Americans With Disability Act - the Deathknell of American Exceptionalism

This is a long quote from Rush today, but it's all relevant:

EEOC: Education Requirements May Violate Americans with Disabilities Act
RUSH: From the Washington Times today: "requiring a high-school diploma from a job applicant might infringe on the Americans With Disabilities Act." I kid you not. I kid you not. New from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: "High school diploma requirement might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act."

The Washington Times: "Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The development also has some wondering whether the agency's advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high school students to graduate. The 'informal discussion letter' from the EEOC said an employer's requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be 'job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.' The letter was posted on the [EEOC]'s website on Dec. 2.

"Employers could run afoul of the ADA if their requirement of a high school diploma '"screens out" an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA's definition of "disability,"' the EEOC explained. The commission's advice, which [at the moment] does not carry the force of law, is raising alarms among employment-law professionals, who say it could carry far-reaching implications for businesses." Well, no kidding! You think this is an accident? Here you have a bunch of Obama liberals at the EEOC who are worried about any difference from person to person to person. There cannot be any difference, there cannot be any risk in life, there cannot be any difference in outcome. If anybody has anything more than somebody else then we are faced with "unfairness" that must be remedied.

And now requiring an education in order to get a job may be discriminatory against those who simply can't be educated. So we define everything down, again. We dumb and define everything down. This is not accidental. This is who these people are -- and it's all taking place under the guise of fairness, but what does it do? It punishes achievement and heralds the lack of it. It creates sympathy for the lack of achievement, excuses the lack of achievement and then rewards it. Why? What purpose could this possibly serve? It's all about getting votes. It's all about furthering the whole notion of class envy. "Mary Theresa Metzler, a lawyer with Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, said there may be an 'unintended and unfortunate' repercussion of the EEOC's discussion:

"'There will be less incentive for the general public to obtain a high school diploma if many employers eliminate that requirement for job applicants in their workplace.'" You think? Really? What's your first clue? So you don't have to have a high school diploma in order to get a job or to be hired? Then why go to high school? "Officials at the EEOC said the letter in question addressed 'a particular inquiry' and disputed that it would have repercussions in secondary education. ... Some worry that the EEOC's letter could place less emphasis on a diploma in the workplace, but the push in Congress has been in the opposite direction.

"House Republicans sought late last year to reform the federal unemployment-benefit system by requiring recipients of aid who do not have high school degrees to be 'enrolled and making satisfactory progress in classes' toward a General Education Development certificate or equivalent." So here you have the American left in charge of these bureaucracies doing everything they can to reward below-averageness, to herald it -- to use a favorite word of theirs -- to "celebrate" it; and of course the emphasis is on a lack of a diploma, which means lack of knowledge, which means lack of education. Well, a degree in anything is discriminatory once you go down this road. The ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act already is used to include a whole bunch of plain old aberrant behavior and characterize it as a disability, therefore to excuse it.

Alcoholism or other such things, but it's just more of the country in decline. It's more of, "We cannot have high or great expectations of people. We cannot give them reasons to reach high. We're going to give them excuses to reach nowhere." Imagine! It's gonna end up being discriminatory, unfair to have an education, to have a diploma. So how do we remedy that? You tell employers that you cannot have that as a requirement, and you see what opens up here? Lawsuits. Guess who gets to move in here and start suing people left and right, if this ever gets actually applied? It's already in practice. It's a recommendation, "does not carry the force of law," but I'll tell you what: I you're an average little business and you're already scared to death of the government and there's a little suggestion on that government website, and the last thing you want is trouble? What do you do?