Unanimous SCOTUS ruling: Anti-discrimination laws (such as the ADA) do not apply to church employees with religious duties. Full ruling: PDF, HTML
posted by Evilspork on Jan 13, 2012 - 107 comments

What do you mean the building codes require us to install handicapped-accessible crosswalk? Fine. Here's your fucking crosswalk. [more inside]
posted by schmod on Nov 11, 2011 - 118 comments

Ada Day appreciates and commemorates women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics with events all over the globe. A few links to start the celebration: Ada Lovelace, The Origin. Women@NASA (previously). Ladies Learning Code. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper explaining nanoseconds to David Letterman. AstronomyCast with Dr. Pamela Gay. Hedy Lamarr and other female inventors.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul on Oct 6, 2011 - 22 comments

20 years ago, an amazingly comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation was passed in the United States. The law addresses several key pieces of rights and standards for people with disabilities, and laid the groundwork for inclusion as a federal protected class. [more inside]
posted by TomMelee on Jan 4, 2011 - 53 comments

The owner of Segway, James Heselden, has died, after accidentally driving his Segway over a cliff. This, only two months after the Department of Justice, which implements the American Disabilities Act, addressed Segway as a mobility device for disabled persons.
posted by roomthreeseventeen on Sep 27, 2010 - 118 comments

Greece in 1823 and 1824; being a series of letters and other documents on the Greek revolution — the life of Mustapha Ali: [more inside]
posted by tellurian on Feb 14, 2010 - 17 comments

The New York Times called it "a great work of art" (NYT login required). Martin Amis called it "a waterlogged corpse at the stage of maximal bloat". You can judge for yourself by reading an annotated, hyperlinked edition. This timeline and this geography might help. (For extra credit, here are texts mentioned in the story.)
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 5, 2010 - 29 comments

Working on ADA compliance? Wondering how readers for the blind parse your webpages? Feed them into WebAnywhere, an online screen reader. Unlike other solutions, it is not a browser plugin and is free.
posted by Foam Pants on Nov 10, 2008 - 7 comments

A creepy info minute from the ADA concerning “mice teeth in a dish.” Please don’t watch “mice teeth in a dish” if you think there’s some kind of dentist/alien connection. You won’t like it. Try “the barbaric history of the toothbrush” instead.
posted by BostonJake on May 5, 2007 - 5 comments

The 2005 Annual Survey on Choice of Law in American Courts. [pdf] The survey on Choice of Law looks at the recent controversial Supreme Court ruling dealing with conflict of laws. See Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line, Ltd., 125 S.Ct. 2169 (2005). (Kennedy, J., writing the opinion of the Court) (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (Thomas, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). At issue in Spector was whether disability statutes applied to ships that depart from Texas and travel through domestic waters but fly under the flag of the Bahamas. Other 2005 Supreme Court conflict of laws cases included Small v. United States and Pasquantino v. United States.
posted by dios on Feb 15, 2006 - 12 comments

Sometimes, the Americans with Disabilities Act makes us do funny things. Faced with mental patients who speak nothing but Klingon, an Oregon county department for human services scours the county/state/country/world/universe for Klingon-English interpreters.
posted by TheFarSeid on May 11, 2003 - 16 comments

Supreme Court gives golfer Casey Martin the keys to the cart. Can a private organization be forced to allow something it says is against the spirit of the rules of it's competitions? Will we see Casey play anytime soon? Who else will benefit from this ruling in golf and other sports?
posted by msacheson on May 29, 2001 - 65 comments