Protections for Minnesota Employees with Disabilities
Disabled Minnesota employees are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Under both state and federal law, you are considered a person with a disability if:
you have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity,
you have a history of a disability, or
you are perceived as having a disability by the employer.
You also are protected under if you are discriminated against due to your association with a person with a disability.
This means an employer cannot treat you differently because of your disability, nor can an employer retaliate after you disclose a disability.
Reasonable Accommodations
Minnesota employers are obligated to provide qualified disabled workers with accommodations so they can do their jobs, so long as the accommodations are deemed “reasonable.”
A “reasonable accommodation” is simply any change or adjustment to a job or work environment that allows you to apply for the job, interview for the job, perform the essential functions of the job, and enjoy the benefits and privileges of the job. Some examples of reasonable accommodation are:
providing or modifying equipment,
modified work schedules,
physical accessibility to the workspace,
interpreters,
readers, and
modifications to company policies.
The reasonableness of any accommodation will always be judged on a case-by-case basis. So it’s important to get help if you feel like you’re being denied an accommodation that seems reasonable to you.
Employers are required to engage in what’s called an “interactive process” to assist qualified disabled employees in finding a reasonable accommodation. In other words, it’s a two-way-street requirement that some employers fail to satisfy, creating a legal violation that we can also help remedy.
And—critically—even if an employer can’t accommodate your request, it still cannot retaliate against you for requesting an accommodation.