http://goo.gl/rzRK1C
Disparate impact discrimination, which can occur without ill intent on the part of the person discriminating, is not unheard of in non-disability civil rights law – the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long recognized it and the Supreme Court ruled on a case earlier this year affirming the Fair Housing Act covered this kind of discrimination.
Social justice theorists often refer to disparate impact as institutional discrimination. To make things less clunky, let’s refer to disparate treatment as malicious discrimination and disparate impact as institutional discrimination.
Institutional discrimination is written into the Americans with Disabilities Act to a much greater degree than in other civil rights statutes, which generally require some form of class action litigation or statistical analysis showing widespread negative results before a disparate impact claim can be made. The ADA, in contrast, allows for an individual redress of institutional discrimination – the right to demand a reasonable accommodation from an employer, program or place of public accommodation.