and the answers
As I have realized I am heading off to Disney in like, a day and a half (eek), I present the answers to my questions a little early. If you haven't seen these yet, they were posted as "ten things that I, as a person living with a disability, am pretty much forced to know" (with a little side-helping of "things that I, as a person living with a disability, wish everyone else did know"); you can read the original post for the basic list of questions.
Some of these are fairly controversial, and if you ask two people, you'll get three opinions; some of these are just plain fact. I do not pretend to speak for everyone who lives with a disability -- far from it, and I hope that the people reading this who do have differing experiences or thoughts than I do will share those, because the more voices that speak, the more full the picture can be. (Basic rules apply: I may speak forcefully, but it is not an attack.)
1. What is the ADA?
The ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990. Broadly speaking, and summarized in its most single-sentence soundbite fashion, it prohibits discrimination against an individual on basis of ability or disability and seeks to make the Outside World as accessable as possible (without resorting to Harrison Bergeron-type tactics) for people who are less than mainstream-normative abled.
A little more narrowly speaking, it governs:
* employment (a covered entity cannot discriminate in any fashion based on disability, in hiring, training, worker's comp, job advancement, job training, etc; a covered entity is generally anybody engaged in interstate commerce -- and therefore governed by federal rather than state regulations -- and employing more than fifteen workers);
* public services and transportation (any public agency, and all forms of public transportation, cannot discriminate or exclude any qualified individual from using their services);
* public accomodations ("an inn, hotel, motel, or other place of lodging [...] a restaurant, bar, or other establishment serving food or drink; a motion picture house, theater, concert hall, stadium, or other place of exhibition entertainment; an auditorium, convention center, lecture hall, or other place of public gathering; a bakery, grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, shopping center, or other sales or rental establishment; a laundromat, dry-cleaner, bank, barber shop, beauty shop, travel service, shoe repair service, funeral parlor, gas station, office of an accountant or lawyer, pharmacy, insurance office, professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or other service establishment; a terminal, depot, or other station used for specified public transportation; a museum, library, gallery, or other place of public display or collection; a park, zoo, amusement park, or other place of recreation; a nursery, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private school, or other place of education; a day care center, senior citizen center, homeless shelter, food bank, adoption agency, or other social service center establishment; and a gymnasium, health spa, bowling alley, golf course, or other place of exercise or recreation" -- all of these places must follow certain guidelines to ensure a reasonable level of accessability);
* telecommunications (all telecom companies must take steps to accomodate usage by individuals such as those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or those with speech impairments, such as by the use of assistive devices)
Many people have many opinions on the ADA and how it should be enforced. It is, however, Vastly Better than Nothing.
The ADA has a very broad definition of "discrimination"; it includes not only active discrimination (firing someone for a disability, for instance) but passive discrimination (failure to make a public space accessable). The ADA defines discrimination as:
(i) the imposition or application of eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability or any class of individuals with disabilities from fully and equally enjoying any goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations, unless such criteria can be shown to be necessary for the provision of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations being offered;
(ii) a failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities, unless the entity can demonstrate that making such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations;
(iii) a failure to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure that no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated or otherwise treated differently than other individuals because of the absence of auxiliary aids and services, unless the entity can demonstrate that taking such steps would fundamentally alter the nature of the good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation being offered or would result in an undue burden;
(iv) a failure to remove architectural barriers, and communication barriers that are structural in nature, in existing facilities, and transportation barriers in existing vehicles and rail passenger cars used by an establishment for transporting individuals (not including barriers that can only be removed through the retrofitting of vehicles or rail passenger cars by the installation of a hydraulic or other lift), where such removal is readily achievable; and
(v) where an entity can demonstrate that the removal of a barrier under clause (iv) is not readily achievable, a failure to make such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations available through alternative methods if such methods are readily achievable.
The text of the ADA is available online from the US DoJ website. For legislation, it's surprisingly readable.
2. What are the three criteria that are applied to determine if someone qualifies for ADA protection?
I quote:
"The term "disability" means, with respect to an individual: (A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such impairment."
In other words, if you have something that interferes with your ability to interface with the world the same way other people do, if a doctor's ever said that you have something that interferes with your ability etc, or if other people might reasonably think you have something that interferes with your ability etc, you're covered by the ADA.
