On July 26, 1990, President George Bush signed the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law, calling the law "powerful in its simplicity." But the ADA has proved to be far from simple, and advocates on both sides of the issue have struggled with its vague language about who is and who is not disabled. The Supreme Court has been left to decide those questions. In 1999, the Court ruled that ADA does not protect people with physical corrections that can be corrected, such as poor vision or high blood pressure.

Are the disabled gaining equal footing under the law? Recent reports illustrate mixed results. A new Harris poll shows that despite the booming economy, the disabled aren't benefiting from the new prosperity as much as the rest of the country. Only one-third of handicapped working-age adults hold full or part-time jobs, compared to 80 percent of the non-disabled population. The current national unemployment rate is 4 percent. The handicapped are more likely to live in poverty, with household incomes of less than $15,000. And people with disabilities are much less likely than people without disabilities to live in households earning more than $50,000 annually.

The disabled are being left out of the new economy in another way—many physically and vision-impaired cannot use the Internet. The ADA states that "All newly constructed places of public accommodation and commercial facilities must be accessible to individuals with disabilities to the extent that it is not structurally impracticable." Is the Internet "public accommodation"? Some groups think so. The National Federation for the Blind is suing America Online. If the plaintiffs were to win, AOL and other Internet service providers would have to make their services accessible to blind people and others who are disabled.

On One Hand...

The ADA is an important piece of civil right legislation, making it illegal to discriminate against a person with a handicap and granting the disabled integrity and independence. Thanks to the lowering of legal and physical barriers, persons with disabilities are able to go places and do things today that were off-limits to them 10 years ago. From sloping, accommodating sidewalk curbs to anti-discrimination protections in the workplace, the ADA has opened many doors.

The law's intentional ambiguity avoids workplace discrimination by evaluating disability on a case-by-case basis. The handicapped have made important legal strides since the passage of ADA, but more remains to be done. Many non-disabled still look upon the handicapped as helpless and unable to work.

On the Other Hand...

The ADA is ambiguous and its language is vague, leaving the statue ripe for abuse. For example, the act excludes impairments due to current drug or alcohol abuse. But at the same time, ADA states that an employer cannot discriminate against an alcoholic for being an alcoholic or a drug addict for being a drug addict. The courts are forced to interpret the law over and over again, sometimes expanding and sometimes contracting its definition of disability.

If anything, the disabled have lost ground since its passage a decade ago. Today, fewer persons with a handicap are employed than were before the ADA was signed into law. The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities. But the many of the accommodations listed in the act are totally unreasonable. For example, requiring an employer to provide qualified readers or interpreters can be very costly. And the number one disability cited since passage of ADA is back pain which for some is disabling, but for others can be treated with physical therapy and medication, not expensive employer modifications.

• Since ADA went into effect, nearly 130,000 discrimination complaints have been resolved by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, resulting in more than $260 million in benefits to plaintiffs.

• The top 10 types of disability cited in discrimination complaints are as follows: back, emotional/psychiatric, neurological, arms/legs, heart/cardiovascular, diabetes, substance abuse, hearing, vision, cancer.

• Professional golfer Casey Martin's rare disability, Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome, substantially limits his ability to walk. The Professional Golfers' Association bans the use of golf carts during tournaments. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the PGA, agreeing that Martin has the right to a reasonable modification of the PGA Tour's ban on carts that would allow him to use a golf cart in tournament competition.

• In 1998 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that there were some 54 million Americans—20 percent of the population—are disabled.

• Between 1992 and 1998 over half of the cases filed as disability discrimination were thrown out of court for lacking reasonable cause.

• In 1999, there were three cases in the Supreme Court, Sutton v. United Airlines, and Murphy v. UPS, and Albertson, Inc. v Kirkingham, in which the plaintiffs sued for discrimination under the ADA. All three plaintiffs had correctable minor "disabilities" such as bad vision or high blood pressure and were therefore ruled to be not disabled as defined by the ADA.

• 32 percent of disabled workforce holds either a full or part-time job.

Americans with Disabilities Act, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington Post