Associational Discrimination: The ADA is More Powerful Than You Thought

The Americans With Disabilities Act or ADA is a powerful law that protects workers with disabilities. But it does even more than that. It even protects otherwise healthy, non-disabled workers that have some relationship to others who have disabilities.

The ADA, Generally

The ADA generally says that if you have a disability, your employer must not discriminate against you in any way or allow you to be discriminated against. The ADA also requires that your employer make reasonable accommodations at work to allow you to do your job even with your disabilities.

Associational Discrimination

Many employers know what their obligations are when the employee him or herself is disabled under the ADA. But many employers don’t know that it is also illegal to discriminate against an employee that has a relationship with an ADA-disabled person.

It’s called associational discrimination and it happens more often than you may think.

Imagine that an employer doesn’t hire someone with a sick child for fear that the employee may be distracted at work, or have to take days off of work to take the child to the doctor.

Or imagine the employer doesn’t have an employee participate in job training for fear the employee may not stay at work because the employee has a disabled relative, so why train an employee who may leave at any time to care for that disabled relative?

In some cases, an employer may discriminate because the employer is concerned that the employee may transmit a disease because of the employee’s contact with an ADA disabled person at home.

This is all illegal, and the otherwise healthy employee is, to some extent, protected by the ADA.

What is a Relationship?

The employee must have some relationship with the disabled person but the definition of relationship is broad. The relationship doesn’t have to be family, or by blood. Even a boyfriend girlfriend or roommate relationship may be enough to qualify for ADA protections.

Limited Protections

But the ADA protection under associational discrimination, isn’t as broad as it is, when it is protecting an actually disabled employee.

With associational discrimination, the employer only needs to avoid discriminating against the employee for the employee’s relationship with a disabled person.

So, the employer cannot refuse to hire, refuse to promote, or punish in any way, the non-disabled employee. The employer could not give that employee less desirable job positions, or refuse to give the employee valuable on the job training because of the association with the disabled person.

But the employer does not have to provide the non-disabled employee accommodations. So, for example, the employer doesn’t have any obligation to modify job duties or work schedules, or provide additional time off work, to allow the non disabled employee to care for the disabled person.

Other laws, however, may protect employees in this situation, such as family medical leave laws. But not the ADA, when it comes to accommodations.

Contact the San Jose employment attorneys at the Costanzo Law Firm today if you are being discriminated against at work, because of a disability.

Sources:

eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/questions-answers-association-provision-ada

adata.org/faq/what-discrimination-based-relationship-or-association-under-ada