AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT: LAW, POLICY, AND PRACTICE (3) (CON 275)

Professors Pamela Cohen, Andrea Risoli

Explores legal, policy, and practical implications of the Americans with Disabilities Act as it applies to people with both physical and mental disabilities (with a significant focus on issues involving mental disability). The course will cover the wide range of disability-based discrimination that the ADA addresses, including questions of discrimination, access to services, access to the judicial system, institutional rights, and community rights. Students will study the contextualization of the ADA and mental disability law jurisprudence; definitions of "disability"; issues involving employment discrimination; discrimination in public accommodations and professional licensing; housing discrimination; discrimination in public services; institutional segregation as discrimination; the ADA & the criminal justice system; and sovereign immunity & access to courts.
This is a predominately on-line course, requiring students to participate in a weekly chat room, discussion board, and two, day-long weekend live seminars at New York Law School. The grade is based on chat room, discussion board and live seminar participation, a midterm paper, and a take-home final.

For master’s degree and certificate students, Survey of Mental Disability Law is a pre-requisite or co-requisite.