3. What facilities are not bound by Title III of the ADA, and under what circumstances?
Sing it with me, friends: the answer is, "It's complicated!"
Above are the major categories of "public accomodations" that are covered and bound by the ADA accessability guidelines. (You can, by the way, find a number of really helpful and cogent summaries of those accessability guidelines on the DoJ website -- things like number of designated parking spaces, number of disability-friendly stalls, etc, all the way down to guidelines for doorways and aisles and the pitch of ramps.)
In general, any public or semi-public space built since the ADA was signed into law needs to comply with these guidelines. (Exceptions are made for private clubs and religious organizations.)
Where it gets complicated is with buildings built before 1990. In general, these buildings, and their proprietors, have to make a reasonable effort to remove barriers-to-entry to the extent that it is "readily achievable" -- which is very fuzzily defined; what's readily achievable for a major conglomerate, for instance, might be completely out of the reach of a tiny sole proprietorship.
The building I live in, for instance, is a gated and secured building in the heart of downtown Baltimore. There's an elevator (even though it's slow as shit, but that's neither here nor there), so they're good on that point. Where they had problems was with accessing the building itself; there were two doors, outer and inner, and while the outer door would open with no problem, the inner door required a key -- the lock of which was placed at a very inconvenient height for a person using a wheelchair, not to mention the problem of then maneuvering door + chair to get chair through door while it was still open.
This summer (and without anyone in the current tenancy of the building who uses a wheelchair, which made me rather happy and even more determined that we live in the Best Building Ever) installed automatic doors at the sole ground-level entrance without steps, and a keypad for the inner door; you tap in a sequence on the keypad, which is at chair-height, and then push the automatic door button, and the door opens. It is so insanely useful for when I have me + cane + baggage of some sort, and it removed the last major barrier to accessability of the building.
(It gets even more complicated when we add in the fact that our building is (I think) on the National Register of Historic Places, which has even more exceptions built in; those must comply to the "maximum extent feasible", unless the proposed compliance measures would "threaten to destroy the historic significance of a feature of the building", in which case you get a Get Out Of Accessability Free card.)
In general, businesses lodged in buildings built before 1990 have a number of very small things they can do to increase accessability for people who are in some form mobility-impaired. The exact and painstaking complete ADA guidelines are available, though they're slow going in places.
4. What major category of disability is not covered by the ADA?
Disabilities arising from the current use of illegal drugs. It is allowable for an employer to test for the use of illegal drugs, for instance (since the ADA specifically disallows any medical testing as a condition for employment -- that way employers can still force a pee test).
(The ADA specifically does not cover: "(1) transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders; (2) compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or pyromania; or (3) psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs." Oh, and homosexuality or bisexuality. God forbid we pesky queers get rights!)
5. What are the seven construction requirements for multifamily housing?
I threw this in here because this is actually not specified by the ADA; it's specified by the 1998 Fair Housing Act. (The hodgepodge of legislation surrounding disability is impossible to navigate sometimes; this was meant to be a research question that would show how utterly impossible it sometimes is to get the answers you need, or even to find out that something you need is out there. There are many programs that offer assistance in navigating the horrible tangle and jungle of legislation, but self-advocacy is sometimes the only way you can get anything settled.)
Anyway, those seven things are, and apply to any multifamily building of more than four units first occupied after March of 1991:
1. An accessible building entrance on an accessible route.
2. Accessible common and public use areas.
3. Doors usable by a person in a wheelchair.
4. Accessible route into and through the dwelling unit.
5. Light switches, electrical outlets, thermostats and other environmental controls in accessible locations.
6. Reinforced walls in bathrooms for later installation of grab bars.
7. Usable kitchens and bathrooms.
6. What is section 504? What programs does it most affect?
Section 504 is the predecessor of the ADA in a lot of ways; it is, most properly, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
While Section 504 didn't have the sweeping language or mandate of the ADA, it did cover one very important thing: it said, in part:
No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 705(20) of this title, shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
In other words, it was the first civil-rights statute for people living with disabilities. Large portions of the country suddenly had to think about accessability: airports, libraries, anything that took federal money ....
...and the institution most affected by Section 504: the public school system, up to and including any federally-funded colleges or universities.
Section 504 is still enforced and in-use today; when a child in the public school system is identified as having a qualifying disability, the school must create a "504 Plan" for how they will make accomodations. It was the first legislative acknowledgement of the civil rights of the disabled. The ADA specifically does not override or alter Section 504; its purpose was to extend 504 protection to the private sector, not to supplant it.
