The Americans with Disabilities Act is discussed in these excerpts only in passing, as one statute among several that guests invoke while arguing about other questions: whether a constitutional challenge to a university’s vaccine policy could reach a private institution, and how the federal government conditions education funding on anti-discrimination rules. No excerpt treats the ADA as its own subject, and no speaker states its text, its enactment, or the provisions under which it operates.
The ADA as a possible route against private institutions
In an episode on vaccine mandates and George Mason University, Bob Zadek asked Jenin Younes whether a case brought by Todd Zywicki would have been possible had the law school where Todd teaches been private rather than a state law school, and whether the legal theory would have been the same Vaccine Mandates, George Mason, and the Bill of Rights (2021).
Younes answered that her office would not have brought the case, because it only sues the government and does not sue private entities, describing that limitation as part of its mission. She said a suit by someone else probably could not be brought on the constitutional grounds under discussion, because private entities are not subject to the Constitution. She added that there may be arguments one could make under the ADA, but that the case is much stronger against public entities. Bob then identified the statute for the audience, saying that the ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act and that this was the reference Jenin had made.
The exchange is the only place in these excerpts where the ADA is tied to a concrete dispute. It is offered as a hedge — a possible argument, not a developed one — and Younes does not say what such an argument would be, which provision it would rest on, or whether it would succeed. The contrast she draws is between constitutional claims, unavailable against private actors, and statutory claims such as those under the ADA, which she treats as potentially available but weaker than the case against a public entity.
The ADA and the Spending Clause
The ADA returns in two later episodes as part of a list of anti-discrimination statutes attached to federal education funding. In one, Joe Cohn described two forms of federal jurisdiction over institutions. The primary and broader one, he said, is the Spending Clause: if an institution wants access to federal dollars, conditions attach, the first being that it will not permit forms of prohibited unlawful discrimination on campus Do you know your rights? (2022).
Within that framework Cohn placed Title IX, which he said deals with sex-based discrimination, alongside other titles: Title VI, dealing with race and national origin, the anti-rehabilitation act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which he described as protecting people from discrimination on the basis of other disabilities. He characterized the arrangement as a way for the federal government to tell institutions that discrimination will not be allowed to permeate their campuses, and said it mirrors the framework of the Civil Rights Act, which he said relied largely on spending and equal protection justifications in contexts such as employment. The result, in his account, is two things at once: at public institutions an anti-discrimination rationale supplies jurisdiction, and at private institutions spending jurisdiction does, with public institutions having both.
A second episode carries the same passage. Cohn again described the Spending Clause as the primary and broader form of jurisdiction, the condition being that an institution not permit prohibited unlawful discrimination on campus, and again listed Title IX for sex-based discrimination, Title VI for race and national origin, the Anti-Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which he said protects people from discrimination on the basis of other disabilities Joe Cohn on Title IX and Due Process on Campus (2022). The same comparison to the Civil Rights Act and the same division between public and private institutions follow.
In both tellings the ADA functions as an item in a series. Cohn does not distinguish among the statutes he lists, does not say how the ADA’s requirements differ from those of Title VI or the anti-rehabilitation act, and does not describe what conduct it prohibits or what remedies it provides. Its role in the argument is to establish that disability discrimination is among the conditions the federal government attaches to education money.
Across episodes
The topic appears in three episodes, and the excerpts show no development. The 2021 episode raises the ADA once, through Younes, as a possible but uncertain statutory route against a private institution Vaccine Mandates, George Mason, and the Bill of Rights (2021). The two 2022 episodes present the same passage from Joe Cohn, listing the ADA among the anti-discrimination statutes enforced through Spending Clause conditions on federal education funding Do you know your rights? (2022) Joe Cohn on Title IX and Due Process on Campus (2022). The later treatment is a repetition of the earlier one rather than a revision; no speaker responds to another episode’s characterization, and no question raised in 2021 is taken up in 2022.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when the ADA was enacted, what its titles or provisions say, what definition of disability it uses, or what remedies it provides. They do not name a single ADA case, holding, or amendment. They do not say whether the statute reaches private institutions directly or only through funding conditions, and Younes’s suggestion that arguments might be made under it is left unexplained. The passages that break off mid-sentence, including Bob’s question at the end of the vaccine episode and the section breaks in the 2022 episodes, are not completed anywhere in these sources.