Employment Law Comparisons
ADA -- Americans with Disabilities Act
FEHA -- Fair Employment & Housing Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a comprehensive anti-discrimination law for person with disabilities and extends to virtually all sectors of society and every aspect of daily living – work, leisure, travel, communications and more. It provides basic civil rights protection for persons with disabilities comparable to those in force for women and ethnic minorities for the past 25 years.
Although the ADA provides broad protection for persons with disabilities, in situations where greater protection is provided by local state law, the local law takes precedent over the ADA. Such is the case in California:
In 1992, the California Legislature incorporated the broader protection offered by some aspects of the ADA into the FEHA via AB 1077. This did not, however, limit the FEHA from providing more generous opportunities to the disabled than the ADA (except in the areas excluded as not being disabilities by section 511 of the ADA regarding homosexuality, bisexuality, pyromania, etc.) AB 2222, signed by governor Davis in September, 2000, brings FEHA language more in line with the ADA language, incorporating “a record or history of a disability” as part of the FEHA disability definition and adds even more liberal protection of individuals with disabilities compared with the ADA than the FEHA did before.
Following is a comparison of the ADA and FEHA in terms of protection provided for persons with disabilities. This information was provided by the California Department of Rehabilitation ADA Technical Assistance Section.
