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U.S. Code as of:
01/19/04
Section 12101. Findings and purpose
(a) Findings
The Congress finds that -
(1) some 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or
mental disabilities, and this number is increasing as the
population as a whole is growing older;
(2) historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate
individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements,
such forms of discrimination against individuals with
disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive social
problem;
(3) discrimination against individuals with disabilities
persists in such critical areas as employment, housing, public
accommodations, education, transportation, communication,
recreation, institutionalization, health services, voting, and
access to public services;
(4) unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on
the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age,
individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of
disability have often had no legal recourse to redress such
discrimination;
(5) individuals with disabilities continually encounter various
forms of discrimination, including outright intentional
exclusion, the discriminatory effects of architectural,
transportation, and communication barriers, overprotective rules
and policies, failure to make modifications to existing
facilities and practices, exclusionary qualification standards
and criteria, segregation, and relegation to lesser services,
programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities;
(6) census data, national polls, and other studies have
documented that people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an
inferior status in our society, and are severely disadvantaged
socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally;
(7) individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular
minority who have been faced with restrictions and limitations,
subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and
relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our
society, based on characteristics that are beyond the control of
such individuals and resulting from stereotypic assumptions not
truly indicative of the individual ability of such individuals to
participate in, and contribute to, society;
(8) the Nation's proper goals regarding individuals with
disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full
participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency
for such individuals; and
(9) the continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary
discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the
opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those
opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous,
and costs the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary
expenses resulting from dependency and nonproductivity.
(b) Purpose
It is the purpose of this chapter -
(1) to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for
the elimination of discrimination against individuals with
disabilities;
(2) to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards
addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities;
(3) to ensure that the Federal Government plays a central role
in enforcing the standards established in this chapter on behalf
of individuals with disabilities; and
(4) to invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including
the power to enforce the fourteenth amendment and to regulate
commerce, in order to address the major areas of discrimination
faced day-to-day by people with disabilities.
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