EEOC’s New ADA Regulation: What Does it Mean for People with HIV? David W. Webber, AIDSandtheLaw.com (2011)

On March 25, 2011, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a new regulation implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended in 2008. This web site essay originally published in April 2011 by David W. Webber on AIDSandtheLaw.com analyzes the regulation from the perspective of HIV as a workplace disability, and concludes that although statutory protection for HIV as a disability is clearly stated in the amended ADA itself, the regulation provides additional support for that view. Because the regulation was authorized by Congress in the 2008 amendments to the ADA, and thus the EEOC's views on the ADA should be deferred to by the courts, the EEOC's regulation should reduce any risk that the ADA will be subject to judicial misinterpretation, as was so often the case with the ADA prior to its amendment in 2008.