The Evolution of Approaches To Disability

HEA 609: Evolution of an Intervention Rose Ewald
The Evolution of Approaches to Disability – A Brief History

There is relatively little information available about the historical approach to disability
before 1850, and some of what is available is quite distressing. A review of historical records
shows that rejection, neglect, abandonment, ostracism, segregation, and even torture and
murder of those who were in some way deformed or disabled has been a consistent theme
across many civilizations and cultures, from as long ago as 800 B.C. to as recently as the
current century (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 3).
Introduction
Historical accounts from ancient Greece indicate that it was accepted practice to kill deaf
children in Athens, and in Sparta, it was common to abandon children with physical or mental
handicaps to fend for themselves on mountainsides or in pits—apparently with the full approval
of Aristotle and Plato (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 883-884). Plato “viewed people with
disabilities as standing in the way of a perfect world” (Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1996, p. 8).
“[W]hile the ancient Greeks and Romans placed a high priority upon the care of those injured
and subsequently disabled in battle, they were enthusiastic advocates of infanticide for sickly or
deformed children. In Sparta these policies were demanded by law” (Tooley, 1983, as cited in
Barnes, 1992, p. 2).
In addition to ancient Greece and Rome, other societies that have “condoned the
destruction of weaker, less adequate, or handicapped members” include the Eskimos,
bushmen, and Nazi Germany (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 3). As recently as 1967, a writer to the
Atlantic Monthly “called for the ‘… sacrifice of mentally defective humans, or human vegetables
…’ to provide organ transplants and ‘… increase the intellectual betterment of mankind …’”
(Wolfensberger, p. 5).
The Religious Model: Disability as a Punishment for Moral Failings

In the Middle Ages, people with physical or mental disabilities were either imprisoned or
driven from cities, and most people held the superstitious belief that mental illness or mental or
physical disability was a sign of possession by the devil, demonical powers, or some type of
supernatural influence (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 884). The prevailing beliefs of that time
and their influence on society are reflected in such statements as “Since Christian theology
stressed the freedom of the human will, it was assumed [they] were therefore deserving of the
most severe punishment” (Shyrock, 1944, as quoted in Burgdorf & Burgdorf, p. 884).
“The basic theological attitude was that the mentally disabled were dangerously inferior
and not deserving of Christian charity” (Shyrock, 1944, as quoted in Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975,
p. 884). The Malleus Maleficarum of 1487 “declared that [deformed and disabled] children were
the product of the mothers’ intercourse with Satan” (Barnes, 1992, p. 2), a viewpoint that was
later echoed when “Calvin and Luther, leaders of the Reformation, referred to the mentally
afflicted as ‘filled with Satan’” (Davies, 1959, as quoted in Burgdorf & Burgdorf, p. 884).
Arising from these beliefs, any disabling condition was seen as the person’s fault or, in
the case of children, evidence that one’s “parents had sinned and were being punished by the
lord. The belief that blemish in the offspring is the result of punishment for parental wrongdoing
1
appears to be deeply engrained in the unconscious of the people” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 3).
Children who were abnormal were thus concealed as a source of shame (Wolfensberger, p. 3).
From these beliefs, it would have been a short jump to the idea that “the deviant was evil too,
and had to be persecuted and destroyed so as to protect society” (Wolfensberger, p. 3), and
indeed, that has been the case.
Society’s Rejects
These church teachings and superstitious beliefs about disability or mental illness, which
were held by the Puritans who came to the New England colonies in the early 1600s
(Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 3), were behind the unreasoning fear of witchcraft that also came with
the settlers from Europe. “The practices of abandonment and ostracism gave way during this
period to torture and persecution. Demonical possession was the common explanation of most
forms of mental disorder, and the scourge, the rack, the stake and the gallows were the
common methods of treatment” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 884-885).
By the early 1700s in colonial America, disabled people from well-to-do families were
confined and cared for by the family, but the mentally ill or disabled who had no means of
supporting themselves were banished from cities under threat of corporal punishment if they
returned (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 885). Those who were considered insane or mentally
deficient but harmless were kidnapped overnight and abandoned on the outskirts of distant
towns or, during winter, abandoned naked in the snow, while the violently insane were confined
in prisons and “subjected to physical and mental tortures” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, p. 885).
