The Lame Game

...The ADA has also left many colleges unable to discipline or discharge disruptive students...

...They're still waiting...

...If disabled people take a job, they lose their federal Medicare coverage as well as Supplemental Security Income payments...

...1:71 The American Spectator July 1995 33...

...C laims of discrimination based on mental disability are one of the most frequent charges under the ADA...

...A clerk-typist in the Howard County, Maryland government was fired after repeatedly directing rude outbursts and denunciations at her supervisors...

...Jon Westling, president of Boston University, commented in May that ADA lawsuits and threats have resulted in demands "to keep learning disabled philosophy students safe from the perplexities of Aristotle, to accommodate foreign-language majors who have foreign-language phobia, and to comfort physics students who suffer from dyscalculia, which is, of course, the particular learning disablement that prevents one from learning math...

...Still, co-workers feared that a manic episode would occur while he was operating the crane, resulting in serious injury to others...

...He was discharged after failing federal and state health examinations required for commercial bus drivers...

...A former FBI communications officer was fired after his supervisors concluded that his paranoia and inability to perceive reality interfered with his ability to handle confidential documents...

...Motzkin denies the charges, yet claims that tranquilizers and anti-depressants he was taking "loosened his inhibitions" and led to the alleged sexual transgressions...

...The ADA is sometimes said to stand for "Attorneys' 32 The American Spectator July 1995 Dreams Answered...

...We cannot rule out a psychotic student if otherwise capable...

...Shortly beforehand, two postal employees had gone on shooting sprees elsewhere...

...alone," "handicap" was a factor, the firing became illegal...

...Psychiatrist John Fielder complained last year, "The ADA reads as if employee requests for accommodation should be accepted at face value, when this should never be the case...

...A federal judge noted that the employee "at one point felt he had died and gone to hell...

...Federal Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich ruled that the company violated the man's civil rights, saying, "When poor judgment is a symptom of a mental or psychological disorder, it is defined as an impainnent that would qualify as a disability under the ADA...

...They are in the same "trap" as welfare mothers—unable to take a low- or mid-level job without risking a real decline in their income...

...He feared that a nuclear holocaust was imminent, and he called the Strategic Air Command in Omaha to issue a warning...

...However, successive waves of foolish court decisions and EEOC power grabs have transformed employment law into a caricature of Congress's intent...

...In March 1993, a federal judge ruled that the District of Columbia's practice of excluding blind people from jury service was a violation of the ADA...

...Even when ludicrous ADA cases are thrown out of courts, they can chill the legal atmosphere for employers...

...Some of the most egregious examples include the following: • The EEOC announced in August 1993 that obesity was a 30 The American Spectator July 1995 "protected" disability under the ADA, and successfully intervened in the case of a 300-pound woman who wanted to be a nurse's aide in Rhode Island...

...The same pattern of lavish payoffs for bogus charges appears to be repeating itself with the ADA...

...Ayreh Motzkin, a 60-year-old philosophy professor, is suing Boston University after being fired for allegedly sexually assaulting a female professor and sexually harassing three students...

...In Santa Monica, drive-through windows illegally California, a deaf woman sued discriminated against deaf people...

...cases are being heard that should be dismissed out of hand...

...Thomas Burns, a guidance counselor at Stafford High School in Hartford, Connecticut, sued under the ADA after he was fired following his arrest for cocaine possession...

...She filed sexual harassment charges, and Winston acknowledged having sex with other female students (one other student complained of sexual harassment...

...At colleges, the ADA has been a godsend to shirking students...

...Since the EEOC's definition is so vague, the official definitions of mental illness of the American Psychiatric Association for mental illnesses are often relied on for court cases...

...Gary Edwards of United Cerebral Palsy of Birmingham, Alabama, told the New York Times last October, "We have built up a system . . . that says it is not in your best interest to go to work...

...Society can and should help those who cannot help themselves...

...The psychiatric association recently defined "disorder of written expression" (i.e., bad writing) and excessive use of caffeine as potential illnesses...

...The judge condemned the suit as "either blatantly fraudulent or utterly ridiculous...

...the hospital had claimed that she would be incapable of performing essential functions of the job...

...This past March, the EEOC issued a ruling expanding the definition of disability to include an inability to perform functions such as "thinking, concentrating, and interacting with other people...

