BBI Chair Peter Blanck noted as authority in new ADA rules

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) extensively cited the research of University Professor Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, in its final rules and regulations for the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Published Friday, March 25, the new regulations are available in the Federal Register at http://federalregister.gov/a/2011-6056 and take effect in 60 days. The goal of the new regulations is to support Americans with disabilities, including veterans, to be equally included in the workplace, and to consider the interests of employees with disabilities and businesses. The EEOC is responsible for enforcement of Title I of the ADA, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of disability.

Blanck’s work influenced the EEOC’s adoption of a number of its rules. The EEOC noted Blanck as a co-author of the influential 2006 study “Workplace Accommodations: Evidence-Based Outcomes,” and his comments regarding the EEOC’s estimates for the costs to employers of workplace accommodations. Blanck notes that “studies also show measurable benefits to businesses that provide accommodation to people with disabilities, and net costs of accommodations often are minimal.”

For almost 20 years, Blanck and his colleagues have examined the employment of persons with disabilities and corporate cultures, producing a body of empirical studies. In another study by Blanck and colleagues that the EEOC relied on, “Workforce participation by persons with disabilities,” the National Health Interview Survey Disability Supplement data were used to identify national trends in employment and accommodations among Americans with disabilities.