Specific provisions for the state of Oklahoma.
Employers must make reasonable accommodations to employees’ and applicants’ known disabilities. Examples of reasonable accommodations include making worksites usable by employees with disabilities, modifying equipment or tools so that they can be used by employees with disabilities, restructuring jobs, creating part-time or modified work schedules and reassigning employees to vacant positions. When interviewing applicants with disabilities, employers might have to provide interpreters if applicants are hearing impaired or conduct interviews in rooms accessible to applicants using wheelchairs. When conducting employment tests, employers might have to offer tests in Braille to employees and applicants who are blind or allow use of readers.
Employers aren’t required to make any accommodation that would create undue hardship, for example, the accommodation is unduly expensive or requires extensive physical or structural modifications to the workplace or would fundamentally change business operations. If a particular accommodation would result in undue hardship, however, employers still have to provide any alternative accommodation that is available and wouldn’t create undue hardship.
Under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers, including state and local governments, with 15 or more employees, are prohibited from discriminating against people with disabilities. Title I protects qualified individuals with disabilities in several areas, including job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation and job training. It is also unlawful to retaliate against someone for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on disability, or for filing an ADA discrimination charge. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) shares enforcement authority for Title I of the ADA with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has primary responsibility for enforcing the employment provisions of the law. (Note: Federal employees and job applicants are covered by Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 instead of the ADA.
