Expanding Your Market: Building a Diverse Customer Base

The Americans with Disabilities Act Comprehensive Civil Rights Legislation

“It took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent statutes to make plain this nation’s opposition to racism, sexism and discrimination based on a person’s age. It will take the Americans with Disabilities Act to set the record straight as to where we stand on discrimination based on disability.”

Senator Lowell Weicker, Jr.

Joint Congressional
Hearing on the ADA
September 27, 1988

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H.W. Bush. While some businesses may think of the ADA as merely a building code or an employment law, the ADA is, in fact, one of America’s most comprehensive pieces of civil rights legislation. The ADA bases much of its structure and enforcement remedies and procedures on the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Nondiscrimination in Public Accommodations

Title III of the ADA extends to people with disabilities the same protections that Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to people discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. Both laws guarantee the right to “…full enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations of any place of public accommodation...” The ADA not only covers the same public accommodations as the Civil Rights Act, such as hotels, restaurants, theaters, stadiums, and gas stations, but also an expanded range of others, including retail stores, private schools, and doctors’ offices.

Rights in Everyday Life

In everyday commerce, then, the ADA and the 1964 Civil Rights Act enable Americans to participate without discrimination in typical daily activities that include going to the movies, traveling and staying in hotels, eating out in restaurants, and attending museums, concerts, and sporting events.