Vermont Disability Discrimination Laws

Employers must provide reasonable accommodations for employees and applicants with disabilities, unless these accommodations would impose undue hardship on employers. Reasonable accommodations are changes and modifications that can be made to a job’s structure or how a job is performed. They can include:

• making facilities used by employees, including common areas such as hallways, restrooms, cafeterias, and lounges, readily accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities;
• job restructuring and part-time or modified work schedules; and
• acquiring or modifying equipment or devices.

Undue hardship is determined based on factors such as the cost of reasonable accommodations and employers’ overall workforce size, number and type of facilities, and budget.

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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.