Jessica E. Hurley

Hiring discrimination against people with disabilities under the ADA: characteristics of charging parties.

Introduction This article describes findings from a causal comparative study of the characteristics of Charging Parties who filed allegations of Hiring discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) between 1992 and 2005. Methods Charging Party Characteristics derived from 19,527 closed Hiring allegations are compared and contrasted to 259,680 closed allegations aggregated from six other prevalent forms of discrimination including Discharge and Constructive Discharge, Reasonable Accommodation, Disability Harassment and Intimidation, and Terms and Conditions of Employment. Tests of Proportion distributed as chi-square are used to form comparisons along a variety of factors including age, gender, impairment, and ethnicity. Results Most allegations of ADA job discrimination fall into the realm of job retention and career advancement as opposed to job acquisition. Hiring allegations, however, tend to be filed by Charging Parties who are disproportionately male, younger or older applicants, white, and coping with physical or sensory disabilities. Conclusion Prevailing theories about stigma suggest that negative attitudes are more prevalent toward persons with behavioral disabilities. However, this study provides clear evidence that one behavioral manifestation of negative attitudes, Hiring discrimination, is more often directed at persons with physical or sensory impairments. More outreach regarding ADA rights appears indicated for individuals who share the aforementioned characteristics.

Hiring Discrimination Against People with Disabilities Under the ADA: Characteristics of Employers

Introduction This article describes findings from a causal comparative study of the characteristics of employers against whom allegations of hiring discrimination were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) between 1992 and 2005. Methods Employer characteristics derived from 19,527 closed Hiring allegations are compared and contrasted to 259,680 closed allegations aggregated from six other prevalent forms of discrimination including Discharge and Constructive Discharge, Reasonable Accommodation, Disability Harassment and Intimidation, and Terms and Conditions of Employment. Tests of Proportion distributed as chi-square are used to form comparisons along a variety of factors including industry classification, size of workforce, and location. Results As compared to non-hiring allegations, hiring allegations were more likely to be filed against employers with 15–100 employees, in the West U.S. Census track region, or in industries including educational services; public administration; transportation and warehousing; professional, scientific, and technical services; agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; and construction. Conclusion More outreach regarding ADA responsibilities appears indicated for those employers who share the aforementioned characteristics.

Drivers of Hiring Discrimination for Individuals with Disabilities

Introduction Hiring discrimination in the workplace is defined as failure or refusal by an employer to engage a qualified applicant as an employee due to the existence or consequence of disability. The specific intent of this study is to determine what differentiates an allegation (perception of discrimination) from an actual discriminatory event (Merit Resolution). Methods Researchers used a data-mining approach, the Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID), to examine 19,527 resolved allegations of hiring discrimination in order to differentiate between Merit Resolution and Non-Merit Resolution outcomes. Results CHAID analysis confirmed that hiring discrimination is a complex matter with a variety of influences. Primary among these is the age of the Charging Party, with younger applicants (16–34) prevailing in their allegations 34% of the time. Within this subgroup, the sequence of predictor variables involves the Charging Party’s impairment, followed by the Employer’s industry classification. Behavioral disabilities, even among the young, result in generally lower Merit Resolution rates in hiring discrimination. Conclusions Providers of training and technical assistance regarding hiring and disability may be able to adjust their services accordingly on the basis of findings such as these.

Integrating cultural competency in rehabilitation curricula in the new millennium: Keeping it simple

Pre-service rehabilitation education programmes in the United States still prepare future professionals in cultural competency primarily through one required course in multicultural counselling, though there is an expectation that such content will be woven into all graduate rehabilitation coursework. These authors believe that there is still a need in these dawning years of the 21st century to offer more guidance to rehabilitation educators on how to integrate cultural competency into each course at the graduate level. This discussion reviews the literature to date on cultural competency within rehabilitation education in the United States, then concludes by proposing a four-strategy framework for use by rehabilitation educators that is simple, comprehensive, multi-dimensional (i.e., it addresses faculty awareness, student coursework, the student clinical experience and lifelong learning for the student after exiting the pre-service educational programme), and that offers clear guiding parameters without being overly prescriptive.

