Ample Accommodations

September 2004

The Americans with Disabilities Act provided for one of the best concepts in equality law - the idea of reasonable accommodations. Most laws provide for an outcome. If you do certain behaviors, you are compliant with the law and if you do other certain behaviors, you are in violation of the law.

Reasonable accommodations is a process not an outcome. The ADA provide a process by which places of business, employers, schools and other organizations negotiate changes in policy, spatial design and ergonomics in order to include people who otherwise would not be able to participate in the exchange or transaction. The key to the process is the word "reasonable." Businesses and organizations are not required to just do anything demanded of them by a disabled person. Rather, they must demonstrate that they have made reasonable effort. So there will be some cost encountered, but the business or organization will not be overburdened with costs in order to accommodate. They must, however, make an effort.

So often people are placed in rigid categories and their rights or privileges are determined on the basis of membership in those categories. The great thing about the ADA is that it concentrates on functionality rather than categorization or diagnoses. So, the new chair is provided for employees who have difficulty sitting for long periods of time with no consideration as to why they have that difficulty. Persons with arthritis, an injured back, spina bifida or cancer might all receive the same chair. The chair is functional and is provided to solve a specific problem, not on the basis of a specific diagnosis.

Having sung the praises of the ADA, there is one drawback. It still divides the world into two categories: disabled and abled. The Ample Traveler^© believes that reasonable accommodation make sense for all people.

It has been said that variety is the spice of life. Accommodating variety happens all the time without notice in our culture. We believe that those instances where reasonable accommodation does not occur is done so out of ignorance and habit. So we hope to encourage an expansion of the mind and space to include everyone. What better industry than the hospitality industry to lead the way. Isn't travel all about accommodations?

Think of what a wonderful world it would be if everyone reasonably accommodated everyone else. Why, there might just be room for everyone.

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