Technical Assistance for Caseworkers on Civil Rights Laws and Welfare
Reform
V. What Conduct on the Basis of Disability Is Prohibited?
Programs and Services
Welfare providers may not discriminate against any qualified individual with
a disability in providing services or administering any program or activity,
whether or not the program receives Federal financial assistance. In general,
an individual with a disability is "qualified" if that person meets
the essential eligibility requirements for receipt of services or participation
in the program or activity. Welfare providers may not refuse to allow a person
with a disability to participate because the person has a disability, and they
must eliminate unnecessary eligibility standards or rules that deny an
individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate. Welfare
providers may not harass a program participant or applicant on the basis of a
disability.
Examples:
- The director of a county day care program for the children of welfare
participants who are attending employment training programs may not refuse to
accept children who have emotional problems or who take medication for a
disability into the program.
- A community college offering job-training for welfare participants may not
require students with disabilities to provide medical histories if such
histories are not required of all students.
- A welfare office may not refuse to permit guide dogs and other service
animals assisting individuals with disabilities to accompany those individuals
into the office.
- A welfare office may not exempt individuals with disabilities from work
activities, education, or training opportunities based on assumptions that such
individuals are not qualified to participate in training or work.
- An intake clerk in a food stamp office may not create a hostile
environment by mimicking a person with Tourette’s Syndrome.
Welfare providers are required to make reasonable modifications in policies,
practices, and procedures that deny equal access to individuals with
disabilities, unless a fundamental alteration in the program would result.
Examples:
- A job-training course for welfare participants must extend testing time
when a person with a learning disability requests extra time to complete the
test because of his or her disability. The course provider may ask the
individual who is seeking extra time to provide reasonable documentation of the
learning disability and the additional time that is required.
- A welfare program with a complicated application will need to modify its
application form or provide someone to help fill out the form when a person
with a mental disability is unable to complete the form.
- A state welfare agency may seek alternatives to the work participation
requirement if an individual with a disability, with or without reasonable
accommodation, is not able to perform the essential functions of any available
job.
Welfare providers must ensure that programs and services are provided in an
integrated setting, unless separate or different measures are necessary to
ensure equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities. Programs that
provide special benefits to people with disabilities are permitted, but people
with disabilities cannot be compelled to participate in those programs.
Examples:
- A county social service center that provides a hot lunch program for
senior citizens may not require people with HIV to be served in a separate room
from the other participants.
- A county vocational training program may offer special training
opportunities for people with vision impairments, but it may not require people
with vision impairments to participate in the special program or refuse to
permit them to participate in courses open to other program participants.
Welfare providers must ensure effective communication with individuals who
have hearing, speech, or vision impairments. Programs must provide auxiliary
aids and services (such as Braille material, sign language interpreters,
readers, or text telephones (TTY's)) when necessary to ensure effective
communication but they are not required to provide auxiliary aids that will
result in a fundamental alteration of the program or service or that will
result in undue financial and administrative burdens.
Examples:
- A municipal job placement program that makes information about job
openings available by telephone must ensure that the information is available
to users of TTY's.
- A city welfare office that provides printed information about eligibility
requirements to applicants must ensure that the same information is provided on
audiotape or in Braille for people who have vision impairments.
- Job training programs for welfare participants must provide sign language
interpreters for deaf students when it is necessary to ensure effective
communication for those students.
Welfare providers may not exclude individuals with disabilities from
programs and activities because buildings are inaccessible, but the providers
are not required to take any action that would result in a fundamental
alteration in the nature of the program or activity, or in undue financial and
administrative burdens. This means generally that providers need not remove
physical barriers, such as stairs in existing buildings, as long as they make
their programs accessible to individuals with disabilities in other locations
or through other methods, such as home visits.
Examples:
- A welfare office that is located on the second floor of a building that
has no elevator may make its services accessible to an applicant who uses a
wheelchair by meeting with that applicant in an accessible ground floor office.
However, if all the other participants met together for discussions on the
second floor and they could not meet on the ground floor, the limited access
would be insufficient.
- A food stamp office located in an inaccessible space may make its services
accessible to a person with a mobility impairment by alternative methods. For
example, a food stamp office may mail an application to an applicant and
conduct a home visit to determine eligibility, or interview the applicant's
designated representative at the office. Food stamps may also be mailed to that
person's residence or picked up by the representative.
- A job training program that usually offers classes in an inaccessible
second-floor classroom may make its program accessible by relocating the class
to an accessible classroom in another building.
