Latest news with #AmericansWithDisabilitiesAct
CBS News
a day ago
- Health
- CBS News
Firefighter forced to retire early due to Parkinson's cannot sue Florida city for health benefits discrimination, U.S. Supreme Court rules
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled against a firefighter who retired early because of Parkinson's disease and alleged the city of Sanford violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by limiting a health-insurance subsidy. Justices upheld a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the lawsuit filed by Karyn Stanley, a fire-department lieutenant who retired in 2018 at age 47 because of the effects of the disease. The dispute stemmed from Stanley losing a health-insurance subsidy two years after she retired and involved questions about whether the city violated part of the Americans with Disabilities Act aimed at preventing discrimination in employment. Friday's main opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, focused heavily on wording in the law that bars discrimination against a "qualified individual on the basis of disability." The opinion said the definition of a "qualified individual" in what is known as Title I of the law applied only to current employees or people seeking jobs. Gorsuch wrote that the law "protects people, not benefits, from discrimination. And the statute also tells us who those people are: qualified individuals, those who hold or seek a job at the time of the defendant's alleged discrimination." But Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote a blistering dissent, arguing the law "says nothing — zero — about the preemployment or postemployment timing of an act of disability discrimination." "Disabled Americans who have retired from the workforce simply want to enjoy the fruits of their labor free from discrimination," she wrote. "Congress plainly protected their right to do so when it crafted Title I. Yet, the Court ignores that right today." A civil servant demanding better post-retirement health benefits Stanley began working as a firefighter for the city in 1999 but was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2016. When Stanley was hired in 1999, the city provided health-insurance subsidies up to age 65 for firefighters who retired after 25 years of service or who retired because of disabilities, according to court documents. The city changed the policy in 2003 to scale back the benefit to two years for employees who retired early because of disabilities. As a result, Stanley received the subsidy for two years after she retired, rather than up to age 65. A brief filed in the case said the end of the subsidy resulted in Stanley facing an additional $1,000 a month in health-insurance costs. Stanley challenged the city in court, but a U.S. district judge dismissed the Americans with Disabilities Act claim. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, saying Stanley, as a former employee, could not sue under Title I of the law. The Biden administration and organizations such as the AFL-CIO, the International Association of Fire Fighters and AARP filed briefs at the Supreme Court backing Stanley. Meanwhile, groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities supported Sanford in briefs. Gorsuch was joined Friday in parts of his opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. He was joined in another part by Alito, Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor joined part of Jackson's dissent.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Veteran can move forward with ADA lawsuit alleging PTSD-related firing
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. A federal court ruled June 9 that nuclear power plant operator Constellation Energy Generation must face a former employee's lawsuit alleging it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by fabricating reasons to deny him unescorted facility access because of his PTSD. It fired him after revoking his access. According to court documents in Thomas v. Constellation Energy Generation, LLC, the employee, who worked for the company from 2006 through 2023, was a senior site emergency preparedness specialist at a Constellation facility in Byron, Illinois. In that position, he was required by Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations to have unescorted access authorization to the facility and undergo periodic evaluations to maintain his access, court records said. The employee alleged that during a requalification interview, he disclosed that a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doctor had diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2019, and the VA gave him a 70% disability rating due to the diagnosis. He did not disclose this on his medical questionnaire but explained to an access supervisor that his VA disability attorney advised him he didn't need to report it, the complaint alleged. The employee also allegedly submitted medical documentation from the VA that he wasn't a threat to himself or anyone else and could perform his assigned job duties with no restrictions. However, during a follow-up interview, a medical review officer allegedly called him a liar and threatened that she wasn't 'going to believe anything you tell me in this interview.' The MRO also repeatedly said she knew he was lying because, according to her, if he 'truly had a 70% rating for PTSD, then [he] would be completely debilitated,' the