Complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act: a Guidebook for Management and People with Disabilities.

Complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act: a Guidebook for Management and People with Disabilities Don Fersh and Peter W. Thomas Esq. Westport Connecticut, Quorum Books March 1993, 280 pp. $49.95 hardcover ISBN 0-89930-714-0.

Don Fersh and Peter W. Thomas are two Washington based experts on federal law and disability who have written an outstanding book that contains one of the most concise and comprehensive overviews of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The book is organized into twelve chapters each dealing with a different aspect of ADA compliance. In Chapter One Fersh and Thomas review the critical events in America's social and political legislative history that lead Congress to classify people with disabilities as a minority group whose civil fights were in need of protection under the law.

Chapters Two and Three give readers a general overview of the various legal provisions and implications of who and what is covered by ADA. The chapters also explain the language and limitations of the law, as well as the political and legislative differences between ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Chapters Four and Five extend the author's discussion of ADA to the federal regulations that govern employment. Fersh and Thomas give their readers a detailed overview of the four most important areas of employment practice covered by the provisions of ADA. The four areas of ADA employment practice which they summarize in this chapter include:

* The definition of disability

* Who is a qualified individual with a disability

* The definition of what constitutes reasonable accommodation and undue hardship

* What constitutes non-discriminatory employment practices

In order to help readers gain a more clear understanding of the federal regulatory language of the employment provisions of ADA, Fersh and Thomas include an implications section following each employment regulation. These sections contain illustrative examples designed to assist employers and people with disabilities to better understand their new legal rights, responsibilities, and obligations under the law (p.49).

In Chapter Six Fersh and Thomas mm their readers' attention to an analytical discussion of how the non-discrimination public access provisions summarized under (Title II) of ADA will affect American business corporations, nonprofit organizations, and state and local government agencies in terms of the removal of architectural and transportation barriers that often deny people with disabilities access to public facilities, programs, and activities that are available to the rest of the members of society

Chapter Seven addresses the issue of developing employer understanding of the meaning of ADA in the workplace. The authors outline five specific key areas of ADA compliance which they claim employers and human resource managers need understand in order for them to effectively implement the principals of ADA in their organizations. The authors also give readers suggestions as to available resources such as state vocational rehabilitation agencies and state sponsored governors committees on employment of the disabled that can assist employers by providing them with the support services and information they need to meet ADA compliance standards for reasonable job accommodation when hiring persons with disabilities. The closing section of this chapter summarizes the various provisions of recent federal tax credit legislation that provide employers with financial incentives that can assist them in the facilitation of ADA compliance in their organizations.

Chapter Eight focuses on the issue of attitudinal and communication barriers that often confront employers and human resource managers when they interview job applicants with physical and mental disabilities. In this chapter, the authors outline a specific list of do's and don't's that they claim employment interviewers need to be sensitive to and aware of when they interview job applicants with specific types of disabilities such as persons who are blind, deaf, epileptic, mobility impaired, speech impaired, mentally ill, mentally retarded, cerebral palsy, and learning disabled.

Chapter Nine focuses on an in-depth analysis of the principles of reasonable accommodation that govern EEOC employment regulations under ADA and employer responsibilities for enforcement of these principles when considering persons with disabilities for employment. The authors outline and give examples of the ten most common types of reasonable accommodation that employers can utilize to make jobs and work sites more accessible and usable for persons with disabilities.

Chapters Ten and Eleven provide a comprehensive review of the basic employment and public access fights that fall under the protective umbrella of ADA. legislation. In these two chapters, Fersh and Thomas utilize illustrative examples taken from actual cases brought before the courts to demonstrate how persons with disabilities can use the principles of ADA to combat employment discrimination. The authors also describe the nine-: step EEOC legal process that persons with disabilities must go through when they file a discrimination claim against a prospective employer.

Chapter Twelve closes out the book with some personal perspectives from noted leaders in the disability community such :as Dr. Jordan King President of Gallaudet University, Dr. Alan Abeson Executive Director of The American Association of Retarded Citizens and Thor Hanson President of The National Multiple Sclerosis Society on the potential impact of ADA on the future employment outlook of persons with disabilities in American society.

The abiding theme that underlies the commentaries of all the experts in this chapter is that society must learn to give up their old stereotyped notions about disability. The experts posit, that ADA will help to do this by focusing increased public emphasis on what persons with disabilities can do rather than on what they cannot do. The experts predict that ADA has the potential to bring about the necessary changes in society that will enable persons with disabilities to take their rightful place as contributing members of the American work force.

As a concise and readable text, Complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act provides a wealth of valuable and useful practical information for rehabilitation counselors and other professionals that work in community based agencies that provide vocational rehabilitation services to persons with disabilities. The book would be a useful resource for professionals teaching in university based academic training programs that offer graduate level courses in rehabilitation counseling and other related disciplines. In sum, the book represents a strong professional knowledge base that make it a suitable reference for anyone who wants to broaden their knowledge and understanding of ADA.

Mitchell A. Kaplan
Senior Research Associate
New York State Consortium for the Study of Disabilities
Office of Academic Affairs
City University of New York