42 U.S.C. § 6101
Section 6101 · Statement of purpose
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 85 court decisions — leading case Sossamon v. Texas (2011)
Most recently applied in Maxwell Kadel v. N.C. State Health Plan (September 2021)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
It is the purpose of this chapter to prohibit discrimination on the basis of age in programs or activities receiving Federal financial assistance.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1986—Pub. L. 99–272 struck out “, including programs or activities receiving funds under the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972 (31 U.S.C. 1221 et seq.)” after “Federal financial assistance”.
1978—Pub. L. 95–478 struck out “unreasonable” before “discrimination”.
Effective Date of 1986 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 99–272 effective Oct. 18, 1986, see section 14001(e) of Pub. L. 99–272.
Effective Date of 1978 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 95–478 effective at the close of Sept. 30, 1978, see section 504 of Pub. L. 95–478, set out as a note under section 3001 of this title.
Short Title
Section 301 of Pub. L. 94–135 provided that: “The provisions of this title [enacting this chapter] may be cited as the ‘Age Discrimination Act of 1975’.”