Employment Rights for People with Bipolar Disorder
“Society’s accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as the…limitations that flow from actual impairment.”
—US Supreme Court
Attorney Katharine Gordon has provided some information on legal rights under the ADA.
When we think of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we might think of physical modifications to buildings, expensive lawyers, and complicated trials. But this law also gives people with bipolar ways to get fair treatment in the workplace. By learning a bit about your employment rights under this law, you can focus on excelling in your chosen career, rather than being sidetracked by ignorance, stereotypes, and stigma.
Here are a few things that you may not know about bipolar disorder and the ADA:
It is now clear that people with bipolar disorder are protected under the ADA in employment. Prior to 2008, there was often a battle of the experts to prove that a person with bipolar disorder had a severe enough impairment to be protected. This discouraged many from asking for their rights to be respected under this law in the first place. Unfortunately, companies would fire people for having bipolar disorder and then, in next breath, argue that bipolar wasn’t a real disability therefore it was legal to fire people for reasons related to their bipolar disorder.
This changed with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008, which made it easier to establish disability. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing this law, has made it clear in official regulations that bipolar should generally be covered as a disability for the purposes of protection in employment: “It should easily be concluded that the following types of impairments will, at a minimum, substantially limit the major life activities indicated:…major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia substantially limit brain function.” 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(ii), (iii).
Job applicants should never be asked whether they have bipolar disorder (or any other disability) until a conditional offer has been made. Read more