7. Who is widely considered the 'father of the disability rights movement'?
Ed Roberts; I refer you to his Wikipedia writeup for a brief overview. Basically, he wanted to go to college, and he was by God not going to let anything stop him. He co-founded the Center for Independent Living and started a long and painstaking process to not only support individuals with disabilities, but to raise awareness of issues surrounding disability and accomodation. We owe a lot of our civil-rights protections to Ed and his cohorts.
8. What is the proper way (according to common consensus) to verbally indicate to someone else that a person has a disability?
Place the person first. Not "disabled person", but "person living with a disability" (although the term "disability" is oft-debated, even). "Person using a wheelchair", not "wheelchair-bound" or "confined to a wheelchair". (A side note: many Deaf people view Deaf as a culture, not as a disability; the term "hearing-impaired" is considered offensive to many.) When in doubt, ask, in good faith and without judgement, and listen to and respect the answer you receive. It's okay to ask; assuming is what'll make you look like an ass, not a genuine desire to avoid giving offense. (rydra_wong adds clarification in comments.)
There are many, many terms that will give offense if used by someone who is not a member of that close-group, which can be used by members of that close-group without offense (it's the whole "reclaiming slurs" theory). I will cheerfully and happily refer to my handicapped-parking placard as the "gimp tag", for instance -- it's just quicker to say, and it amuses me -- and a friend of mine who's very active in the disability-rights movement tries to drum up activity in her BDSM-and-disability community cripswithwhips at every chance she gets. As with any case of insider language, don't use the words unless you are part of that insider group (or have earned a reputation as an ally; sarahq is Allowed, for instance, and I won't take offense, but only because in her case, the use isn't pejorative. When in doubt, don't.)
9. What assistance is it appropriate for an abled person to offer to a disabled person with whom they are not acquainted?
This is a tough one, and it is very hard to answer in such a way that won't have someone somewhere saying "no, that's wrong" (more so than any other of these points, and I repeat that I Am Not The Final Authority, etc).
That having been said: A genuine and earnest desire to help is almost always appropriate -- as long as it is made in the proper way. Grabbing a person's wheelchair, for instance, is pushy and rude and intrusive and will likely get your foot run over; grabbing the elbow of a person who is blind and trying to steer them may result in you losing that hand. Holding a door is always okay (and really, is basic fucking manners whether the person behind you has a disability or not), as long as the person hasn't already started to open it (in which case, they are probably very carefully balancing their weight in order to maneuver themselves + door, and the proper response is to say "Hey, can I get that for you?" and wait for a response.)
The key in offering assistance is to, from a reasonable distance of personal space -- the same one you'd use with any stranger -- say, "Can I help you with something?" If you get a "yes", then, again, ask what you can do, rather than just assuming. (Nine times out of ten, if you're going to get a yes, it'll be a "Yes, thank you! Can you hold this door?" or some other indication of what help might be desired.) If you get a no, then just smile and nod and move on. (I, personally, do sometimes find it very irritating to be asked for the eleventy billionth time if there's something someone can do to help, which is My Issue Not Yours and I try to curb it; do recognize that for many of us, it's a matter of pride to do as much as possible without assistance, and if we've been, say, traveling for fifteen hours and really just want to get home and collapse, often it is much faster if you just do it yourself.)
It is never appropriate to put yourself in someone's personal space, ever, and it is not appropriate to just reach to help without first making your presence known and verifying if your help is wanted or needed. For instance, I can't count the number of times I've started to fall when my hip or knee spontaneously decides it doesn't want to bear weight, and when that happens, people instinctively want to grab me and try to keep me from going down. Don't; I know how to fall without hurting myself, and when people grab, they tend to dislocate my wrist, elbow, or shoulder, and it is far preferable to wind up with a bruised backside than a wrist you have to pop back into place while sitting on the floor. The appropriate assistance to offer in that case is an arm stretched out and braced so that if the person is going to grab it, you can bear their weight; let it be their choice. I have also had people actually reach out to take my backpack, for instance, without asking or even letting me know they're there, and hello, in that case, the dislocated wrist is almost theirs.