lawsuit alleged. Constellation subsequently withdrew the employee's authorization for unescorted access and terminated him because he no longer had the NRC-required access. He sued it for violating the ADA. In particular, the complaint alleged the MRO's accusations were based on her biases against his PTSD, 'as none of the medical documentation in her possession could have possibly supported her accusations.' The employee also asserted that the MRO's notes, as well as those of the access supervisor, grossly mischaracterized what was discussed, took statements completely out of context and included 'utter fabrications.' The court refused to dismiss the lawsuit. It rejected Constellation's assertion the employee failed to state a cause of action, including because, according to Constellation, the employee conceded in his allegations that absent unescorted access, he was legally prohibited from working at the plant. However, 'this argument relies on the faulty premise that [the plaintiff's] unescorted access denial was legitimate and nondiscriminatory,' the court said. And that wasn't what he alleged, the court pointed out. Rather, the employee claimed Constellation unlawfully denied him unescorted access because of his PTSD and fired him based on its discriminatory denial of access, the court explained. For instance, the employee did not allege the MRO determined his PTSD prevented him from safely and competently doing his work or that he was untrustworthy or unreliable due to substance abuse, the court noted. Instead, he alleged the MRO and the access supervisor 'misconstrued his interviews to raise trustworthiness and reliability concerns as a pretext for disability discrimination,' the court said. An EEOC guidance reminds employers that it's illegal to refuse to hire a military veteran solely because the veteran has PTSD, was previously diagnosed with PTSD, or because the employer assumes the veteran has PTSD. Similarly, employers may not refuse to hire a veteran based on assumptions about a veteran's ability to do the job because the veteran has a disability rating from the VA, which uses different standards than the ADA in determining disability. Recommended Reading EEOC to take another swing at pay data collection, regulatory agenda shows
Bloomberg
12-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Amazon's Return-to-Office Mandate Sparks Disability Complaints
Inc. 's hard-line stance on getting disabled employees to return to the office has sparked a backlash, with workers alleging the company is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as their rights to collectively bargain. At least two employees have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, federal agencies that regulate working conditions. One of the workers said they provided the EEOC with a list of 18 'similarly situated' employees to emphasize that their experience isn't isolated and to help federal regulators with a possible investigation.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A Striking Moment in American Activism
They chained the campus gates, occupied buildings, and burned effigies. They pounded on car hoods, waved hand-drawn signs, roared in rage. In the spring of 1988, students at Gallaudet University, a school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., staged a week-long protest that drew international attention. That year, Gallaudet was on the cusp of finally appointing a Deaf president for the first time in its 104-year history, but the non-Deaf board of trustees balked, choosing a hearing person over two Deaf candidates. Though she later denied it, Jane Bassett Spilman, the board's chair, reportedly said, 'Deaf people are not ready to function in a hearing world.' Incensed, the students revolted, demanding representation. Beyond lively protests, they also organized their messaging and communicated passionately to the press. What was at first written off as mere youthful rebellion, destined to fizzle out, ultimately yielded the appointment of a Deaf president, and helped galvanize the greater movement that led to the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The new Apple TV+ documentary Deaf President Now! chronicles the students' actions, which amounted to one of the most effective campus protests of the modern era. Co-directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) and the Deaf activist, actor, and author Nyle DiMarco, the film unearths a particular period in American activism and a hinge point in Gallaudet's history, but it also doubles as an argument for thinking differently about Deafness, and disability, in general. (Guggenheim's production company, Concordia Studio, is funded by Laurene Powell Jobs and Emerson Collective, which also owns The Atlantic.) At a time when college campuses, corporations, and the U.S. government are diminishing—or even overturning—DEI initiatives, the movie's message feels especially resonant. Deaf President Now! is by no means scold-y or preachy, but it asks those who can hear to contemplate the many layers of life as a Deaf or disabled person. Layers, not Deaf, is the operative word in that sentence. The film compels viewers to reckon with what all people are owed, regardless of their bodily traits or circumstance. As its story illustrates, the disabled experience is far from cookie-cutter or one-dimensional. Deaf people want the same things that hearing people want: to be treated as full citizens, to be respected, to live their life with dignity, to have their needs understood by those in power. The week-long protest was so significant because, at its core, it demanded that hearing people see (and hear) Deaf people in an unmediated way. 