TITLE
III--PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS AND SERVICES OPERATED BY
PRIVATE ENTITIES
Sec. 301. Definitions.
Sec. 302. Prohibition
of discrimination by public accommodations.
Sec. 303. New
construction and alterations in public accommodations
and commercial facilities.
Sec. 304. Prohibition
of discrimination in specified public transportation
services provided by private entities. Sec.
305. Study. Sec.
306. Regulations.
Sec. 307. Exemptions
for private clubs and religious organizations.
Sec. 308. Enforcement.
Sec.
309. Examinations and
courses. Sec.
310. Effective date.
TITLE
IV--TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Sec. 401.
Telecommunications relay services for hearing-impaired
and speech- impaired individuals.
Sec. 402.
Closed-captioning of public service announcements.
TITLE
V--MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
Sec. 501. Construction.
Sec. 502. State
immunity.
Sec. 503. Prohibition
against retaliation and coercion.
Sec. 504. Regulations
by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers
Compliance Board.
Sec. 505.
Attorney's fees.
Sec. 506. Technical
assistance.
Sec. 507. Federal
wilderness areas.
Sec. 508.
Transvestites.
Sec. 509. Coverage of
Congress and the agencies of the legislative branch.
Sec. 510. Illegal use
of drugs.
Sec. 511. Definitions.
Sec. 512. Amendments to
the Rehabilitation Act.
Sec. 513. Alternative
means of dispute resolution.
Sec. 514.
Severability.
SEC. 2.
FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) Findings.--The
Congress finds that--
(1) some 43,000,000
Americans have one or more physical or mental
disabilities, and this number is increasing as the
population as a whole is growing older;
(2) historically,
society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals
with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such
forms of discrimination against individuals with
disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive
social problem;
(3) discrimination
against individuals with disabilities persists in such
critical areas as employment, housing, public
accommodations, education, transportation,
communication, recreation, institutionalization, health
services, voting, and access to public services;
(4) unlike individuals
who have experienced discrimination on the basis of
race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age,
individuals who have experienced discrimination on the
basis of disability have often had no legal recourse to
redress such discrimination;
(5) individuals with
disabilities continually encounter various forms of
discrimination, including outright intentional
exclusion, the discriminatory effects of architectural,
transportation, and communication barriers,
overprotective rules and policies, failure to make
modifications to existing facilities and practices,
exclusionary qualification standards and criteria,
segregation, and relegation to lesser services,
programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other
opportunities;
(6) census data,
national polls, and other studies have documented that
people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior
status in our society, and are severely disadvantaged
socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally;
(7) individuals with
disabilities are a discrete and insular minority who
have been faced with restrictions and limitations,
subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment,
and relegated to a position of political powerlessness
in our society, based on characteristics that are beyond
the control of such individuals and resulting from
stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the
individual ability of such individuals to participate
in, and contribute to, society;
(8) the Nation's proper
goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to
assure equality of opportunity, full participation,
independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for
such individuals; and
(9) the continuing
existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and
prejudice denies people with disabilities the
opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue
those opportunities for which our free society is
justifiably famous, and costs the United States billions
of dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting from
dependency and nonproductivity.