One thing that a lot of people using assistive devices get -- a lot -- is the Invisible Syndrome; it's fairly common to joke that the diagnosis of invisibility gets handed down with whatever diagnosis causes the need for the assistive devices. Don't stare at people using wheelchairs, canes, crutches, etc, but don't avert your eyes, either, which is what most people do (they don't want to feel like they're being rude by staring or gawking -- the presence of a wheelchair, cane, or crutches can suddenly make everyone in the room horribly self-conscious). Like you would with anyone, make eye contact, smile, and move on.
(I strongly recommend smiling at more people, in fact. It is vastly undervalued in this world, and a nice smile can make someone's day. I actually once got breakfast free in an airport because the girl at the counter said that I was the only person who'd smiled at her all morning.)
Oh, and this should go without saying: do not pet service animals. Period, end of sentence. Don't talk to them, don't coo at them, don't offer them treats, don't feed them, don't hold out a hand to them, do not do anything that might interfere with their concentration or their activity.
One of the greatest pieces of assistance you can offer to anyone who is mobility-impaired is very, very subtle, and probably won't be noticed in any fashion other than it causing a little pocket of non-hassle: Don't behave as though their presence in any way inconveniences you. Too many people, when stuck behind me in some fashion, do the sigh-and-roll-their-eyes-and-radiate-irritation thing. Yes, I am holding everyone up; I'm very sorry about it. I really, really am. But there's a reason airlines offer pre-board, for instance; it's for people like me who take fucking forever to get down the jetway. If I'm holding you up, I'm very sorry but I'm moving as fast as I can; I am as embarrassed by it as you are inconvenienced by it. Take your time while we're all walking to where we're going; look around you and enjoy the view. Don't sigh and snarl and push around me the second there's enough clearance for you to do so. Just recognize that you're getting a brief, several-minute glimpse into the world I inhabit every minute of my life. You can walk away from it. I can't. And even in this, I'm luckier than some.
I once, when at the airport and preparing to board a much-delayed flight, got up when they announced pre-board would be commencing shortly and limped my long and painful way over to stand on line. A (perfectly mobile jackass of a) guy who was sitting in the first row of seats at the gate actually said to me: "Hey, can I borrow your cane so I can pre-board, too?"
I gaped at him. I actually think I said "....", like a video game character who's been startled. Then I summoned my wits and said, "Sure. As long you take the disability that goes with it."
Don't be that jackass.
10. When is it acceptable for a non-disabled person to use a bathroom stall fitted for individuals with a disability? When is it acceptable for a non-disabled person to use a parking space designated for individuals with a disability?
This is a trick question, and has many, many, many hotly-debated answers. *g*
The answer is, broadly: When you qualify for its use. And yes, I phrased it in such a way as to intimate that the hypothetical "you" wouldn't qualify, but it's a very long and convoluted answer.
Bathroom stalls are tricky (and again, this is my viewpoint; others will disagree). If there's a long line of people waiting for a bathroom stall, and there's nobody on line who is visibly mobility-impaired (there are many "invisible" disabilities that would give someone legitimate reason to use the designated stall), it's okay to take the disability-fitted stall if it's the next one up when you hit the front of the line. (If there is someone on line who is visibly mobility-impaired, it's polite to turn to that person and say "you go ahead".) If you and a visibly mobility-impaired person reach the bathroom at the same time, it is never okay to cut in front of them to take the stall (yes, this has happened to me -- on more than one occasion, I've actually been pushed out of the way).
The tricky thing is when you (hypothetical non-mobility-impaired person) reach the bathroom and there are ten open stalls, with nobody waiting, and you have no reason to choose the disability-fitted stall other than personal preference. (I do not include "being of a size that makes use of the non-disability-fitted stall impractical or uncomfortable" as "personal preference"; some public bathroom stalls are designed for someone who is only a size two if she puffs out her belly.) I, personally, get very annoyed when I arrive in a bathroom to find that the only disability-fitted stall is occupied by a non-mobility-impaired person, especially when said person is in the act of changing clothing or rearranging luggage or some other non-excretory activity that tends to take more time than the simple act of eliminating bodily waste. If there is not a valid and compelling reason for you to use the disability-fitted stall, don't. (I repeat: you can have my bathroom stall when you have my disability, too.)
(Don't get me started on the public facilities that include the baby-changing stations in the disability-fitted stall; I recognize that it is not the parents' choice to have the baby-changing station in there, but dude, your shit-smeared child is not a disability.)
