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On September 20, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc. held that an employee requesting a multi-month leave of absence is not a "qualified individual" employee under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and that such leave is therefore not a reasonable accommodation as defined by the ADA. In so doing, the court split from its sister circuits and made a bright-line rule that categorically excludes certain employees with disabilities from protection under the ADA. This Comment argues that the Seventh Circuit should have left more room for case by case inquiries into the specific circumstances of leave of absence requests to align with the underlying purposes of the ADA: providing individualized accommodations to employees with disabilities to ensure they have access to equal employment opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of private lawsuits allege that businesses are violating Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act because their websites are inaccessible to disabled individuals. Courts remain divided, however, on the extent to which commercial websites are covered under Title III. Additionally, the Department of Justice has not promulgated commercial web accessibility regulations-- adding further uncertainty to the private enforcement regime. This Note argues that Title III broadly covers commercial websites, but that private enforcement is not positioned to spur lasting, broad-based Title III compliance. It proposes that large-scale litigation, state attorney general action, and state laws should be used to usher in commercial web accessibility according to globally accepted standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges establishing marriage equality for same-sex couples marks a major shift in recognizing gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as a central part of the fabric of American society. Obergefell also marks the passing of the torch from "LGB" to "T"; the next civil rights frontier belongs to transgender people, for whom key barriers still remain. In January 2015, a transgender woman filed an equal protection challenge to a provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), which explicitly excludes several medical conditions closely associated with transgender people. In support of this challenge, lawyers for the plaintiff (and co-authors of this Article) advance a novel argument: transgender people are a "suspect" or "quasi-suspect" class entitled to heightened scrutiny. The authors further argue that the ADA's transgender exclusions are unconstitutional no matter what level of scrutiny applies because moral animus against transgender people is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking. This equal protection challenge paves the way for the extension of disability rights protection to transgender people under the Rehabilitation Act, Fair Housing Act, and state anti-disability discrimination laws that mirror the ADA. It also marks a new break for equality law--reaching far beyond disability rights to all laws that single out transgender people for disparate treatment. This challenge also informs the broader theoretical debate over the relationship between identity and impairment, and diagnosis and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]