Welfare providers must ensure that newly constructed buildings and
facilities are free of architectural and communication barriers that restrict
access or use by individuals with disabilities. Welfare providers are not
required to retrofit existing buildings to eliminate barriers, but when
alterations are undertaken, the altered elements must be made accessible.
However, if program access cannot be provided without structural modifications,
structural modifications must be made.
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Employment
The ADA prohibits employment discrimination against any qualified individual
with a disability because of that individual’s disability in regard to job
application procedures, the hiring and discharge of employees, employee
compensation, advancement, job training, or any other terms, conditions, or
privileges of employment. For purposes of employment, an individual with a
disability is “qualified” if that individual, with or without
reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the job in
question.
Employers and those referring welfare participants to employers may not
impose qualification standards that screen out any individual with a disability
or a class of individuals with disabilities unless such standards are shown to
be job related and consistent with business necessity. Even if the standard is
job related and consistent with business necessity, the employer or referring
entity that imposes the standard must consider whether there is a reasonable
accommodation that will enable a welfare participant with a disability to meet
the standard.
The ADA limits an employer’s ability to ask questions of applicants and
employees regarding the existence, nature, or severity of a disability and to
require medical examinations. Employers may not ask disability-related
questions of applicants or require medical examinations before an offer of
employment is made. Preemployment medical examinations and disability related
questions are permitted after an offer of employment has been made so long as
the questions or exams are given to all individuals in the job category.
However, if an applicant has a known disability that may prevent the individual
from performing the essential function of the job, the employer may ask how,
with or without reasonable accommodation, the applicant would perform the
specific tasks required. If an applicant’s known disability will not
interfere with the performance of a job-related function, then the employer may
request a description or demonstration of how the applicant would perform the
job duties only if the employer makes the same inquiry of all applicants in the
same category. After an applicant is hired, an employer may ask
disability-related questions or require medical examinations only if they are
job-related and consistent with business necessity.
Examples:
- A welfare recipient has just applied for a job as a data entry clerk. As
she is filling out a personnel form, she mentions this is the first job she has
had since she developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The personnel manager cannot
ask her for the name of her doctor so he can check that she is not still under
treatment. The personnel manager may ask her to demonstrate or describe how she
would perform her job-related duties.
- An employer may want to require that all job applicants have a
driver’s license. This requirement may exclude an individual with
epilepsy, mental illness, or blind people as a group. If driving is an
essential function of the position, for example, a bus driver’s job, no
change in this policy would be required. However, if an applicant is seeking a
position for which having a driver’s license is merely convenient —
for example, a secretarial position, the employer would be prohibited from
applying this requirement to an applicant who does not have a driver’s
license because of a disability.
Employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to employees to
enable them to perform the essential functions of the job unless the employer
can demonstrate that providing a reasonable accommodation would cause an undue
hardship to the employer. An “undue hardship” is an action requiring
significant difficulty or expense in light of the nature and cost of the
accommodation and the overall resources of the employer, the type of business
in question, and the impact on the operations of the business.
“Reasonable accommodation” includes, but is not limited to,
modifying existing facilities to make them accessible, acquiring or modifying
equipment, providing readers or sign language interpreters, offering part-time
or modified work schedules, or restructuring the duties of the job.
Examples:
- An employer normally requires all employees to have a driver’s
license but that requirement is not job-related and consistent with business
necessity for the position of secretary. A secretary employed by the company
develops epilepsy, and, as a result, is unable to renew his license. Therefore,
the employer cannot apply the driver’s license requirement to the
secretary who is unable to renew his license because he developed epilepsy.
- A job training program offered by an employer may be required to provide
sign language interpreters for deaf employees when it is necessary to enable
them to participate in the training.
- An accountant with a vision impairment is hired by a welfare provider.
That employer may be required to provide reasonable accommodation for the
accountant by obtaining computer equipment to enable the accountant to read
printed material.
- A welfare recipient who uses a wheelchair obtains a job on the clerical
staff of an employer whose offices are in a building that has two steps at the
entrance. The employer may be required to provide reasonable accommodation for
the employee by providing a ramp at the building entrance.
Index: Technical Assistance for
Caseworkers
- What Federal Nondiscrimination Laws Apply to TANF
Programs?
- Who Is Covered by Federal Nondiscrimination Laws?
- What Conduct Is Prohibited In Federally Funded Programs
and Activities?
- What Type of Conduct Is Prohibited in Employment
Settings?
- What Conduct on the Basis of Disability is
Prohibited?
- How Are The Nondiscrimination Laws Enforced?
- Who May File A Complaint of Discrimination?
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Date of last revision: March 3, 2006
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