An Executive Order for Disability Awareness

Disability awareness propagates in the wake of President Barack Obama’s most recent Executive Order to increase the Federal employment of individuals with disabilities.  The order, released Tuesday July 26^th, was issued just one day after the Americans with Disabilities Act reached its twentieth year since enactment.  In those twenty years, despite previous presidential orders and Federal initiatives, the unemployment of Americans with disabilities has only risen (i).  President Obama, however, hopes to reverse that trend.  Different from prior initiatives, Mr. Obama’s Executive Order focuses primarily on retaining individuals with disabilities and learning impairments.  An emphasis on disability training and education for Federal agencies and personnel is to be the point of difference that primes this Executive Order for success.

Recognizing the Federal Government as the largest employer in the nation, Mr. Obama begins by addressing the need for government to lead by example.  In opening the Order, Mr. Obama states that the government has an important interest in reducing discrimination against those who live with a disability, eliminating the stigma associated with disabilities, and in encouraging individuals with disabilities to seek Federal employment (ii).  The importance of these interests cannot be understated.  Reducing discrimination and the stigma associated with individuals who have a disability is an important first step in reducing the unemployment rate.  The ideal workplace for individuals with disabilities to prosper has core elements of regular disability education, inclusion training workshops, assistive technology integration, and mutual respect among coworkers.  In achieving these core elements of an inclusive workplace, Federal agencies will establish strong paradigms that will work to welcome those with disabilities as potential employees.

Mr. Obama’s Executive order moves on to state specific requirements Federal agencies must meet in providing opportunities for persons with physical and mental impairments to gain employment.  Most noteworthy, the President calls for the mandatory drafting of strategies to hire and recruit those with disabilities within 60 days of the Order’s enactment (iii).  An essential part of these strategies includes outlining disability training programs for Federal Human Resource departments and other hiring professionals.  This portion of the Executive Order aims to better prepare agencies to promote job availability as well as to provide hiring professionals with the disability education needed to recruit and train workers with disabilities.

Most importantly, the Executive Order sets the groundwork for long term success by setting standards for retaining workers with disabilities.  Mr. Obama charges the Office of Personnel Management, in consultation with the Secretary of Labor, with the responsibility of identifying and assisting agencies in implementing strategies to retain Federal workers with disabilities.  Paramount to the success of this initiative is the ability of the agency to conduct thorough disability awareness training internally, developing an inclusive workplace that will help those with disabilities develop into industry professionals.  The President’s Order will help in this regard, specifically detailing the duties of the Office of Personnel Management to include helping with internal training, using centralized funds to provide reasonable workplace accommodations, increasing access to the appropriate assistive technologies, and ensuring the accessibility of the physical and virtual workplace (iv).

In the twenty years that have passed since the enacting of the Americans with Disabilities Act, unemployment among individuals with disabilities has actually grown.  Despite Executive Orders, initiatives, and disability awareness programs, the American public is ill equipped to recruit, train, and develop into professionals those with disabilities.  Disability training resources are a necessity in reversing this trend.  As Mr. Obama’s Order makes clear, responsibility lies in the hands of company owners, internal managers, and other business professionals to utilize inclusion training and other techniques to hire and keep workers with disabilities.  Disability awareness training is a vital first step towards creating business environments in which this goal is attainable, and the Federal government’s push to lead by example is inspiring.

(i) http://www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/fact/stats.htm

(ii) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities

(iii) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities

(iv) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities