Not disabled enough: the ADA's "major life activity" definition of disability

Michelle Friedland argues in this note that the Americans with Disabilities Act fails to adequately distinguish between the separate goals of preventing pure discrimination and providing affirmative accommodation. The Act's conflation of these two different objectives, and its reliance on a single definition of disability for both, hinders its effectiveness in improving the status of individuals with disabilities in the employment setting. To illustrate this, she points to the counterintuitive results reached in recent court decisions. Friedland further traces the legislative origins of the Act's definition of disability and the ambiguity it leaves as to Congress's goals for the Act's employment provisions. She posits three possible goals the Act might be designed to achieve and recommends basic reforms for accomplishing each. Her ultimate conclusion is that provisions dealing with accommodation and discrimination need to be divided so that each can have its own definition of disability. In addition, she believes funding mechanisms for providing accommodation should be altered to ameliorate inequalities in burdens borne by employers and to avoid improper incentives to circumvent the Act.