatic accessibility. For more information, please contact Gary Kidd at 810-742-1800 ext. 315.
Mark your calendars for the next audio conference session on Tuesday, February 21st from 2-3:30 PM Eastern. The topic will be: Hot Topics in Employment: Pre-employment Testing and Leave as an Accommodation. The speaker is Adele Rapport, Attorney at the U.S. EEOC.
Audio conference host sites are available in the following cities in Michigan: Battle Creek, Flint, Kalamazoo, Marquette, Muskegon and Livonia. Participation in the ADA Audio Conference series is available free of charge at the listed host sites.
The audio conference schedule can be found at: www.ada-audio.org
For more information on how to participate in this valuable learning opportunity or about becoming a host site, please contact Collene Dabish of the Michigan ADA Steering Committee at: 800-414-3956 or via email: cdabish@mpas.org
ADA Minnesota will again be awarding grants from $500 - $2000 per project that meet the mini-grant criteria. They have recently increased the number of grants to be awarded and encourage interested non-profit organizations to review the RFP and contact them with any questions.
The goals of these mini-grants are to increase partnerships between diverse communities, disability-related organizations, businesses, government and not-for-profit organizations across Minnesota by funding multi-organizational projects that increase and encourage involvement of individuals with disabilities.
They should also provide opportunities to create collaborative partnerships and increase public knowledge, understanding of Title I (employment), Title II (public services) and Title III (public accommodations of the ADA).
Proposal information can be viewed at: www.adaminnesota.org or by contacting cindyt@mcil-mn.org. Please note that all proposals must be submitted by February 15, 2006
ADA-Ohio is participating in the annual Multiple Perspective Conference being held April 17-18, 2006, at the Pfahl Executive Education and Conference Center on the campus of The Ohio State University.
The organizing theme for the sixth annual Conference is "Personal Perspectives & Social Impact: The Stories We Tell." The goal is to encourage presenters and participants to reflect on how personal experiences create and transform social, cultural, and legal realities - a look into what the psychologist Theodore Sarbin referred to as "the storied nature of human conduct."
Presenters will address such topics as:
During the Conference, the annual ADA Award will be presented by ADA-Ohio to David Cameron.
For more information regarding the Conference, please go to web site http://ada.osu.edu/conferences/location.htm, or contact Scott Lissner, ADA Coordinator, The Ohio State University, Phone 614-292-6207 (Voice), 614-688-8605 (TTY), 614-688-3665 (Fax); Email ada-osu@osu.edu
The Wisconsin ADA Partnership and the Great Lakes ADA and Accessible Information Technology Center were pleased to sponsor a Professional Development Series (PDS) Seminar for Rehabilitation For Wisconsin, Inc. which took place on Tuesday, January 17 at the Howard Johnson East in Madison. Nearly 60 professionals from the field of rehabilitation participated in "Creating Access Step by Step: What Direct Service Staff Should Know", which focused on:
Peter Berg from the Great Lakes ADA Center presented and acted as facilitator for the day. ADA WI Partnership members Jenny Neugart and Joy Combs participated as speakers along with Bette Mentz-Powell of the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services to discuss etiquette and communication issues. Ken Hagmann of Opportunities, Inc. ended the day with an informative look at high and low tech assistive technology.
Partnership LINK: The ADA Wisconsin Partnership is set to launch the second edition of our new electronic newsletter, the Partnership LINK. The focus of this LINK is on access to transportation, offering federal, state and local resources. If you would like to be added to the newsletter recipient list please contact tkulow@rfw.org.
The ADA covers private employers with 15 or more full or part-time employees and also state and local government employers with one or more employees. The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in all employment practices of covered employers. A covered employer may hire, fire or promote the most qualified individual he or she chooses but that employer is prohibited from using disability in that decision making process.
The purpose of the "association provision" is to prohibit employers from taking adverse actions based on unfounded stereotypes and assumptions about individuals who associate with people who have disabilities. The ADA makes actions such as refusing to hire an individual who has a child with a disability based on an assumption that the applicant will be away from work excessively or be otherwise unreliable, firing an employee who works with people who are HIV-positive or have AIDS based on the assumption that the employee will contract the disease, or denying an employee health care coverage available to others because of the disability of an employee's dependent unlawful.
The "association provision" of the ADA prohibits employment discrimination against a person, whether or not he or she has a disability, because of his or her known relationship or association with a person with a known disability. This means that an employer is prohibited from making adverse employment decisions based on unfounded concerns about the known disability of a family member or anyone else with which the applicant or employee has a relationship or association.
The ADA does not require a family relationship for an individual to be protected by the association provision. The important factor is whether the employer is motivated by the individual's relationship or association with a person who has a disability.
Employers don't have to provide reasonable accommodations to employees who associate with individuals with disabilities. Only qualified applicants and employees with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodation.
For example, the ADA would not require an employer to modify its leave policy for an employee who needs time off to care for a child with a disability. However, an employer must avoid treating an employee differently than other employees because of his or her association with a person with a disability.
For additional information regarding the employment provisions of the ADA contact the Great Lakes Center by calling 800-949-4232 (Voice/TTY).
This information is taken from the EEOC Fact Sheet titled: "Questions and Answers About the Association Provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act" available on-line at www.eeoc.gov
The following documents provide information regarding the rights and responsibilities of individuals and employers covered by the Title I provisions of the ADA.
Questions and Answers About the Americans with Disabilities Act's Association Provision
To obtain the resource of the month or to receive hardcopy versions of the above materials contact the Great Lakes ADA and Accessible IT Center by calling 800-949-4232 (Voice/TTY).
If you have questions or comments about the Great Lakes Chronicle contact:
Great Lakes Chronicle Editorial Staff: Robin Jones, Peter Berg & Claudia Diaz at 312-413-1407 (Voice/TTY) or Great Lakes Chronicle Online
Technical Editors: Nilay Shah & Julio Chavarria
Great Lakes ADA & Accessible IT Center
University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Disability and Human Development (MC 728)
College of Applied Health Sciences
1640 W. Roosevelt Road Chicago, IL 60608
800-949-4232 (Voice/TTY)
312-413-1856 (Fax)
Email Great Lakes ADA Center
www.adagreatlakes.org
