Court decision affects disabled
 By
Laura Pelner
Special Projects Editor
Though some disability advocate groups may see
a recent Supreme Court ruling as narrowing disability law, it shouldn't
have a major impact on life at Purdue.
The Supreme Court ruled Jan. 8 against a former
Toyota assembly line worker who had carpal tunnel syndrome because of
her work. The court said the disability was not a major life impairment
because the woman could do many other tasks without pain.
The case is the first in a series the Supreme Court
is deciding that sets boundaries on the Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990.
"In essence, the Supreme Court is still saying
that in order to determine if a person is a qualified individual with
a disability, determination still needs to be made on a case-by-case
basis," said Gina Kerr, assistant director for compliance and disability
services.
Kerr said that when Congress established the disabilities
act, it intended for cases to be evaluated individually. She said it's
how Purdue and most places apply the law so the ruling shouldn't have
a big effect on local policy.
The court's opinion emphasizes one main point —
the impairment a person is seeking disability compensation for must
affect major life activity.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the court's unanimous
opinion, which says that when the disability act was created in 1990,
Congress reported about 43 million Americans had one or more physical
or mental disabilities.
"If Congress intended for everyone with a physical
impairment that precluded the performance of some isolated, unimportant
or particularly difficult manual task to qualify as disabled, the number
of disabled Americans would surely have been much higher," O'Connor
wrote in the opinion.
Pat Russell, Purdue's Americans with Disabilities
Act consultant, said the ruling could be considered a "small victory"
for employers or management groups, but she said she wasn't surprised
by the decision.
Russell said it limits an individual only if their
major life activity is performing manual tasks, so that person would
have to perform such tasks at work and in his or her personal life.
"If someone has carpal tunnel syndrome but is able
to do household chores, brush her hair or do other manual tasks that
are important to people's daily lives, she's not substantially limited,"
Russell said.
As part of her job, Russell meets with Purdue employees
who have disabilities to make sure their needs are being met. She said
she deals only with employees who request certain accommodations to
complete their jobs and in many instances medical documentation of the
disability is required.
Allyson Matt, a junior in the School of Liberal
Arts and president of Purdue's Advocates for Disability Issues, said
clear distinctions need to be made between people who really need help
and those who may be trying to take advantage of the system. She said
it's important to make those distinctions but difficult to draw the
line.
"There definitely are disabilities that aren't
major things that still affect how people do their jobs and the way
they function in life," Matt said. "I don't think you can ignore them."
For Matt, who's blind, it's disappointing that
people who work with the disabled and are passionate about their jobs
have to turn people away because they don't quite meet the criteria
under the law.
To remedy the problem, Matt said education is necessary.
"I think education goes a long way," she said.
"(It's important) to educate people so maybe someone who might have
previously taken advantage of the law and said 'I need this and this
and this' will realize doing that is going to truly harm people who
need those services."
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