Although England passed the Poor Law in 1601 (Barnes, 1991, p. 4), it was not until
around the year 1800 that poorhouses or almshouses began to be established in the United
States. By 1830, nearly every state in America either required or encouraged them for the
housing of society’s rejects—a mixture of the disabled, the ill, the insane, and the destitute—but
with no concern for their wellbeing, living conditions were “little better than in the prisons”
(Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 885).
By 1843, there were a few private or state asylums but “[t]he vast majority of
handicapped persons … were confined in homes, almshouses and jails, under the most
despicable conditions” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 885). “The common denominator
inherent in the various forms of incarceration in early America—prison, almshouse, or asylum—
was total exclusion of the disabled person from society. In reality, confinement was a
preventive detention measure for the benefit of society” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, p. 885).
Since the mid-1800s, there have been several significant changes in the way society
approaches the care and treatment of people with disabilities, but the import of these changes
cannot be fully understood without considering the context of the historical approach to people
with disabilities from which they arose. This context is provided by reviewing various models
and historical movements that spanned decades and conditioned the social culture, thinking,
and behavior of generations. Against this backdrop, a timeline of specific events is discussed
and future directions are considered. Over the past 60 years, there has been great progress in
the evolution of approaches to disability, but without the historical context as background, the
groundbreaking and life-changing significance of these achievements would be lost.
2
The Context
1770 to the Present Day
 The Medical Model of Disability: aka Personal Tragedy Model, Individual Model or
Rehabilitation Model
The medical model emerged in the mid-1770s (Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1996, p. 8), and
became the dominant model during the 19th and 20th centuries (Longmore, 1995, p. 82;
Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 Under this model, disability was redefined “as a biological insufficiency amenable to
professional treatment which could, if not cure, at least correct most disabilities or their
functional consequences enough for the individuals to perform socially or vocationally in
an acceptable manner” (Longmore, 1987, p. 355).
 Interventions are provided by all-knowing professionals and the disabled assume the
ongoing role of patients, needing to be cured (Alaska Department of Health and Social
Services [DHSS], 2019, Panels 4-5; Jackson, 2018, p. 12; Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 “Patients are passive recipients of treatments that are dispensed by professionals who
are experts. The experts make the decisions and inform patients of those decisions”
(Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1996, p. 9).
 “… in practice, professionals and the societies they represented expressed profound
ambivalence toward those who were different, frequently defining them as incompetent
to manage their own social careers, even as socially dangerous, and, therefore, proper
objects of (often lifelong) supervision” (Longmore, 1987, p. 356), evidence that “within
the medical model, moral and social stigma persisted” (Longmore, p. 359).
 “The goals of intervention are cure, amelioration of the physical condition to the greatest
extent possible, and rehabilitation…” (Olkin, 1999, as quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018,
p. 3), with “cure, or at least correction of functioning, [seen] as the only possible way to
bring about social assimilation of people with disabilities” (Longmore, 1995, p. 82).
 “Disability is regarded as objectively bad, as a pitiable condition, ‘a personal tragedy for
both the individual and her family, something to be prevented and, if possible, cured’”
(Carlson, 2010, as quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 “…the medical model tends to regard the person with disability as the one who needs to
change or be fixed…” (Kasser & Lytle, 2005, as quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 “The medical model of interpretation of disability projects a dualism which tends to
categorize the able-bodied as somehow ‘better’ or superior to people with disabilities”
(Johnstone, 2012, as quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 This model “…assigns tremendous power to the medical professionals who diagnose
people … because the very criteria being used for diagnosis have been developed from
the perspective of what is considered ‘normal’ in society” (Thomas & Woods, 2003, as
quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 “Although normality ostensibly denoted the average, the usual, and the ordinary, in
actual usage it functioned as an ideal and excluded only those defined as below average
… Abnormal signified the subnormal” (Baynton, 2017, p. 36).
3
Early 1800s to the Present Day

 Deaf Education in America
Because “deafness is usually conceived by hearing people as merely a lack, an emptiness
where hearing and sound ought to be, the effect is that deaf people and their means of
communication become blank screens for the projection of cultural prejudice, fear and hope,
faith and ideology…. Deafness is a cultural construction as well as a physical phenomenon.
