Legal Update on ADA Claims of Disparate Impact vs. Disparate Treatment


Wednesday, March 16, 2022
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Eastern Time Zone

Description

Do you know the difference Between Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact?

The law recognizes two types of illegal discrimination. Disparate treatment refers to intentional discrimination, where people in a protected class are deliberately treated differently. This is the most common type of discrimination. An example of this would be an employer giving a certain test to applicants with disabilities but not to applicants without disabilities. Disparate impact refers to discrimination that is unintentional. This can involve making a service available to everyone regardless of disability status, but individuals in a protected class, like disability, are negatively affected. For instance, a college makes available pre-recorded video study courses online but the videos lack closed captioning making it impossible for deaf and hard of hearing individuals to access and benefit from the online study courses.

Join us as we review latest developments relating to these types of claims under the ADA. We will review the analytical standards and discuss current legal actions relating to Disparate Impact all the way to the latest Appeals Courts decisions and a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the question of whether disparate impact claims exist under §504 of the Rehabilitation Act. We will also discuss why certain advocacy groups are sounding an alarm that our current Supreme Court could decide the fate of Disparate Impact claims under the ADA and 504.

Continuing Education Recognition Available

Certificate Credit hours
ACTCP 1.5
Certificate of Attendance 1.5

Speakers:

Diego Demaya JD, Legal Specialist, Southwest ADA Center at ILRU

Questions for presenters:

1 Can a public library refuse to provide online videos with captions or audio descriptions by claiming that borrowing the physical movie DVD (from a branch) is the same as watching online movie so there is no disparate treatment?
2 Can a public library, school library, etc. intentionally use services like Hoopla, etc. with video players that cannot display closed captions and/or audio descriptions? Are the libraries exempt from the ADA by claiming no responsibility or authority to the third party services video player features or movie selections?
3 What options are available to us if an event or venue host removes or refuses to allow us to attend an event instead of turning on captions or other requested ADA accommodations? Can they claim it is their event to choose who they allow to attend and they do not have to make any accommodations to anyone.
4 To better clarify the submitted question: these are not private or membership events but events that are posted publicly and open to the public. What options are available to us if an event or venue host removes or refuses to allow us to attend an event instead of turning on captions or other requested ADA accommodations? Can they claim it is their event to choose who they allow to attend and they do not have to make any accommodations to anyone?
5 Can the event host restrict and moderate only people (Deaf, non-verbal, etc.) who rely solely written communication (on chat messaging) but allow unmoderated comments to be openly spoken and heard by all attendees? What can we do?
6 Can television or movie captions censor certain words from being visibly displayed but allow the words to be heard and verbally seen (lip readable)? Would it matter if they are not one of the major stations that the FTC require a minimum number of caption hours?
7 When working in a company that all employees are in a remote environment and a disability might be obvious, but it is known. The employee has not requested an accommodation, what is the employer's responsibility to ensure we have done our due diligence? Speaking on the outcome of the Brady v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. legal case.

Session Questions

This session is accepting questions from registered users. After you have registered to participate in this session you can submit your questions on your Account Manager page. Please note: the number of questions will be limited and submissions will be closed well before the session starts to provide time to prepare answers.