Twenty-five Years after the ADA: How Can Organizations Meaningfully Impact People with Disabilities?

Abstract

This past year marked the 25th year of the Americans with Disabilities Act, an Act that sought to protect the disabled and provide them some level of equity. The statistics on disability are both startling and grim. One in five Americans, over 48 million people, roughly 20% of the population has a disability. In 2013, only about 17% of people with disabilities were employed, and the employment rate for even those with college education lags 30% behind those without disabilities. This symposium will examine the issues surrounding employment of people with invisible disabilities; Asperger’s syndrome, mental illness and epilepsy, as well as social medial portrayals of disability in general, and advocacy strategies from the field of education, to identify what firms can do to allow these individuals the opportunity to perform meaningful work. The term disability covers an extremely wide spectrum of conditions, over one thousand, which limit major life activities. By shining a spotlight on a few, we hope to sh...