Trying to adhere to the ADA: understanding “mental disability” in hiring personnel

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has done a great deal to address the problem of discrimination against individuals with disability. In fact it is considered to be the most influencing civil‐rights legislation to come down in the last 25 years. In the Fiscal Year 2002, the EEOC received 15,964 charges of disability discrimination. The EEOC resolved 18,804 disability discrimination charges in FY 2002 and recovered $50.0 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals. While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has had a positive effect since it was enacted in 1992: in 2000, 22 per cent of employed people with disabilities report encountering job discrimination as opposed to 36 per cent in 1996. This article examines what is Mental Disability and discusses what questions regarding mental disability can be asked when managers are hiring salespeople.