A Comparison of EEOC Closures Involving Hiring Versus Other Prevalent Discrimination Issues Under the Americans with Disabilities Act

Introduction This article describes findings from a causal comparative study of the Merit Resolution rate for allegations of Hiring discrimination that were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) between 1992 and 2005. An allegation is the Charging Party’s perception of discrimination, but a Merit Resolution is one in which the EEOC has determined that a discriminatory event did indeed occur. A Non-Merit Resolution is an allegation that is closed due to a technicality or lacks sufficient evidence to conclude that discrimination occurred. Merit favors the Charging Party; Non-Merit favors the Employer. Methods The Merit Resolution rate of 19,527 closed Hiring allegations is compared and contrasted to that of 259,680 allegations aggregated from six other prevalent forms of discrimination including Discharge and Constructive Discharge, Reasonable Accommodation, Disability Harassment and Intimidation, and Terms and Conditions of Employment. Tests of Proportion distributed as chi-square are used to form comparisons along a variety of subcategories of Merit and Non-Merit outcomes. Results The overall Merit Resolution rate for Hiring is 26% compared to Non-Hiring at 20.6%. Employers are less likely to settle claims of hiring discrimination without mediation, and less likely to accept the remedies recommended by the EEOC when hiring discrimination has been determined. Conclusion Hiring is not an unusual discrimination issue in that the overwhelming majority of allegations are still closed in favor of the Employer. However, it is counterintuitive that Hiring has a higher merit resolution rate than other prevalent issues. This finding contradicts the assumption that hiring is an “invisible process.” Considering that the EEOC makes merit determinations at a competitive rate, it is clear that hiring is sufficiently transparent.

A Comparison of Allegations and Resolutions Involving Issues of Discharge Versus Constructive Discharge: Implications for Diversity Management

Patterns in discrimination allegations and resolutions in discharge (n = 130,816) and constructive discharge (n = 9,765) were examined in data provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Spanning the years from 1992 to 2008, these data indicated that the most prevalent disabling conditions in discharge and constructive discharge allegations were back injuries, nonparalytic/orthopedic conditions, depression, and diabetes. Characteristics of employees and employers distinguished between the two allegation types; for example, there were differences in the gender and racial/ethnic status of employees and in the location and industry of the employers. The rate of merit decisions, namely, EEOC decisions that discrimination actually occurred, was 20% for discharge and constructive discharge, indicating that employers, for the most part, rendered legitimate decisions. Findings indicate that people with more highly stigmatized disabilities were more likely to allege discrimination regarding constructive discharge, suggesting that adverse treatment may have caused them to exit employment. Implications for human resource development and management are discussed.

Discrimination in Hiring Under the Americans with Disabilities Act: An Overview of the National EEOC ADA Research Project

This article is intended to provide an overview of the National EEOC ADA Research Project. It also previews four subsequent articles pertaining to the issue of hiring discrimination involving Americans with disabilities.

Merit Determinants of ADA Title I Allegations Involving Discharge: Implications for Human Resources Management and Development

Nonparametric tests of proportion were performed comparing discharge resolutions (the most prevalent discrimination issue filed with the EEOC between 1992 and 2008) with resolutions of a composite group of the next most prevalent discrimination issues (reasonable accommodation, terms and condition of employment, harassment and intimidation, and hiring). Results indicated that when an employee files an allegation of discharge discrimination, the resolution status of that allegation is more likely to be without Merit. Two exhaustive chi-square automatic interaction detector (CHAID) analyses were performed, with the first including 44 impairment types (e.g., back, traumatic brain injury, learning disability) and the second including those 44 impairment types combined into six categories (e.g., physical, neurological, sensory, and behavioral impairments). Results of the first exhaustive CHAID proved quite unwieldy but indicated that behavioral disabilities have relatively low merit resolution rates when it comes to discharge allegations (i.e., there is less actual discharge discrimination occurring for persons with behavioral disabilities). One additional finding was that filing discharge discrimination under one of the alternate prongs of the ADA’s definition of disability (i.e., “regarded as a person with a disability,” “record of a disability,” or “association with a person with a disability”) was the main driver of merit resolution activity. Results from a second exhaustive CHAID indicated that in the case of discharge merit resolution activity, employer industry drives the alternate prongs, employee race drives physical impairments, and employer industry drives behavioral impairments. Implications for human resources management and development research and practice are addressed.