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发表于 2003-12-25 03:24
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) Findings.--The Congress finds that--
(1) some 43,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or mental
disabilities, and this number is increasing as the population as a whole
is growing older;
(2) historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate
individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms
of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a
serious and pervasive social problem;
(3) discrimination against individuals with disabilities persists in
such critical areas as employment, housing, public accommodations,
education, transportation, communication, recreation,
institutionalization, health services, voting, and access to public
services;
(4) unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis
of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, individuals who
have experienced discrimination on the basis of disability have often had
no legal recourse to redress such discrimination;
(5) individuals with disabilities continually encounter various forms
of discrimination, including outright intentional exclusion, the
discriminatory effects of architectural, transportation, and
communication barriers, overprotective rules and policies, failure to
make modifications to existing facilities and practices, exclusionary
qualification standards and criteria, segregation, and relegation to
lesser services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other
opportunities;
(6) census data, national polls, and other studies have documented that
people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior status in our
society, and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally,
economically, and educationally;
(7) individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular minority
who have been faced with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a
history of purposeful unequal treatment, and relegated to a position of
political powerlessness in our society, based on characteristics that are
beyond the control of such individuals and resulting from stereotypic
assumptions not truly indicative of the individual ability of such
individuals to participate in, and contribute to, society;
(8) the Nation's proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities
are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent
living, and economic self-sufficiency for such individuals; and
(9) the continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination
and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete
on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free
society is justifiably famous, and costs the United States billions of
dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting from dependency and
nonproductivity.
(b) Purpose.--It is the purpose of this Act--
(1) to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the
elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities;
(2) to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards
addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities;
(3) to ensure that the Federal Government plays a central role in
enforcing the standards established in this Act on behalf of individuals
with disabilities; and
(4) to invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including the power
to enforce the fourteenth amendment and to regulate commerce, in order to
address the major areas of discrimination faced day-to-day by people with
disabilities.
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