The Americans with Disabilities Act and deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),' enacted by Congress in 1990, is a body of legislation that, broadly speaking, is aimed at protecting persons with disabilities, physical or mental, from discrimination by providers of public services or public accommodations, "by reason of such d i ~ a b i l i t ~ . " ~ As often occurs in the wake of major legislation, specific applications of the ADA have repeatedly unmasked innocent but vital ambiguities, as well as unresolved fundamental policy divisions, lurking behind the deceptively straightforward legislative language. The ADA has consequently turned out to be a spawning ground for litigation3 and scholarly discussion, including many previous articles in this j ~ u r n a l , ~ and it remains quite unclear, nearly 10 years after enactment, what the ADA means or will