Amendments to the Americans With Disabilities Act, usually referred to as the ADA, were signed into law on September 25 by President Bush. These amendments restored protections for disabled Americans that the courts over the last 15 years have read out of the law. The amendments include the following:
- directions that the courts construe and apply the law to provide the greatest protections
- directions that the courts determine whether a person is disabled and protected by the law based on their condition without consideration for how medicine or other aids may mitigate the condition
- clarifies that persons wrongly "regarded as" disabled are protected regardless of the scope of their actual disability
- empowers the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue controlling regulations
