Discussion Question: Fair or Equal?
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law, which identifies different discrimination issues and introduces some particular ways to resolve inequality. The Act was officially approved in 1990. From this time on, the situation of people with disabilities has shown some effort to improve. As an addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this document supports the mission to eradicate any discrimination based on such features as age, race, gender, income, etc. However, in comparison to the Act of 1964, ADA aims to improve a more precise area of the action. Under its conditions, the employers ought to provide their disabled employees with all the necessary conditions but not to judge them as any other category of workers. Besides, as people with disabilities usually face different problems behind their workplace, ADA also obliges the state, governmental or private establishments to organize adequate required conditions.
Nevertheless, even though the main fields of concern were workplaces and public establishments, the Americans with Disabilities Act also touches the specifics of the education. People with disabilities undoubtedly require some special conditions and more attention. Still, pupils and students with disabilities, if studying with other children, do not have to receive any privileges when talking about education. If disability itself does not distract a person from the normal educational process in the case when all the conditions are proper, this person ought to be taught the same material as other students, as well as receive the same set of privileges. If the required attention distracts the teacher or other workers from working with other students in the class, the terms of ADA create some sort of inequality and discrimination. This paradox is a highly debatable issue as it concerns the question of the a minor vulnerable category.
Americans with Disabilities Act also promises proper conditions of testing, which includes the inner design of the room, its location and the ways to get there in the time provided. Besides, the conditions of concern are all the arrangements with the examination works, starting from font and size of the examination tasks to the size of the blank space left for the answers. Even such small details as the configuration of the examination papers have sense when talking about testing people with disabilities. All the special conditions also include the deadline given to provide the examination task (University of Northern Iowa).
All of the listed above areas of concern are those, which require some special attention to the people with disabilities. According to the ADA, the individuals with disabilities have to have “full and equal enjoyment or goods and services” (42 U.S. Code § 12181 - Definitions). In fact, ‘full’ and ‘equal’ seem to have quite different meanings in the context of education. All the described above requirements for the disabled people are the ‘full enjoyment’ but in many cases, they cannot create the ‘equal’ one. For all the other students these special conditions can create some sort of discrimination, which can play a role of a gross distracting factor. These conditions can be observed as a privilege which is not available for the other students while the ones with disabilities need them as a mandatory necessity.
Therefore, from my judgment, the conditions, created for the students with disabilities under the terms of ADA are the mandatory ones as they improve the examination space in order to make those students receive equal attitude. However, this equality needs to be arranged the way other students will understand that this is not a privilege but a necessity. From my point of view, this is a fair step towards the total equality.
Works cited
42 U.S. Code § 12181 – definitions (N.d). In Legal Information Institute. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12181
