page_title: Americans with Disabilities Act
section_title: Who Is Protected Under the ADA?
hierarchical_section_title: Americans with Disabilities Act / Who Is Protected Under the ADA?
caption_attribution_description: English: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1988, S. 2345 "A Bill to establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of handicap"
context_page_description: The Americans with Disabilities Act is a law that was passed by the United States Congress in 1990. President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA, making it an official United States law, on July 26, 1990. Later, President George W. Bush amended the ADA and signed those changes into law. The changes started on January 1, 2009.
  The ADA is a detailed civil rights law whose goal is to protect people with disabilities from discrimination. Before the ADA, people with disabilities did not have many legal protections. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This law made it illegal to discriminate against people because of their race, religion, gender, national origin, and many other things. But people with disabilities were not included or protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ADA gave the Civil Rights Act's protections - and some others - to people with disabilities.
context_section_description: The ADA protects people with disabilities.  The ADA says that a disability is a physical or mental problem that makes it very difficult to do at least one "major life activity."  Major life activities are things like walking, breathing, learning, reading, communicating, seeing, hearing, thinking, and other very important tasks.
  The ADA does not include a complete list of all possible disabilities, but it does give some examples.  As long as they make it very difficult to do at least one major life activity, examples of disabilities protected under the ADA include:
  Physical disabilities, like paralysis, missing arms or legs, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy
  Medical disabilities, like cancer, HIV infection, epilepsy, and diabetes
  Psychiatric disabilities, like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
  Learning disabilities, like dyslexia
  Developmental disabilities, like Down syndrome, autism, and intellectual disabilities
  Alcohol and drug addiction
  The ADA also counts some other groups of people as "people with disabilities" to protect them from discrimination:
  A person who has had a disability in the past (for example, a person who used to be a drug addict)
  Someone who has a relationship with a person with a disability (for example, someone whose wife or husband has HIV)
  When other people think a person has a disability, even if they are wrong, the person counts as a person with a disability
caption: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1988, S. 2346, Page 1[4]
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