...And because disabilities are self-identified by the employee under the ADA, that means that the accommodations required of the employer are also defined by the employee...

...As a result, many disabled have chosen not to accept work even when they could find it...

...As the Boston Globe reported, "Once students complained about his behavior, Motzkin alleges, the university was aware of his handicap and had an obligation to help him deal with it...

...Histrionic Personality Disorder—a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking...

...The Employee Relations Law Journal noted earlier this year that the ADA may be found to "protect" personality disorders such as: • Antisocial Personality Disorder—a pattern of disregard for, and violation of the rights of, others...

...A federal judge rejected the suit of a postal worker who had destroyed property and endangered his supervisor, and then claimed to be suffering from "explosive personality disorder...

...Many similar suits have also been filed...

...Winston sued the college, claiming that his firing constituted discrimination against the handicapped...

...Casellas explained his agency's delays in defining the law: "I've got a bunch of internal problems to deal with, like a terrible relationship between union and management which I'm trying to fix...

...A university committee also concluded that Motzkin had violated school policy by providing alcohol to undergraduate students...

...The act defined disability as "(a) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual...

...If people want to provide more help to the handicapped, it would be far more effective to provide additional subsidies to employers to hire the disabled—as is currently being done under numerous federal and state programs...

...Victoria McGillian, dean of Wheaton College, recently told the Boston Globe that, because of the ADA, "students who fit the admissions criteria but who might not have been actively considered are now being accepted if they are 'otherwise qualified...

...n the face of such frivolous suits, some judges are beginning to lose patience...

...Under this definition, who knows how many people in Washington alone might qualify...

...He took lithium to control it, and had never exhibited any aberrant behavior on the job...

...In San Mateo, California, Beatrice Shaw sued Citicorp Credit Services for firing her because of her severe body odor...

...A New Orleans television broadcaster, Lynn Gansar, received an EEOC endorsement to sue her employer for refusing to give her extensive time off to try to get pregnant...

...Because she is a manic depressive, she claimed that her employer was required to strip her job of all its inherent stress...

...The Transit Authority stated that an operator, among other duties, has to be able to climb under a stalled train to make minor adjustments—something Mr...

...On March 8, federal judge Samuel Kent denounced an ADA suit as "a blatant attempt to extort money," after a man who, eight days earlier, had been awarded damages for permanent disability status from the Santa Fe Railroad, sued the railroad for refusing to rehire him because of his disability...

...The ADA discrimination rules pose other threats to nondisabled workers...

...Narcissistic Personality Disorder—a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy...

...A combination of good intentions, vague standards, and coercion, the ADA is a growing fiasco for both the private sector and local governments...

...This put the station—"because of her pregnancy-related condition," the agency wrote—in violation of the ADA...

...An ADA lawsuit against a Texas nightclub that allowed smoking was thrown out of court this past January...

...The EEOC defined mental disability as simply a "mental impairment," which was equated with "mental disorder...

...But it is dishonest for the government to endow some people with the legal power to make unlimited demands from others through litigation and claim that the result is simply "equal opportunity...

...ne consequence of the ADA has been to weaken 0 employers' ability to prevent violence in the workplace...

...Claiming that he is mentally handicapped, Motzkin in his suit charges the university with violating the ADA...

...A crane operator who forgets to take his medicine can do far more damage with a 500-pound wrecking ball than a listless government file clerk with the same condition who makes the same mistake...

...Once an employee identifies himself or herself as having a 'disability,' there are virtually no limits to what accommodations can be demanded...

...Yet for an employer to be too careful in screening potentially dangerous persons out of the work force is to invite liability for discrimination under the ADA, while to be not careful enough is to invite tragedy and horrendous liability for negligent hire or negligent retention...

...I called Fram and asked for a copy of the speech...

...One Tufts University student invoked the ADA to claim that the university was obliged to "accommodate" her aversion to taking tests...

...A federal appeals court spiked the suit last March 29, concluding that the driver would be a risk to himself, his passengers, pedestrians, and other motorists...

...The ADA is also exploding like a series of cluster bombs across the budgets of local governments across the country: • The National Association of Counties estimates that county governments will be forced to spend almost $3 billion by 1998 to comply with ADA mandates...

