Sideways Society

Mental and physical disability in the workplace is the most extensively misunderstood subject in discrimination. In a workplace, the disabled are one of the most undervalued employees and the most underutilized in the United States. Furthermore, they are less respected as an employee because of their mental or physical condition. When people think of the word handicapped, most people assume “handicapped” equivalents to people limited to a wheelchair.  However, this is not the case. Approximately 10% of the world’s population or about 600 million people are disabled. Within the United States itself, approximately about 1%, or about 2.5 million people have mental or physical disabilities. Unfortunately, people with mental or physical disabilities currently are the largest group of minority. According to work trends study conducted by Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, he stated, “People with physical and mental disabilities continue to be vastly underrepresented in the American workplace…” A person with a disability is said to have a physical or mental impairment to one or more major life activities, have a record of impairment, or is regarded as having such impairment. Some examples include someone in a wheelchair for life, someone who needs to wear a hearing aid for a majority of time, and someone with psychological impairment. People with disabilities were poorly discriminated in the workplace in the past as well as in the present. Back in 1990, the Americans with Disability Act, also known as ADA, passed a law called Americans with Disability Act in 1990. This act prohibits private employers, state and local governments, employment agencies and labor unions from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. Sequentially, there are many disabilities which are not always included in the Americans with Disability Act in 1990. People with intellectual disabilities must have one of the following conditions listed by ADA to be fully covered and protected in the American Disability Act of 1990. According to the ADA, one of the requirements is, “An individual’s impairment must substantially limit one or more major life activities. Major life activities are activities that an average person can perform with little or no difficulty. Examples include walking, seeing, hearing, thinking, speaking, learning, concentrating, performing manual tasks, caring for oneself, and working.” Secondly, “Even if an impairment does not currently substantially limit a major life activity, if the person has a past record or history of a substantially limiting intellectual disability, the person is covered under the ADA.” Finally, one of the last requirements an intellectual disabled person may or may not satisfy is, “The ADA also protects persons who do not have a substantially limiting intellectual disability, but are treated by an employer as if they do.” (http://www.ada.gov/adahom1.htm)  As long as an individual fits one of these requirements; they will be covered and protected from discrimination. The ADA covers people with mentally and physically disabled. However, how is harassment at a workplace covered?  “Approximately 20% of the employment discrimination claims brought by persons with intellectual disabilities under the ADA allege harassment based on disability.” The ADA strongly forbids any kind of harassment, whether it is based on gender, sex, religion, and the kinds of different disability one may have in the workplace. Some examples of how harassment can occur to an impaired person is by name calling, degrading their value as an employee for the business, and excluding them from normal everyday office functions. No one is perfect, but everyone should be respected as an individual and as an employee. Prevention of harassment could lessen if and only if employers take the right action to help eliminate the risk and chances of harassment.