• Employers use qualification standards to know who can perform a job effectively.
• If employers use qualification standards to screen out people with disabilities, they are violating the ADA.

A qualification standard, selection criteria, or employment test that screens out or tends to screen out a person with a disability or a class of people with disabilities violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) unless an employer can show that one of the following affirmative defenses are met:

• The standard, criteria, or test is “job related and consistent with business necessity;”
• There is no accommodation that would enable the person to meet the existing standard; or
• There is no alternative approach, which is itself a form of accommodation, through which the employer can determine whether the person can perform the essential function.

The ADA does not prohibit an employer from establishing job-related qualification standards, including:

• Education;
• Skills;
• Work experience;
• Licenses or certification;
• Physical and mental abilities;
• Health and safety; or
• Other job-related requirements, such as judgment, ability to work under pressure, or interpersonal skills.

The ADA does not interfere with employers’ authority to establish job qualifications, so they can hire:

• Individuals who can perform jobs effectively and safely, and
• The best qualified people for the job.

The ADA requirements are designed only to ensure that people with disabilities are not excluded from jobs which they can perform.

Job related and consistent with business necessity

When establishing selection criteria, the standard, test, or other criteria must be job related, meaning that it must be a legitimate measure of qualification for the specific job it is being used for. The qualification standard cannot be a measure of qualifications for a general class of jobs. For example, a qualification standard of “ability to take shorthand dictation” for a secretarial job that actually transcribes taped dictation is not job related.

If a test or other selection criterion excludes an individual with a disability because of the disability and does not relate to the essential functions of a job, it is not consistent with business necessity. Employers may establish physical or mental qualifications that are necessary to perform specific jobs or to protect health and safety. As with other job qualification standards, however, if a physical or mental qualification standard screens out an individual with a disability or a class of individuals with disabilities, employers must be prepared to show that the standard is job related and consistent with business necessity.