The difference between hearing people and deaf people is typically construed as simply a
matter of hearing loss…. The meanings of ‘hearing’ and ‘deaf’ are not transparent,
however” (Baynton, 1996, pp. 1-2).
Deaf people are usually thought of as disabled because, like others who are disabled, “their
differences from the majority are caused by disease, trauma, or unusual genes…. Like the
blind and others with individual physical differences, their difference is not in most cases
passed on to their children” (Baynton, 1996, p. 3).
“Deaf people occupy a unique position. They make up the only cultural group where cultural
information and language has been predominantly passed down from child to child rather
than from adult to child, and the only one in which the native language of the children is
different from the language spoken by the parents” (Baynton, 1996, p. 2).
 Deaf education arose in Europe in about the 16th century, and depending on one’s
location, there were two different methods that were used. “One approach advocated
the use of sign language, a method known as ‘manualism,’ which created a unique deaf
community. The other approach, known as ‘oralism,’ called for teaching deaf children
skills that facilitated social integration and impaired the creation of a distinct deaf culture”
(Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, p. 25).
 The first school for the deaf in the United States, the Cobbs School, which used the
oralist tradition “began in Virginia as a private endeavor in 1815, financed by a Southern
slave holder named William Bolding” (Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, p. 24). Due to lack of
funds and other unfortunate circumstances, the Cobbs school closed in 1816 (Crouch &
Greenwald, pp. 29-37).
 A residential school for the deaf using the manualist tradition (Baynton, 1996, pp. 3-4)
“opened its doors in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817, under the patronage of a prominent
Northern eye doctor, Mason Fitch Cogswell, and became the first permanent school for
educating deaf children in the United States” (Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, pp. 24-25).
 Cogswell paid for Thomas H. Gallaudet to travel to Europe in 1815 “to study and learn
methods for teaching deaf students. Gallaudet would then return to the United States
and Implement them” (Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, p. 38). Gallaudet studied sign
language at the Royal Institution for the Deaf in Paris, which followed the manualist
tradition, and returned to the U.S. in late 1816 with Laurent Clerc, a deaf former pupil
and instructor in the Paris school (Crouch & Greenwald, pp. 38-39).
 “Cogswell and his supporters convinced the Connecticut state legislature to incorporate
the school and appropriate $5,000 for its benefit” (Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, p. 39).
Cogswell, Gallaudet, and Clerc “succeeded in launching the Connecticut Asylum for the
Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, which became the American
School for the Deaf. It is still in existence today” (Crouch & Greenwald, p. 39).
4
 “The American School model spread throughout the nation and remained the standard
until it came under assault by Alexander Graham Bell and others starting in the 1870s”
(Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, p. 42).
 In 1857, the Columbia Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind was
established by Congress on 2 acres of donated land in northeast Washington, D.C.
Thomas Gallaudet’s son, Edward Gallaudet, was named superintendent. In 1864, the
school was authorized by Congress to grant college degrees. In 1954, to honor Thomas
Gallaudet, Congress changed the name to Gallaudet College. In 1986, Gallaudet
College was granted university status by Congress and became Gallaudet University.
(History of Gallaudet University, 2013).
1845 to 1870
 The Training Model
Édouard Seguin and several other physicians developed this model in France in the early
1840s. Édouard Seguin introduced it in America shortly thereafter to Samuel Gridley Howe
(Longmore, 1987, p. 358), a pioneer in special education (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 10).
 The training model reflected “[a] developmental model of retardation and an educational
model of treatment, proposing specialized training to improve functional capabilities”
(Longmore, 1987, p. 358).
 “[T]he goal was a combination of diminishing the intellectual impairment and increasing
adaptive and compensatory skills of the pupil so that he would be able to function at
least minimally in society” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 13).
 “The institution was seen as a temporary boarding school. After the child was improved
so as to have mastered skills necessary in society, he was to be returned to his family
and/or the regular schools. It certainly was not the intent of the pioneers that the
institution should become a permanent home” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 14).
 “…residential schooling was seen not merely as a privilege or worthy charity, but a right
of the retardate and a duty of society” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 15).
 These schools were small, modeled after a family environment, and located in or near
the state capitol or other urban centers (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 15).
