Author: Katherine A. Macfarlane | Syracuse University

Syracuse University campus

Syracuse University | When the System Fails: Why Disabled People Self-Accommodate

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is an anti-discrimination law, and the failure to provide reasonable accommodations is a form of discrimination under the ADA. When the process through which reasonable accommodations are obtained becomes so punitive that people would rather forego it and take on the labor themselves, civil rights law has failed to fulfill its intended nondiscriminatory purpose.