'What's the microphone for?' It's a simple, profound query that one of the protest leaders poses during the present-day interviews that are interspliced with archival footage. The question is valid, given that the former Gallaudet student organizers, now nearing retirement age, address the camera by using American Sign Language. They're lively and expressive, signing with their whole body, retaining the fiery, opinionated vibe from their undergraduate days. Frequently in Hollywood, sign language is accompanied by captions, but the directors of Deaf President Now! opted to use voice-overs when the Deaf interviewees are on set. Some audience members might view this as a curious choice. A day after watching the film, I came to see it as a compelling inversion: ASL is its own language, and, for those who don't understand it—likely the overwhelming percentage of hearing people—the directors had introduced an accommodation. Watching the film, I was also struck by the sound design, which shrewdly oscillates between hearing and Deaf perspectives. There are, in the movie's opening minutes, the sonic minutiae of daily life: police sirens, a plane landing, a subway car pulling into a station, the pfffft when popping open a bottle. At other points, you see leaves rustling on campus but don't hear them scrape against the ground; when someone pulls a fire alarm, lights flash, but no sound is emitted. Crucially, though, the directors work to show that everyone inhabits the same world, just with different experiences. [Read: A disability film unlike any other] Deafness, like all disabilities, exists on a spectrum. Some people are born Deaf; others become Deaf later in life. Those who have diminished hearing may also consider themselves part of the Deaf community. Though this movie is not a history or topography of Deafness, it does examine the nuances of Deaf culture by showcasing the varied (and even contradictory) stories of how the student leaders came of age. Specifically, the film illustrates the battle between the medical and social models of disability. Under the former, Deafness would be considered an affliction to be 'cured' or 'fixed' with tools and interventions to enable a Deaf person to conform to the expectations of a hearing world. (One of the student activists, for example, recalls being pulled out of class as a kid to go to speech therapy, where he would place his hand on a teacher's nose to understand a hearing person's breath flow as they spoke certain words.) But under the social model, which has grown in prevalence in recent decades, disability is just another aspect of human existence, like someone's hair or eye color. This tension in perspective primacy permeates the film; in 1988, it undergirded the Gallaudet board's initial decision to select yet another hearing person as president. The person they chose, Elisabeth Zinser, did not know sign language. In the end, the protest arguably reached its apex not on the grounds of the school but on national television. One of the student leaders, Greg Hlibok, appeared on ABC's Nightline, opposite Zinser. Along with the Deaf actor Marlee Matlin, he made his case to the host, Ted Koppel, but also to the millions watching at home. Seeing Hlibok on-screen is especially affecting: He is young, inexperienced, and finding his way to his message in real time. He demands respect for himself and his classmates. He gets it. Zinser withdraws, and a Deaf member of the faculty, Irving King Jordan, is appointed. In some ways, it may be hard to believe that Gallaudet went so long—well more than a century—without a Deaf president, a leader who could intrinsically understand the needs and lives of the students. Although other schools for the Deaf exist, Gallaudet is unique: It draws Deaf people from all over the world and is seen as an oasis where disabled people aren't othered. I grew up several miles away from the campus, and I'm a hearing person, but I recall as a kid once having a Deaf counselor at basketball camp, someone who hooped at Gallaudet. He was smooth, fast, and confident on the court; I was young, and I remember wondering, sheepishly, how he could play the game at all if he couldn't hear the whistle. It was a question that didn't need asking; he managed just fine, and was better than other players his age. That admittedly basic concept—that Deaf people don't need hearing people worrying about or patronizing them—is one of the key themes of the film. DiMarco, the documentary's Deaf co-director, told me over Zoom that, in his first conversation with Guggenheim, he made clear that he didn't want this project 'to be framed as a story of pity.' (DiMarco signed his answers and we communicated through an interpreter.) Guggenheim didn't need convincing. He had taken a similar approach for his 2023 film Still, which follows Michael J. Fox's journey with Parkinson's disease. When making that movie, Fox told Guggenheim 'no violins'—meaning no smarm, no Hallmark-channel vibes. [Read: What Michael J. Fox figured out] Though the '88 protest happened before DiMarco was born, he knew its legacy as a child and went on to graduate from Gallaudet himself. In his adult years, he became somewhat of a familiar face after winning a season of America's Next Top Model and competing on Dancing With the Stars. Growing up, DiMarco told me, none of the Deaf characters he saw on-screen resonated with him. 