 Édouard Seguin “was considered the first great teacher in the field of developmental
disabilities.… Many of Seguin's concepts are still used today, including positive
reinforcement and modeling” (Alaska DHSS, 2019, Panel 6).
 Samuel Gridley Howe was “instrumental in founding the early U.S. institutions for both
the blind and retarded” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 10).
 “Training schools were considered an educational success, offering hope to many
families of children with developmental disabilities. Across the country, parents [sought]
admission for their sons and daughters. Some … sought an education for their child;
others simply needed relief” (Alaska DHSS, 2019, Panel 6).
 Many students completed the training programs but could not return to their
communities, either because their relatives had died and they were homeless, or
because “the guardians of these children were unwilling to remove them from the
5
institution, and begged that they might be allowed to remain where they could be made
happy and kept from harm” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 16).
1870 to 1960s
 The Charity or Pity Model of Disability
Between 1870 and 1880, the training model degenerated into the charity model. “Charity
clients are … entitled to food and shelter, but not to anything interpretable as luxuries, frills,
and extras. A residence based on this model will be austere and lacking in privacy,
individuality, and opportunities to have personal possessions. The resident is expected to
be grateful, and to work as much as possible for his ‘keep’” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 9).
 Such a model “signposts an approach to disability characterized by notions of caretaking
and protection, both in terms of the vulnerable ‘other’ needing protection and care and,
later, the need to protect the economic and social order by controlling, via segregation,
‘deviant members’ of society” (Braddock & Parish, 2001, as cited in Jackson, 2018, p.
12).
 “The term ‘School’ began to disappear from the names of institutions, being replaced by
the term ‘asylum’” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 17). “[A]sylums for the ‘mentally ill,
retardates, degenerates, and defectives’” and “segregated schools for ‘the blind and the
deaf’” became the norm (Jackson, 2018, p. 12).
 “[T]he first call for substantial enlarging of the institution came in 1881” (Wolfensberger,
1969, p. 18). By 1893, “institutions changed from small intimate homes, for children
counted in the dozens, to huge facilities for thousands of residents” (Wolfensberger, p.
19).
 Unlike the early training schools, these asylums were located “away from population
centers and in rural areas where farm land could be had inexpensively. This
exacerbated the trend toward isolation…” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 32).
 The focus shifted from personal self-sufficiency to institutional self-sufficiency and
“residents became indispensable to the functioning of the institution” (Wolfensberger,
1969, p. 19). The effort to be self-sustaining between 1880 and 1920 led to “farm
colonies” being well-established by 1930 (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 889).
 “Pupils became ‘inmates.’ The goal of educating pupils for life in the community was
changed to training inmates to work inside the institution. Higher-functioning inmates
were taught functional skills and used as laborers to reduce costs” (Alaska DHSS, 2019,
Panel 7).
 “[D]uring the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, professionals in medicine,
social services, and education increasingly attributed to the ‘defective classes,’ which
included virtually anyone with a disability, a lack of moral and emotional self-control,
blaming them for the poverty, vice, crime, and dislocations of the new industrial order.
People with mental retardation, epilepsy, or cerebral palsy were often permanently
institutionalized as dangers to society” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
 “Previously, parents or guardians could withdraw pupils at any time. Superintendents
now demanded and won exclusive authority over discharges” (Longmore, 1987, p. 358).
6
 The daily census of people institutionalized with intellectual or developmental disabilities

peaked at 194,650 in 1967, but this figure was dwarfed by the daily census of those with
mental illness, which peaked in 1955 at 559 thousand (Braddock, 2011, pp. 53, 55).
 Institutionalization of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities and Mental Illness
Sources: Mental Illness Data—U.S. Bureau of the Census, cited in Hamilton (1944); Center For Mental Health
Services, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996, 1999; NASMHPD, 2002, 2005 2007, 2008,
2009, 2010; SAMHSA, 2003, 2005, 2006. Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities Data—State of the States,
Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities and Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado, 2011.
(Braddock, 2011, p. 55).
“[M]any philanthropists who had initially viewed the less fortunate as worthy objects of
assistance came to understand the poor, diseased, and physically infirm as defective in
mind or body, often undeserving of charity. This ideological change led to a cultural divide,
giving rise to a need among the advantaged (whether with power, health, or wealth) to
control the increasingly scorned disadvantaged” (Carlson, 2011, p. 12).