Parking in the reserved parking spaces without a placard or license plates, however, is not only always wrong, it will get you ticketed, fined, and possibly towed -- and if I catch you parked there, I will fucking key your car.
Some of these are fairly controversial, and if you ask two people, you'll get three opinions; some of these are just plain fact. I do not pretend to speak for everyone who lives with a disability -- far from it, and I hope that the people reading this who do have differing experiences or thoughts than I do will share those, because the more voices that speak, the more full the picture can be. (Basic rules apply: I may speak forcefully, but it is not an attack.)
1. What is the ADA?
The ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990. Broadly speaking, and summarized in its most single-sentence soundbite fashion, it prohibits discrimination against an individual on basis of ability or disability and seeks to make the Outside World as accessable as possible (without resorting to Harrison Bergeron-type tactics) for people who are less than mainstream-normative abled.
A little more narrowly speaking, it governs:
* employment (a covered entity cannot discriminate in any fashion based on disability, in hiring, training, worker's comp, job advancement, job training, etc; a covered entity is generally anybody engaged in interstate commerce -- and therefore governed by federal rather than state regulations -- and employing more than fifteen workers);
* public services and transportation (any public agency, and all forms of public transportation, cannot discriminate or exclude any qualified individual from using their services);
* public accomodations ("an inn, hotel, motel, or other place of lodging [...] a restaurant, bar, or other establishment serving food or drink; a motion picture house, theater, concert hall, stadium, or other place of exhibition entertainment; an auditorium, convention center, lecture hall, or other place of public gathering; a bakery, grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, shopping center, or other sales or rental establishment; a laundromat, dry-cleaner, bank, barber shop, beauty shop, travel service, shoe repair service, funeral parlor, gas station, office of an accountant or lawyer, pharmacy, insurance office, professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or other service establishment; a terminal, depot, or other station used for specified public transportation; a museum, library, gallery, or other place of public display or collection; a park, zoo, amusement park, or other place of recreation; a nursery, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private school, or other place of education; a day care center, senior citizen center, homeless shelter, food bank, adoption agency, or other social service center establishment; and a gymnasium, health spa, bowling alley, golf course, or other place of exercise or recreation" -- all of these places must follow certain guidelines to ensure a reasonable level of accessability);
* telecommunications (all telecom companies must take steps to accomodate usage by individuals such as those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or those with speech impairments, such as by the use of assistive devices)
Many people have many opinions on the ADA and how it should be enforced. It is, however, Vastly Better than Nothing.
The ADA has a very broad definition of "discrimination"; it includes not only active discrimination (firing someone for a disability, for instance) but passive discrimination (failure to make a public space accessable). The ADA defines discrimination as:
(i) the imposition or application of eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability or any class of individuals with disabilities from fully and equally enjoying any goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations, unless such criteria can be shown to be necessary for the provision of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations being offered;
(ii) a failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities, unless the entity can demonstrate that making such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations;
(iii) a failure to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure that no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated or otherwise treated differently than other individuals because of the absence of auxiliary aids and services, unless the entity can demonstrate that taking such steps would fundamentally alter the nature of the good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation being offered or would result in an undue burden;
(iv) a failure to remove architectural barriers, and communication barriers that are structural in nature, in existing facilities, and transportation barriers in existing vehicles and rail passenger cars used by an establishment for transporting individuals (not including barriers that can only be removed through the retrofitting of vehicles or rail passenger cars by the installation of a hydraulic or other lift), where such removal is readily achievable; and
(v) where an entity can demonstrate that the removal of a barrier under clause (iv) is not readily achievable, a failure to make such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations available through alternative methods if such methods are readily achievable.
The text of the ADA is available online from the US DoJ website. For legislation, it's surprisingly readable.
2. What are the three criteria that are applied to determine if someone qualifies for ADA protection?
I quote:
"The term "disability" means, with respect to an individual: (A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such impairment."
In other words, if you have something that interferes with your ability to interface with the world the same way other people do, if a doctor's ever said that you have something that interferes with your ability etc, or if other people might reasonably think you have something that interferes with your ability etc, you're covered by the ADA.
3. What facilities are not bound by Title III of the ADA, and under what circumstances?
Sing it with me, friends: the answer is, "It's complicated!"