...In Tampa, Florida, Joe Hindman was fired from GTE Data Services after he was found to have robbed purses in the office of thousands of dollars and was caught bringing a loaded gun into the office...

...A federal appeals court in Boston ruled in April that three asthmatic children and one adult with lupus could sue McDonald's and Burger King for not "accommodating" them by prohibiting smoking...

...To allow Hindman to continue working at the company, Kovachevich ruled, the company should have tried to find some "reasonable accommodation...

...The FBI employee sued, claiming discrimination against his "bipolar mood disorder...

...City disability official Ron Shigeta complained to the Los Angeles Times, "It's unfair for the media to have exploited the shower dispute to its own ends, while ignoring the important work of In Santa Monica, California, a deaf woman the Disabled Access Appeals sued Burger King, claiming that its Commission...

...On May 1, the village board of Silver Creek, New York, voted to more than double a proposed tax-rate ' hike to finance compliance with the ADA...

...The local ADA compliance committee said this May that it could cost $1 million to bring the school up to ADA standards...

...Martin's) and Shakedown: How Government Screws You From A to Z, to be published in September by Viking...

...San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit raised fares 15 percent in April, in part to pay for modifications mandated by the ADA...

...The EEOC issued expansive new "guidelines" on the definition of disability in March, but these only added to the pervasive uncertainty as to what the law means...

...Co-workers reportedly got sick just from being near her...

...Garrett claimed he was disabled because he was "depressed" because his daughter failed to get into law school and his son was getting poor grades in school...

...ust as bad as the elevation of social pathologies to civil j rights is the proliferation of new "disabilities," among which "multiple chemical sensitivity"—to perfumes, aftershaves, and the like—is becoming one of the most fashionable: • Congress appropriated a quarter-million dollars to examine Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and scores of lawsuits alleging discrimination against MCS sufferers have been filed...

...A judge dismissed the suit in December 1993...

...A lmost any condition can be grounds for a lawsuit in the absence of meaningful guidelines, and the ADA has already opened up a Pandora's box of lunatic claims and federal rulings...

...A motorist who was ticketed by a Topeka, Kansas policeman for not wearing a seatbelt claimed that he could not wear one because of claustrophobia, and sued the city for violating the ADA...

...A 360-pound woman sued a Memphis movie theater, claiming that she deserved $1.5 million for her emotional distress when it turned out that none of the theater seats was large enough to accommodate her...

...Dwayne "Fishbone" Richardson, a 410-pound Bronx subway cleaner, sued the New York Transit Authority for refusing to promote him to train operator...

...Kovachevich's decision was later overturned...

...The Hartford Courant reported that Burns's lawyer said that since Burns's cocaine dependence was a disability, the school had discriminated against him...

...Such conflicts have already made their way into court: • In Maine, Thomas Lussier, a Postal Service employee who suffers from "post-traumatic stress disorder," was fired after his supervisors became convinced that his agitated behavior, panic attacks, and "volatile personality" could lead him to go on a shooting spree...

...This legislation has turned disabilities into valuable legal assets, prizes to be cultivated and James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St...

...He told me that he hadn't been speaking from a text, and that even if he had been, the speech was confidential—even though it was summarized in the Bureau of National Affairs Daily Business Report...

...The commission ruled that since the shower stall would not be accessible to a stripper in a wheelchair, the business discriminated against handicapped women...

...A federal judge found that the firing violated the ADA because of its "unwarranted generalize- Despite the ADA 's blunt threats to tions drawn from beliefs force employers to hire more handicapped about Lussier's handicap...

...Julie C. Janofsky, an attorney who has written about the ADA for the Wall Street Journal, notes that the definition "casts so wide a net that it includes even allergies and learning problems...

...When the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, it was assumed that only cases of clear racial bias would be applicable under the law...

...However, in this case, the crane operator was protected by the ADA because of his excellent track record on lithium...

...Florida district appeals judge Eugene Garrett was nabbed shoplifting a VCR remote control...

...Paul Imperiale, disability coordinator for the mayor's office in San Francisco, predicted last January: "Ten years from now it will be politically incorrect to wear perfumes in public...

...Two doctors testified at his trial that he suffered from a "sexual addiction...

...The Los Angeles Disabled Access Appeals Commission invoked the ADA last year to force the Odd Ball Cabaret, a nude strip joint, to close a shower stall on its stage...