Beginning in the 1880s

 The Rise of the Eugenics Movement in America
This ideological change coincided with Herbert Spencer’s “doctrine of social Darwinism,
according to which the principles of evolution, including natural selection, apply to human
societies, social classes, and individuals … In Spencer’s day social Darwinism was invoked
to justify … unfettered competition between individuals and the gradual improvement of
society through the ‘survival of the fittest’” (Acton, 2019).
 “The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by British explorer and natural scientist Francis
Galton, who, influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, advocated a
system that would allow ‘the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of
prevailing speedily over the less suitable’” (Wilson, 2019).
 The eugenics movement “emphasized the dominance of heredity and sought to
encourage the reproduction of socially desirable individuals (positive eugenics) and
7
discourage the reproduction of the undesirable (negative eugenics)” (Rhodes, 1993, as

quoted in Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1996, p. 9).
 “During the early 1900s eugenics became a serious scientific study pursued by both
biologists and social scientists. They sought to determine the extent to which human
characteristics of social importance were inherited. Among their greatest concerns were
the predictability of intelligence and certain deviant behaviours” (Wilson, 2019).
 “Eugenics became a convenient explanation for the ills of society and cast people with
disabilities in a frightening light, making them extremely vulnerable” (Mackelprang &
Salsgiver, 1996, p. 9).
 “The concept of normality in its modern sense arose in the mid–nineteenth century in the
context of a pervasive belief in progress. It became a culturally powerful idea with the
advent of evolutionary theory” (Baynton, 2017, p. 35).
 “The natural and the normal both are … ways of establishing social hierarchies that
justify the denial of legitimacy and certain rights to individuals or groups” (Baynton, 2017,
p. 35).
 “No intervention could bring about change because the laws of nature deemed people
with disabilities unfit” (Longmore, 1987, as quoted by Mackelprang & Salsgiver, p. 9).
 “The base logic of the theory of eugenics is that people are either fit or unfit. To be unfit
is to be genetically inferior. The theory posits that efforts should be made to decrease all
elements of genetic inferiority from the human race until they no longer exist. This
categorisation laid the foundations for how we understand people to be disabled or non-
disabled today” (Kretser, 2017).
 “[T]he construct of fit/unfit … paved the way for the thinking of people as normal or
abnormal. This construction of normal is important as it functions as a bar of how people
are seen as fully functioning humans. Anyone who doesn’t meet the ideal type of
‘normal’ is seen as less than fully human” (Kretser, 2017).
 “By the 1880s and 1890s … [i]ncreasingly, retardation was … incorporated into the
pseudo-scientific linkage between heredity and a whole array of social ills…. [M]ildly
mentally retarded people, many of whom had been living and functioning undetected in
the community, were blamed for poverty, vice, and crime” (Longmore, 1987, p. 358).
 By 1914, a leading eugenicist defined ‘socially inadequate’ dysgenic groups as ”the
feebleminded, the insane, the criminalistic, the epileptic, the inebriated or the drug
addicted, the diseased—regardless of etiology, the blind, the deaf, the deformed, and
dependents (an extraordinarily expansive term that embraced orphans, ‘ne’er-do-wells,’
tramps, the homeless, and paupers)” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 3).
 Eugenics Influence on Deaf Education in America

“Reacting to a growing deaf subculture, an ‘oralist’ movement began in the 1880s to oppose
sign language and to insist that deaf people learn speech and speech-reading” (Longmore,
1995, p. 83). “Oralists … were in many cases woefully ignorant of deafness…. Others,
such as Alexander Graham Bell, were perhaps more knowledgeable but motivated by
eugenicist fears that intermarriage among the deaf, encouraged by separate schools and
8
the use of sign language, would lead to formation of a ‘deaf variety of the human race’”
(Baynton, 1996, p. 6). “The two chief interests of Bell’s life, eugenics and deaf education,
came together over this issue” (Baynton, 1996, p. 30).
 “…Bell’s prestige, leadership abilities, and dedication to the cause, gave a tremendous
boost to oralism” (Baynton, 1996, p. 6). “Led by Alexander Graham Bell, the oralists
took over deaf education and sought to disperse the deaf community” (Longmore, 1995,
p. 83).
