Coalitional Politics and Disability Rights

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

July 2020 marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Offering an opportunity to reflect on the Act’s successes—as well as its unintended effects--the anniversary also prompted a reconsideration of the events leading up to its passage. Joining a growing body of scholarship on the evolution of disability rights in the United States, this panel considers the longer history of disability rights and policy, including the establishment of state pensions for the blind in the early 20th century, the coalition politics of activist groups like ADAPT (Americans with Disabilities for Attendant Programs Today) in the 1980s and 1990s, the influence of political entrepreneurs on the architecture of the ADA, and, finally, more recent debates over reproductive rights and disability justice. While each paper addresses a different moment in the long arc of the disability rights moment, together they argue for the significance of disability for understanding not just the extension of rights to previously excluded groups, but also the particular form of the American welfare state.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• The Coalition Politics of ADAPT in the Disability Rights Movement of the 80s-90s - Karolyn Campbell, University of Utah

• Pension Politics and Possibilities - Jennifer Leonor Erkulwater, University of Richmond

• It's Interesting How History Gets Written: Disability Rights from the Top-Down - Andrew Jenks, University of Delaware

• The Politics of Prenatal Genetic Screening - Amber Knight, University of North Carolina - Charlotte; Joshua Preston Miller, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Chair

• Ari Neeman

Discussants

• Ann Kathleen Heffernan University of Michigan

• Claire C. McKinney William & Mary