Above are the major categories of "public accomodations" that are covered and bound by the ADA accessability guidelines. (You can, by the way, find a number of really helpful and cogent summaries of those accessability guidelines on the DoJ website -- things like number of designated parking spaces, number of disability-friendly stalls, etc, all the way down to guidelines for doorways and aisles and the pitch of ramps.)
In general, any public or semi-public space built since the ADA was signed into law needs to comply with these guidelines. (Exceptions are made for private clubs and religious organizations.)
Where it gets complicated is with buildings built before 1990. In general, these buildings, and their proprietors, have to make a reasonable effort to remove barriers-to-entry to the extent that it is "readily achievable" -- which is very fuzzily defined; what's readily achievable for a major conglomerate, for instance, might be completely out of the reach of a tiny sole proprietorship.
The building I live in, for instance, is a gated and secured building in the heart of downtown Baltimore. There's an elevator (even though it's slow as shit, but that's neither here nor there), so they're good on that point. Where they had problems was with accessing the building itself; there were two doors, outer and inner, and while the outer door would open with no problem, the inner door required a key -- the lock of which was placed at a very inconvenient height for a person using a wheelchair, not to mention the problem of then maneuvering door + chair to get chair through door while it was still open.
This summer (and without anyone in the current tenancy of the building who uses a wheelchair, which made me rather happy and even more determined that we live in the Best Building Ever) installed automatic doors at the sole ground-level entrance without steps, and a keypad for the inner door; you tap in a sequence on the keypad, which is at chair-height, and then push the automatic door button, and the door opens. It is so insanely useful for when I have me + cane + baggage of some sort, and it removed the last major barrier to accessability of the building.
(It gets even more complicated when we add in the fact that our building is (I think) on the National Register of Historic Places, which has even more exceptions built in; those must comply to the "maximum extent feasible", unless the proposed compliance measures would "threaten to destroy the historic significance of a feature of the building", in which case you get a Get Out Of Accessability Free card.)
In general, businesses lodged in buildings built before 1990 have a number of very small things they can do to increase accessability for people who are in some form mobility-impaired. The exact and painstaking complete ADA guidelines are available, though they're slow going in places.
4. What major category of disability is not covered by the ADA?
Disabilities arising from the current use of illegal drugs. It is allowable for an employer to test for the use of illegal drugs, for instance (since the ADA specifically disallows any medical testing as a condition for employment -- that way employers can still force a pee test).
(The ADA specifically does not cover: "(1) transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders; (2) compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or pyromania; or (3) psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs." Oh, and homosexuality or bisexuality. God forbid we pesky queers get rights!)
5. What are the seven construction requirements for multifamily housing?
I threw this in here because this is actually not specified by the ADA; it's specified by the 1998 Fair Housing Act. (The hodgepodge of legislation surrounding disability is impossible to navigate sometimes; this was meant to be a research question that would show how utterly impossible it sometimes is to get the answers you need, or even to find out that something you need is out there. There are many programs that offer assistance in navigating the horrible tangle and jungle of legislation, but self-advocacy is sometimes the only way you can get anything settled.)
Anyway, those seven things are, and apply to any multifamily building of more than four units first occupied after March of 1991:
1. An accessible building entrance on an accessible route.
2. Accessible common and public use areas.
3. Doors usable by a person in a wheelchair.
4. Accessible route into and through the dwelling unit.
5. Light switches, electrical outlets, thermostats and other environmental controls in accessible locations.
6. Reinforced walls in bathrooms for later installation of grab bars.
7. Usable kitchens and bathrooms.
6. What is section 504? What programs does it most affect?
Section 504 is the predecessor of the ADA in a lot of ways; it is, most properly, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
While Section 504 didn't have the sweeping language or mandate of the ADA, it did cover one very important thing: it said, in part:
No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 705(20) of this title, shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
In other words, it was the first civil-rights statute for people living with disabilities. Large portions of the country suddenly had to think about accessability: airports, libraries, anything that took federal money ....
...and the institution most affected by Section 504: the public school system, up to and including any federally-funded colleges or universities.
Section 504 is still enforced and in-use today; when a child in the public school system is identified as having a qualifying disability, the school must create a "504 Plan" for how they will make accomodations. It was the first legislative acknowledgement of the civil rights of the disabled. The ADA specifically does not override or alter Section 504; its purpose was to extend 504 protection to the private sector, not to supplant it.