 “Central to that project was a campaign to eliminate what was called ‘manualism’—the
use of sign language in the classroom—and replace it with the exclusive use of lip-
reading and speech, which was known as ‘oralism.’ …[T]he crux of the issue for the
advocates of oralism [was that they] opposed the use of sign language in any form for
any purpose” (Baynton, 1996, p. 4).
 “In 1860, almost no deaf students were being taught by exclusively oral methods. In the
late 1860s, the first oral schools were founded, and in the 1870s and 1880s, most
schools began to experiment with oral methods of teaching” (Baynton, 1996, pp. 4-5).
 “By the turn of the century, nearly 40 percent of American deaf students were taught
without the use of sign language, and more than half were so taught in at least some of
their classes. The number of children taught entirely without sign language was nearing
80 percent by the end of the First World War, and oralism remained orthodox until the
1970s” (Baynton, 1996, pp. 4-5).
 “Although this oralist movement would control residential schools and the teaching of
deaf people until the 1960s, it has once again been superseded by instruction in
American Sign Language” (Crouch & Greenwald, 2007, p. 42).
 Eugenics Laws: Cleansing the Social Fabric

“In any society that places high value on intelligence and achievement, there is probably a
predisposition to brutalize and dehumanize the inadequate deviant. When the deviant is
seen as not only inadequate but also as a menace, latent dehumanization becomes overt”
(Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 22). In this regard, “eugenic advocacy delivered some of the
darkest policies of the twentieth century” (Lombardo, 2018, p. 1306).
 “Every president from Theodore Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover was a member of a
eugenics organization, publicly endorsed eugenic laws, or signed eugenic legislation
without voicing opposition” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 1).
 America’s first Immigration Act in 1882 not only deliberately excluded disabled people,
but “the concept of disability was instrumental in crafting the image of the undesirable
immigrant…. [The Immigration Act of 1882 explicitly] prohibited entry to any ‘lunatic,
idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public
charge’” (Baynton, 2017, p. 45).
 Revisions in 1903 automatically excluded “people with epilepsy … and, in addition to
those judged insane, ‘persons who have been insane within five years previous [or] who
have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously’” (Baynton, 2017, p. 46).
9
 By 1907, revisions to the Immigration Act “… added ‘imbeciles’ and ‘feeble-minded

persons’ to the list …” [and] “… persons with ‘any mental abnormality whatever … which
justifies the statement that the alien is mentally defective’” (Baynton, 2017, p. 46). The
1907 changes also “denied entry to anyone judged ‘mentally or physically defective,
such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such
alien to earn a living’” (Baynton, 2017, p. 45).
 Revisions in 1917 reduced the allowed number of ‘attacks of insanity’ to one, and the
exclusion “classification of ‘constitutional psychopathic inferiority’ was also added, …
described as including ‘various unstable individuals on the border line between sanity
and insanity … and persons with abnormal sex instinct’” (Baynton, 2017, p. 46).
 “The Regulations for the medical inspection of immigrants in 1917 included a long list of
diseases and disabilities that could be cause for exclusion, among them arthritis,
asthma, bunions, deafness, deformities, flat feet, heart disease, hernia, hysteria, poor
eyesight, poor physical development, spinal curvature, vascular disease of the heart,
and varicose veins” (Baynton, 2017, p. 46).
 The Federal Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 “restricting immigration to the United
States by means of an ethnic/national quota system was also designed by leaders in
eugenics to prevent the ‘pollution’ of American bloodlines” (Billings, 1923, as cited by
Lombardo, 2018, p. 1306; Lombardo, 1996, p. 5).
 “Laws prohibiting interracial marriage, a vestige of the colonial era, were revised to
include a new, scientific gloss with biological definitions of ‘race’ during the eugenics era.
The entire US system of legally mandated racial segregation was bolstered by eugenic
thinking” (Dorr, 2008, as cited by Lombardo, 2018, p. 1306).
 In the early twentieth century, physically handicapped people “were kept at home, out of
sight, in back bedrooms, by families who felt a mixture of embarrassment and shame
about their presence” (Gallagher, 1985, as quoted by Longmore, 1987, p. 359).
