With the amount of hard work and creativity that's necessary to plan and organize active agendas, legal issues may be far from planners' minds. Yet, legal issues often arise when we least expect them to.
Case in point: the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). While there has been much written and discussed concerning this broad piece of civil rights legislation over the last 12 years, many planners may find themselves in unfamiliar territory when attempting to determine how the ADA may apply to their programs.
Planners can take practical steps toward complying with the ADA by inquiring on registration materials as to whether any of the registrants will require special accommodations. This permits the attendee to specify their needs and gives the organization a chance to make ADA determinations and arrangements well before the event.
However, merely asking beforehand doesn't release a planner from his or her responsibility of attempting to accommodate on-the-spot requests.
When the ADA was passed in 1990, the stated goal of the legislation was to balance the qualified disabled individual's needs with legitimate business concerns. While the ADA addresses a wide range of issues, the public accommodations provisions (Title III) are of key importance to meeting planners.
Title III, which became effective in 1992, prohibits places of public accommodations from discriminating against individuals on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of whatever services and benefits the public space offers.
A "disability," as defined under the ADA, is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more "major life activities." This covers all the basic functions that many people take for granted every day, such as walking, grooming oneself, working, and learning.
Under the ADA, a "place of public accommodation" includes hotels, restaurants, gathering places, beaches, and parks. When a group rents a recreational facility or museum for its special event, it becomes public in the eyes of the law by virtue of such rental even if it's a private establishment.
The foundation of the ADA is that places of public accommodation must afford individuals with disabilities full and equal enjoyment of the goods and services it offers in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of an individual. Separate but equal is not enough. Therefore, when planning an event, planners must ensure that people with disabilities will be as welcome at the various events as people without disabilities.
So what are the group's obligations when hosting an active event that will be attended by a person with a disability?
Planners should consider the following:
1. What goods/services are being provided in connection with the event that someone with a disability may not be able to enjoy? This could be anything from hearing music at a concert, hearing directions at a beach scavenger hunt competition, or reading a scorecard out loud at a golf outing.
2. How can those goods/services be provided to someone with a disability on an equal basis? Here, think any kind of disability, not just mobility. This could be a blind person wanting to play golf or a hearing impaired person wanting to participate in a scavenger hunt. The planner's responsibility is to provide helpful aids and services where necessary to ensure that no disabled individual is excluded, denied services, segregated, or otherwise treated differently than others unless an undue burden (i.e., significant difficulty or expense) would result.
If an undue burden does result, the planner must make sure that an alternative helpful aid or service, if one exists, is in place so that the disabled individual can get as much as possible out of the experience.
What auxiliary aids or services will be necessary to fulfill the organization's obligations under item two, above? For hearing disabilities, helpful aids and services would involve a sign language interpreter; for vision disabilities, braille materials. The aid will vary depending on the goods/services to be offered and must be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Keep in mind that the group can choose the least-burdensome alternative as long as the result is effective. Also, the group may not place a surcharge on a disabled individual to cover its costs of complying with the ADA, but may require reasonable deposits on equipment provided the deposits are fully refundable. Finally, an individual with a disability is not required to accept any accommodation or auxiliary aid or service that he or she chooses not to accept.
Title III permits parties to allocate responsibilities in contracts. Planners should discuss accessibility issues with potential sites and include in facility contracts a clause allocating responsibility for various aspects of ADA compliance to the facility, such as the removal of physical barriers to access. Planners may also want to consider including a clause indemnifying each party from any claims and losses it may sustain as a result of the other's failure to comply with its obligations under the ADA.
Above all else, keep in mind that the ADA is a civil rights law. Often, offending someone with a disability is far more damaging to an organization than any legal action that could be brought.
Be sensitive to the needs of persons with disabilities and be prepared to address their special requirements and concerns. This includes training on-site personnel to appropriately respond to ADA-related inquiries. With proper ADA planning and management, planners can ensure that events are accessible to all.
A Quick ChecklistHave you:
Asked attendees about special needs on the registration form?Talked to the facility about its ADA access?Allocated responsibility in the contract?Developed a "first response" plan for unexpected ADA requests?