Letter to the Editor: Helping Those With Disabilities Secure Employment

James Bovard rightly criticizes the Obama administration for seeking to force many businesses to adopt hiring quotas for disabled applicants. Such quotas not only raise costs and slash productivity, but also violate federal law.

The Supreme Court has said that the disabilities-rights laws aren’t “affirmative action” statutes, in cases like Southeastern Community College v. Davis (1979). While these laws require employers to reasonably accommodate disabilities, they don’t require a general preference for disabled applicants, much less quotas. Since these quotas harm taxpayers, undermine merit-based hiring and reduce efficiency, they are invalid under the Procurement Act and court rulings like Chamber of Commerce v. Reich (1996), which limit the president’s power to dictate the hiring decisions of government contractors.