7. Who is widely considered the 'father of the disability rights movement'?
Ed Roberts; I refer you to his Wikipedia writeup for a brief overview. Basically, he wanted to go to college, and he was by God not going to let anything stop him. He co-founded the Center for Independent Living and started a long and painstaking process to not only support individuals with disabilities, but to raise awareness of issues surrounding disability and accomodation. We owe a lot of our civil-rights protections to Ed and his cohorts.
8. What is the proper way (according to common consensus) to verbally indicate to someone else that a person has a disability?
Place the person first. Not "disabled person", but "person living with a disability" (although the term "disability" is oft-debated, even). "Person using a wheelchair", not "wheelchair-bound" or "confined to a wheelchair". (A side note: many Deaf people view Deaf as a culture, not as a disability; the term "hearing-impaired" is considered offensive to many.) When in doubt, ask, in good faith and without judgement, and listen to and respect the answer you receive. It's okay to ask; assuming is what'll make you look like an ass, not a genuine desire to avoid giving offense. (rydra_wong adds clarification in comments.)
There are many, many terms that will give offense if used by someone who is not a member of that close-group, which can be used by members of that close-group without offense (it's the whole "reclaiming slurs" theory). I will cheerfully and happily refer to my handicapped-parking placard as the "gimp tag", for instance -- it's just quicker to say, and it amuses me -- and a friend of mine who's very active in the disability-rights movement tries to drum up activity in her BDSM-and-disability community cripswithwhips at every chance she gets. As with any case of insider language, don't use the words unless you are part of that insider group (or have earned a reputation as an ally; sarahq is Allowed, for instance, and I won't take offense, but only because in her case, the use isn't pejorative. When in doubt, don't.)
9. What assistance is it appropriate for an abled person to offer to a disabled person with whom they are not acquainted?
This is a tough one, and it is very hard to answer in such a way that won't have someone somewhere saying "no, that's wrong" (more so than any other of these points, and I repeat that I Am Not The Final Authority, etc).
That having been said: A genuine and earnest desire to help is almost always appropriate -- as long as it is made in the proper way. Grabbing a person's wheelchair, for instance, is pushy and rude and intrusive and will likely get your foot run over; grabbing the elbow of a person who is blind and trying to steer them may result in you losing that hand. Holding a door is always okay (and really, is basic fucking manners whether the person behind you has a disability or not), as long as the person hasn't already started to open it (in which case, they are probably very carefully balancing their weight in order to maneuver themselves + door, and the proper response is to say "Hey, can I get that for you?" and wait for a response.)
The key in offering assistance is to, from a reasonable distance of personal space -- the same one you'd use with any stranger -- say, "Can I help you with something?" If you get a "yes", then, again, ask what you can do, rather than just assuming. (Nine times out of ten, if you're going to get a yes, it'll be a "Yes, thank you! Can you hold this door?" or some other indication of what help might be desired.) If you get a no, then just smile and nod and move on. (I, personally, do sometimes find it very irritating to be asked for the eleventy billionth time if there's something someone can do to help, which is My Issue Not Yours and I try to curb it; do recognize that for many of us, it's a matter of pride to do as much as possible without assistance, and if we've been, say, traveling for fifteen hours and really just want to get home and collapse, often it is much faster if you just do it yourself.)
It is never appropriate to put yourself in someone's personal space, ever, and it is not appropriate to just reach to help without first making your presence known and verifying if your help is wanted or needed. For instance, I can't count the number of times I've started to fall when my hip or knee spontaneously decides it doesn't want to bear weight, and when that happens, people instinctively want to grab me and try to keep me from going down. Don't; I know how to fall without hurting myself, and when people grab, they tend to dislocate my wrist, elbow, or shoulder, and it is far preferable to wind up with a bruised backside than a wrist you have to pop back into place while sitting on the floor. The appropriate assistance to offer in that case is an arm stretched out and braced so that if the person is going to grab it, you can bear their weight; let it be their choice. I have also had people actually reach out to take my backpack, for instance, without asking or even letting me know they're there, and hello, in that case, the dislocated wrist is almost theirs.
One thing that a lot of people using assistive devices get -- a lot -- is the Invisible Syndrome; it's fairly common to joke that the diagnosis of invisibility gets handed down with whatever diagnosis causes the need for the assistive devices. Don't stare at people using wheelchairs, canes, crutches, etc, but don't avert your eyes, either, which is what most people do (they don't want to feel like they're being rude by staring or gawking -- the presence of a wheelchair, cane, or crutches can suddenly make everyone in the room horribly self-conscious). Like you would with anyone, make eye contact, smile, and move on.
