skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Reflecting On the Impact of the ADA

play audio
Play

Friday, July 26, 2019   

INDIANAPOLIS – Legislation that has changed the lives of millions of Americans, including more than one in ten Hoosiers, marks its 29th anniversary today. The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on June 26, 1990, and is considered the most significant piece of civil-rights legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Peter Berg with the Great Lakes ADA Center, which serves Indiana explains in 2008, the bill was amended to clarify the definition of 'disability,' and provide broad protection from discrimination. And he notes as the world changes, the law needs continued updating.

"Within the last five [to] eight years, the Department of Justice revised its regulations covering state and local governments, and private businesses,” says Berg. “It also issued updated accessibility standards. It went a long way in attempting to unify the ADA standards with other industry standards."

The ADA aims to ensure that people with physical or mental disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as others in all areas of public life – including employment, education and transportation. While the law has transformed accommodations for many with disabilities, some advocates contend the country must be committed to fulfilling the full promise of the ADA, by working to create a more inclusive society.

Berg says one area that needs improvement in the ADA is information technology, since it was implemented at a time when the internet didn't exist.

"There are no accessibility standards that apply to technology,” says Berg. “There could be some room to issue standards that say, 'OK, this is what an accessible website is. This is what an accessible kiosk is, and this is what an accessible app is.'"

Recently, two retail organizations asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case involving a blind customer who sued Domino's Pizza because its website and mobile app were not accessible to people using screen-reading software.

Research conducted by the international law firm Seyfarth Saw found website-accessibility lawsuits rose from about 800 in 2017 to 22-hundred in 2018.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Iowa families can apply for up to $7,600 a year for private school costs. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

An ethics committee in the Republican-led Iowa House has dismissed a complaint filed by a group of community activists against a state lawmaker for hi…


play sound

Each spring, hundreds of thousands of California high school seniors have to figure out if they can afford to go to college in the fall - and two new …

Health and Wellness

play sound

A health care workforce shortage in New Hampshire is leaving Alzheimer's patients and their families with few options for treatment. Patients facing …


South Dakota ranks 49th in the country for its contribution to indigent legal defense costs, according to a 2023 report from the Indigent Legal Services Task Force. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

South Dakota is creating an Office of Indigent Legal Services after House Bill 1057 passed the Legislature with nearly unanimous support this month…

Environment

play sound

A Knoxville-based environmental group is voicing concerns over what it sees as an increasing financial strain imposed on taxpayers by nuclear weapons …

Environment

play sound

A bipartisan law set to take effect this summer prohibits foreign adversaries from buying Hoosier farmland. The signature of Gov. Eric Holcomb was …

Social Issues

play sound

Today, people across Arizona are voting in the Presidential Preference Election, a chance for registered Democrats and Republicans to choose their …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021