ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is a landmark US civil rights law from 1990 that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, public services, and public accommodations. Its employment provisions (Title I) apply to employers with 15 or more employees and require providing reasonable accommodation — adjustments such as modified schedules, assistive technology, accessible workspaces, or remote work — to qualified individuals with disabilities, unless doing so would impose undue hardship on the business. The law defines disability broadly (a physical or mental impairment substantially limiting a major life activity), and the required response to an accommodation request is the 'interactive process': a documented, good-faith dialogue between employer and employee to find a workable solution, whose absence is itself a common basis for EEOC charges. For HR and L&D, the ADA has two distinct operational faces. First, compliance training: managers must recognize accommodation requests (which need no magic words), avoid prohibited medical inquiries, and follow the interactive process — a standard US compliance module delivered through the LMS. Second, accessibility of training itself: digital learning must be usable by employees with disabilities, which in practice means WCAG-conformant content and platforms — captions, screen-reader compatibility, keyboard navigation — making accessibility a genuine LMS selection criterion, not a courtesy.