Purpose
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA) are federal laws that require employers with 15 or more employees to not discriminate against applicants and individuals with disabilities and, when needed, to provide reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees who are qualified for a job, with or without reasonable accommodations, so that they may perform the essential job duties of the position. Although the Wharton Club of Chicago (“WCC”) does not have any employees, rather only uncompensated volunteers, the club does respect those with disabilities and has adapted a policy to demonstrate solidarity.
It is the policy of the WCC to comply with all federal and state laws concerning the employment, volunteering or member participation of individuals with disabilities and to act in accordance with regulations and guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Furthermore, it is the WCC policy not to discriminate against qualified individuals with disabilities in regard to application procedures, elections, advancement, discharge, compensation, training or other terms, conditions and privileges of volunteering for the WCC.
Procedures
When an applicant with a disability requests accommodation and can be reasonably accommodated without creating undue hardship or causing a direct threat to venue safety, the member or volunteer will be given the same consideration for board participation as any other applicant. Applicants who pose a direct threat to the health, safety and well-being of themselves or others in the workplace when the threat cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation will not be accepted.
WCC will reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with a disability so that they can perform the essential functions of a role unless doing so causes a direct threat to these individuals or others in the WCC environment and the threat cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation or if the accommodation creates an undue hardship to WCC. Contact the WCC president with any questions or requests for accommodation.
All members and volunteers are required to comply with the safety standards for all event & meeting venues. Current members and volunteers who pose a direct threat to the health or safety of themselves or other individuals in those venues will be disallowed from participating at those venues until an organizational decision has been made in regard to the member or volunteer’s immediate situation.
Individuals who are currently using illegal drugs are excluded from coverage under the WCC ADA policy.
The WCC Board of Directors is responsible for implementing this policy, including the resolution of reasonable accommodation, safety/direct threat and undue hardship issues.
Terms Used in This Policy
As used in this ADA policy, the following terms have the indicated meaning:
- Disability: A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of the individual, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having such an impairment.
- Major life activities: Term includes caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating and working.
- Substantially limiting: In accordance with the ADAAA final regulations, the determination of whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity requires an individualized assessment, and an impairment that is episodic or in remission may also meet the definition of disability if it would substantially limit a major life activity when active. Some examples of these types of impairments may include epilepsy, hypertension, asthma, diabetes, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. An impairment, such as cancer that is in remission but that may possibly return in a substantially limiting form, is also considered a disability under the final ADAAA regulations.
- Direct threat: A significant risk to the health, safety or well-being of individuals with disabilities or others when this risk cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation.
- Qualified individual: An individual who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the volunteer position that such individual holds or desires.
- Reasonable accommodation: Includes any changes to the work environment and may include making existing facilities readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, telecommuting, reassignment to a vacant position, acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, appropriate adjustment or modifications of examinations, training materials or policies, the provision of qualified readers or interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
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Undue hardship: An action requiring significant difficulty or expense by the WCC. In determining whether an accommodation would impose an undue hardship on a covered entity, factors to be considered include:
- The ownership of the facility, noting that the WCC conducts most of its events at third party venues not controlled by the WCC.
- The nature and cost of the accommodation.
- The overall financial resources of the facility or facilities involved in the provision of the reasonable accommodation, the number of persons employed at such facility, the effect on expenses and resources, or the impact of such accommodation on the operation of the facility.
- The overall financial resources of the WCC; the size, number, type and location of facilities.
- The type of operations of the WCC, including the composition, structure and functions of the volunteer-force; administrative or fiscal relationship of the particular facility involved in making the accommodation to the WCC.
- Essential functions of the role: Term refers to those job activities that are determined by the organization to be essential or core to performing the role; these functions cannot be modified.
The examples provided in the above terms are not meant to be all-inclusive and should not be construed as such. They are not the only conditions that are considered to be disabilities, impairments or reasonable accommodations covered by the ADA/ADAAA policy.