...The woman was routinely late for work, and had sought permission to continue arriving late owing to her "disability...

...A Suffolk University professor sued the law school, claim-Mg that she had been denied tenure because she suffered from an illness that results in lethargy and decreased productivity...

...Federal disability policy is rapidly becoming the Bush administration's legacy to nightclub comics...

...Anti-smokers are invoking the ADA to compel governments to ban smoking in restaurants...

...Richardson's 60-inch waistline made impossible...

...b) a record of such an impairment...

...Preposterous precedents are being established...

...Despite the ADA's blunt threats to force employers to hire more handicapped people, the percentage of disabled who have jobs is actually lower now than before the law was enacted in 1990...

...or (c) being regarded as having such an impairment...

...A jury rejected Shaw's claim that her odor was a handicap that her employer was obliged to tolerate, but the suit cost Citicorp Credit tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs...

...In late 1993, associate attorney general Webster Hubbell warned that "the education period is over" for the as-yetunspecified law and, as Tim Ferguson reported in the Wall Street Journal, told a group of lawyers to expect a crackdown...

...one of her bosses swore he could smell her from 35 feet away...

...The Palm Beach Post noted last December, "Even though the ADA made little change in the services that [colleges] were required to offer students, the publicity given the law made many more students and their parents aware of the opportunity to qualify as disabled...

...As a result, businesses routinely settle even completely baseless discrimination charges out of court, because the average cost of defending a case is roughly $80,000...

...The Employee Relations Law Journal noted, "Many individuals who become violent toward customers or coworkers suffer from some form of mental disorder...

...Burger King settled the lawsuit by agreeing to install visual electronic ordering devices at ten restaurants...

...Donald Winston, an English instructor at Central Maine Technical College, was fired after he invited a female student to a private meeting, talked about sex, and then kissed her...

...when the Florida Supreme Court ordered Garrett removed from the bench, Garrett appealed the removal, citing the ADA...

...Burger King, claiming that its drive-through windows illegally discriminated against deaf people...

...Crain's Chicago Business reported the following case last year: A factory crane operator was diagnosed with bipolar personality disorder (also known as manic depression...

...A man who had repeatedly been hospitalized for heart failure, and who had a serious risk of losing consciousness from his uncontrolled diabetes, invoked the ADA to sue Frederick County, Maryland, for refusing to retain him as a bus driver...

...The judge noted: "The Postal people, the percentage of disabled who have Service could have fired jobs is actually lower now than before Lussier for his irascibility his once that but " , the law was enacted in 1990...

...Thousands have successfully dodged required courses by getting a shrink to certify them as "math-disabled...

...The agency ruled that "Voluntariness is irrelevant when determining whether a condition constitutes an impairment...

...But few laws in recent memory have sown as much uncertainty and legal chaos as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed at President Bush's urging in 1990...

...In April, a Madison, Wisconsin telephone operator sued her employer for refusing to make reasonable accommodations for her narcolepsy...

...Hindman sued the company, claiming he was disabled because of a chemical imbalance caused by the prescription drug Prozac...

...David Fram, an ADA policy attorney with EEOC, warned in a speech last year that discipline standards for The American Spectator July 1995 31 employees who attack their bosses must not conflict with the company's duty to reasonably accommodate the mentally disabled...

...She claimed in her suit that the firing violated her civil rights...

...The Webster Elementary School in Magna, Utah—a landmark in the small community for nearly a century—may be closed down because of the ADA...

...The fact that a person's weight usually results from voluntary behavior did not curb the EEOC's zeal...

...A panel of judges ruled that the plaintiffs' allegations that "the restaurants they visited contained too much smoke to allow their equal use of the facilities . . . might support a blanket ban" of smoking...

...Yet these definitions are also very expansive...

...In April, a jury rejected her demands for back pay and severance pay...

...Last November, four years after Congress passed the act—and long after the Justice Department and the EEOC had begun filing a barrage of lawsuits against private companies—EEOC chairman Gilbert Casellas admitted that his agency had yet to issue guidelines on what constitutes a disability...

...flourished in courtrooms for financial windfalls...

...A group of aging stewardesses sued Delta Airlines over its weight guidelines for employees, but did not explain how heavier stews could finesse their way around a drinks cart in the minuscule aisle of a Boeing 727...