'I often wondered why they couldn't get it right,' he said. 'I've really learned that the key to success in telling authentic stories is having Deaf people behind the camera.' He told me he has more than 25 extended family members who are Deaf and that no one in his family uses the term hearing impaired, which is often deemed ableist. 'I'd say probably the most prevalent misconception is that Deaf people don't carry any sense of pride,' he said. 'I think a lot of hearing people are very shocked when I say I love being Deaf,' he continued. 'I have culture, language, our community, our history. I think that's a very, very big misconception that I'm working every day to correct.' Beyond helping audiences understand some of the Deaf experience, DiMarco told me he hopes this film will resonate because of the civil disobedience at its center. Though he and Guggenheim started making the film six years ago, it's being released amid a wave of attacks against DEI initiatives. The present environment is not lost on him. 'I think today we've really forgotten how to protest,' he said. He acknowledged that he's not sure if, were the same demonstration to occur today, it would have the same outcome. But that possibility doesn't mean the fight for disabled dignity—the fight for dignity of all kinds—is any less salient. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Student Protest That Captured America's Attention
They chained the campus gates, occupied buildings, and burned effigies. They pounded on car hoods, waved hand-drawn signs, roared in rage. In the spring of 1988, students at Gallaudet University, a school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., staged a week-long protest that drew international attention. That year, Gallaudet was on the cusp of finally appointing a Deaf president for the first time in its 104-year history, but the non-Deaf board of trustees balked, choosing a hearing person over two Deaf candidates. Though she later denied it, Jane Bassett Spilman, the board's chair, reportedly said, 'Deaf people are not ready to function in a hearing world.' Incensed, the students revolted, demanding representation. Beyond lively protests, they also organized their messaging and communicated passionately to the press. What was at first written off as mere youthful rebellion, destined to fizzle out, ultimately yielded the appointment of a Deaf president, and helped galvanize the greater movement that led to the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The new Apple TV+ documentary Deaf President Now! chronicles the students' actions, which amounted to one of the most effective campus protests of the modern era. Co-directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) and the Deaf activist, actor, and author Nyle DiMarco, the film unearths a particular period in American activism and a hinge point in Gallaudet's history, but it also doubles as an argument for thinking differently about Deafness, and disability, in general. (Guggenheim's production company, Concordia Studio, is funded by Laurene Powell Jobs and Emerson Collective, which also owns The Atlantic.) At a time when college campuses, corporations, and the U.S. government are diminishing —or even overturning—DEI initiatives, the movie's message feels especially resonant. Deaf President Now! is by no means scold-y or preachy, but it asks those who can hear to contemplate the many layers of life as a Deaf or disabled person. Layers, not Deaf, is the operative word in that sentence. The film compels viewers to reckon with what all people are owed, regardless of their bodily traits or circumstance. As its story illustrates, the disabled experience is far from cookie-cutter or one-dimensional. Deaf people want the same things that hearing people want: to be treated as full citizens, to be respected, to live their life with dignity, to have their needs understood by those in power. The week-long protest was so significant because, at its core, it demanded that hearing people see (and hear) Deaf people in an unmediated way. 'What's the microphone for?' It's a simple, profound query that one of the protest leaders poses during the present-day interviews that are interspliced with archival footage. The question is valid, given that the former Gallaudet student organizers, now nearing retirement age, address the camera by using American Sign Language. They're lively and expressive, signing with their whole body, retaining the fiery, opinionated vibe from their undergraduate days. Frequently in Hollywood, sign language is accompanied by captions, but the directors of Deaf President Now! opted to use voice-overs when the Deaf interviewees are on set. Some audience members might view this as a curious choice. A day after watching the film, I came to see it as a compelling inversion: ASL is its own language, and, for those who don't understand it—likely the overwhelming percentage of hearing people—the directors had introduced an accommodation. Watching the film, I was also struck by the sound design, which shrewdly oscillates between hearing and Deaf perspectives. There are, in the movie's opening minutes, the sonic minutiae of daily life: police sirens, a plane landing, a subway car pulling into