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Press Release
Press Release
North Charleston, South Carolina---- United States Attorney Sherri A. Lydon stated today that the United States Attorney’s Office continued its firm commitment to upholding the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Sneed served as a presenter during an ADA Workshop for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community.
The event was sponsored by the South Carolina Association of the Deaf, Inc. (SCAD). SCAD is the statewide non-profit organization that focuses on promoting equal treatment toward deaf and hard of hearing citizens in education, employment, legislation, healthcare, and other fields pertaining to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing citizens of South Carolina. Mrs. Anita M. Steichen-McDaniel, SCAD’s Executive Director, was the lead organizer of the event. This event was held at the Whitfield Center at Charleston Southern University on Saturday, September 29, 2018. AUSA Sneed provided an overview of federal disability laws and focused on those aspects of the ADA of greatest interest to members of the deaf and hard of hearing community.
The ADA requires that covered entities (state and local governments; businesses and nonprofit organizations that serve the public) communicate effectively with people who have communication disabilities. The goal is to ensure that communication with people with these disabilities is equally effective as communication with people without disabilities.
U.S. Attorney Lydon stated that community outreach efforts such as this continue the U.S. Attorney’s and DOJ’s long standing commitment to Project Civic Access, which is a wide-ranging effort to ensure that counties, cities, towns, and villages comply with the ADA by eliminating physical and communication barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating fully in community life. The training also demonstrates the U.S. Attorney’s ongoing support of DOJ’s Barrier-Free Health Care Initiative, which is an initiative that includes effective communication for people who are deaf or have hearing loss, physical access to medical care for people with mobility disabilities, and equal access to treatment for people who have HIV/AIDS.
In addition to the ADA, the DOJ and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina enforces federal civil rights laws, including the Fair Housing Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. Civil remedies under these statutes include monetary penalties, injunctions, civil judgments and more.
To learn more about the ADA and other laws protecting the rights of people with disabilities, log on to the DOJ’s ADA website https://www.ada.gov/ or call the Justice Department's toll-free ADA Information Line at (800) 514-0301 or (800) 514-0383 (TDD). The U.S. Attorney’s Office Civil Rights Program webpages are located at https://www.justice.gov/usao-sc/civil-rights.
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Lance Crick (864) 282-2105