(I strongly recommend smiling at more people, in fact. It is vastly undervalued in this world, and a nice smile can make someone's day. I actually once got breakfast free in an airport because the girl at the counter said that I was the only person who'd smiled at her all morning.)
Oh, and this should go without saying: do not pet service animals. Period, end of sentence. Don't talk to them, don't coo at them, don't offer them treats, don't feed them, don't hold out a hand to them, do not do anything that might interfere with their concentration or their activity.
One of the greatest pieces of assistance you can offer to anyone who is mobility-impaired is very, very subtle, and probably won't be noticed in any fashion other than it causing a little pocket of non-hassle: Don't behave as though their presence in any way inconveniences you. Too many people, when stuck behind me in some fashion, do the sigh-and-roll-their-eyes-and-radiate-irritation thing. Yes, I am holding everyone up; I'm very sorry about it. I really, really am. But there's a reason airlines offer pre-board, for instance; it's for people like me who take fucking forever to get down the jetway. If I'm holding you up, I'm very sorry but I'm moving as fast as I can; I am as embarrassed by it as you are inconvenienced by it. Take your time while we're all walking to where we're going; look around you and enjoy the view. Don't sigh and snarl and push around me the second there's enough clearance for you to do so. Just recognize that you're getting a brief, several-minute glimpse into the world I inhabit every minute of my life. You can walk away from it. I can't. And even in this, I'm luckier than some.
I once, when at the airport and preparing to board a much-delayed flight, got up when they announced pre-board would be commencing shortly and limped my long and painful way over to stand on line. A (perfectly mobile jackass of a) guy who was sitting in the first row of seats at the gate actually said to me: "Hey, can I borrow your cane so I can pre-board, too?"
I gaped at him. I actually think I said "....", like a video game character who's been startled. Then I summoned my wits and said, "Sure. As long you take the disability that goes with it."
Don't be that jackass.
10. When is it acceptable for a non-disabled person to use a bathroom stall fitted for individuals with a disability? When is it acceptable for a non-disabled person to use a parking space designated for individuals with a disability?
This is a trick question, and has many, many, many hotly-debated answers. *g*
The answer is, broadly: When you qualify for its use. And yes, I phrased it in such a way as to intimate that the hypothetical "you" wouldn't qualify, but it's a very long and convoluted answer.
Bathroom stalls are tricky (and again, this is my viewpoint; others will disagree). If there's a long line of people waiting for a bathroom stall, and there's nobody on line who is visibly mobility-impaired (there are many "invisible" disabilities that would give someone legitimate reason to use the designated stall), it's okay to take the disability-fitted stall if it's the next one up when you hit the front of the line. (If there is someone on line who is visibly mobility-impaired, it's polite to turn to that person and say "you go ahead".) If you and a visibly mobility-impaired person reach the bathroom at the same time, it is never okay to cut in front of them to take the stall (yes, this has happened to me -- on more than one occasion, I've actually been pushed out of the way).
The tricky thing is when you (hypothetical non-mobility-impaired person) reach the bathroom and there are ten open stalls, with nobody waiting, and you have no reason to choose the disability-fitted stall other than personal preference. (I do not include "being of a size that makes use of the non-disability-fitted stall impractical or uncomfortable" as "personal preference"; some public bathroom stalls are designed for someone who is only a size two if she puffs out her belly.) I, personally, get very annoyed when I arrive in a bathroom to find that the only disability-fitted stall is occupied by a non-mobility-impaired person, especially when said person is in the act of changing clothing or rearranging luggage or some other non-excretory activity that tends to take more time than the simple act of eliminating bodily waste. If there is not a valid and compelling reason for you to use the disability-fitted stall, don't. (I repeat: you can have my bathroom stall when you have my disability, too.)
(Don't get me started on the public facilities that include the baby-changing stations in the disability-fitted stall; I recognize that it is not the parents' choice to have the baby-changing station in there, but dude, your shit-smeared child is not a disability.)
Parking in the reserved parking spaces without a placard or license plates, however, is not only always wrong, it will get you ticketed, fined, and possibly towed -- and if I catch you parked there, I will fucking key your car.