a station, the pfffft when popping open a bottle. At other points, you see leaves rustling on campus but don't hear them scrape against the ground; when someone pulls a fire alarm, lights flash, but no sound is emitted. Crucially, though, the directors work to show that everyone inhabits the same world, just with different experiences. Deafness, like all disabilities, exists on a spectrum. Some people are born Deaf; others become Deaf later in life. Those who have diminished hearing may also consider themselves part of the Deaf community. Though this movie is not a history or topography of Deafness, it does examine the nuances of Deaf culture by showcasing the varied (and even contradictory) stories of how the student leaders came of age. Specifically, the film illustrates the battle between the medical and social models of disability. Under the former, Deafness would be considered an affliction to be 'cured' or 'fixed' with tools and interventions to enable a Deaf person to conform to the expectations of a hearing world. (One of the student activists, for example, recalls being pulled out of class as a kid to go to speech therapy, where he would place his hand on a teacher's nose to understand a hearing person's breath flow as they spoke certain words.) But under the social model, which has grown in prevalence in recent decades, disability is just another aspect of human existence, like someone's hair or eye color. This tension in perspective primacy permeates the film; in 1988, it undergirded the Gallaudet board's initial decision to select yet another hearing person as president. The person they chose, Elisabeth Zinser, did not know sign language. In the end, the protest arguably reached its apex not on the grounds of the school but on national television. One of the student leaders, Greg Hlibok, appeared on ABC's Nightline, opposite Zinser. Along with the Deaf actor Marlee Matlin, he made his case to the host, Ted Koppel, but also to the millions watching at home. Seeing Hlibok on-screen is especially affecting: He is young, inexperienced, and finding his way to his message in real time. He demands respect for himself and his classmates. He gets it. Zinser withdraws, and a Deaf member of the faculty, Irving King Jordan, is appointed. In some ways, it may be hard to believe that Gallaudet went so long—well more than a century—without a Deaf president, a leader who could intrinsically understand the needs and lives of the students. Although other schools for the Deaf exist, Gallaudet is unique: It draws Deaf people from all over the world and is seen as an oasis where disabled people aren't othered. I grew up several miles away from the campus, and I'm a hearing person, but I recall as a kid once having a Deaf counselor at basketball camp, someone who hooped at Gallaudet. He was smooth, fast, and confident on the court; I was young, and I remember wondering, sheepishly, how he could play the game at all if he couldn't hear the whistle. It was a question that didn't need asking; he managed just fine, and was better than other players his age. That admittedly basic concept—that Deaf people don't need hearing people worrying about or patronizing them—is one of the key themes of the film. DiMarco, the documentary's Deaf co-director, told me over Zoom that, in his first conversation with Guggenheim, he made clear that he didn't want this project 'to be framed as a story of pity.' (DiMarco signed his answers and we communicated through an interpreter.) Guggenheim didn't need convincing. He had taken a similar approach for his 2023 film Still, which follows Michael J. Fox's journey with Parkinson's disease. When making that movie, Fox told Guggenheim 'no violins'—meaning no smarm, no Hallmark-channel vibes. Though the '88 protest happened before DiMarco was born, he knew its legacy as a child and went on to graduate from Gallaudet himself. In his adult years, he became somewhat of a familiar face after winning a season of America's Next Top Model and competing on Dancing With the Stars. Growing up, DiMarco told me, none of the Deaf characters he saw on-screen resonated with him. 'I often wondered why they couldn't get it right,' he said. 'I've really learned that the key to success in telling authentic stories is having Deaf people behind the camera.' He told me he has more than 25 extended family members who are Deaf and that no one in his family uses the term hearing impaired, which is often deemed ableist. 'I'd say probably the most prevalent misconception is that Deaf people don't carry any sense of pride,' he said. 'I think a lot of hearing people are very shocked when I say I love being Deaf,' he continued. 'I have culture, language, our community, our history. I think that's a very, very big misconception that I'm working every day to correct.' Beyond helping audiences understand some of the Deaf experience, DiMarco told me he hopes this film will resonate because of the civil disobedience at its center. Though he and Guggenheim started making the film six years ago, it's being released amid a wave of attacks against DEI initiatives. The present environment is not lost on him. 'I think today we've really forgotten how to protest,' he said. He acknowledged that he's not sure if, were the same demonstration to occur today, it would have the same outcome. But that possibility doesn't mean the fight for disabled dignity—the fight for dignity of all kinds—is any less salient.