 In the early 1900s, some cities passed unsightly beggar ordinances, known as ‘ugly
laws.’ Chicago’s ugly law made it illegal if anyone “who is diseased, maimed, mutilated
or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person
to be allowed in or on the public ways or other public places in this city, shall therein or
thereon expose himself to public view, under a penalty of not less than one dollar nor
more than fifty dollars for each offense” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 863).
 The perceived threat posed by ‘deviants’ was characterized as a ‘menace to society.’ In
1911, some of the solutions proposed by the American (Cattle) Breeders’ Association
included euthanasia, selective killing, and restriction to national reservations (similar to
Indian reservations). In many states, laws were passed prohibiting procreation and
marriage, followed by compulsory sterilization laws, and then by laws enforcing lifetime
segregation of institutionalized males and females (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 887-
888; Longmore, 1987, pp. 358-359; Wolfensberger, 1969, pp. 22-27).
 Many states prohibited marriage to or between people who were mentally ill or mentally
handicapped, and some also prohibited marriage to or between people who were
physically handicapped or who had epilepsy (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 861).
10
 “In reaction to misguided fears about persons with developmental disabilities, and as a
means of social control, the eugenics movement led to tens of thousands of forced
sterilizations” (Alaska DHSS, 2019, Panel 9).
 “The majority of American states either have, or did have, statutes providing for the
involuntary sterilization of mentally handicapped and certain physically handicapped
citizens” (Brakel & Rock, 1971, as quoted by Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 861).
 “[B]etween 1910 and 1923, at least sixteen states established new custodial facilities as
the number of inmates increased 150 percent, and nearly half of the states passing
sterilization laws did so after 1917” (Longmore, 1987, p. 359).
 In the 30 years between 1907 and 1937, 32 states passed laws requiring “sterilization to
prevent the birth of people deemed ‘defective’ or ‘socially inadequate’” (Lombardo, 2018,
p. 1306).
 “All of the eugenics laws, particularly those involving marriage restriction and
sterilization, were widely championed by physicians. At least 12 different doctors were
legislative sponsors of sterilization laws, and many other laws had doctors as their chief
lobbyists” (Lombardo, 2018, p. 1308).
 The Eugenical Sterilization Act, which the Virginia General Assembly passed into law in
1924, allowed doctors to sterilize ‘socially inadequate’ women without their consent
under the premise that undesirable “behavioral traits and social conditions were
hereditary and could be eliminated by sterilization” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 10).
 The Virginia General Assembly also passed the Virginia Racial Integrity Act in 1924,
which prohibited interracial marriage, based on the premise that miscegenation was “a
threat to the health of the white gene pool” (Lombardo, 1996, pp. 20-21).
 In 1935, Oklahoma passed the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, which “mandated
involuntary sexual sterilization for convicted criminals” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 13). “This
statute defined the ‘habitual criminal’ as a person twice convicted of crimes involving
‘moral turpitude’” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 14).
“At least 16 different countries emulated the American eugenics laws that sanctioned sexual
sterilization. In the early 1930s, laws involving racial/ethnic restrictions on marriage,
immigration restriction, and sterilization of ‘defectives’ provided models for Germany that
Hitler’s regime applauded, copied, and embellished upon” (Lombardo, 2018, p. 1306).
 The Effects of the Eugenics Movement Are Still With Us

“The historical linkage of eugenics with Nazi atrocities … leads to the mistaken idea that the
worst features of eugenics disappeared with the fall of the Third Reich. But for most of the
twentieth century, we lived in a legal regime that embodies a eugenic value structure to
justify state and federal legislation” (Lombardo, 2018, p. 1308).
 The Eugenical Sterilization Act, which was challenged in the Buck v. Bell case, was
upheld by the Supreme Court in 1928. “Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes equated
sterilization to vaccination. Nationally, twenty-seven states began wholesale sterilization
of ‘undesirables’” (Temple University, 2002).
11
 “The endorsement … of state mandated surgery on unwilling patients in Buck v. Bell was
an extraordinarily radical departure from existing Supreme Court medical jurisprudence”
(Lombardo, 1996, p. 7). Buck v. Bell “was the first and only instance in which the Court
allowed a physician, acting as the agent of state government, to perform an operation
that was neither desired nor needed by the ‘patient’” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 7).
 “The Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision ruled that forced sterilization of people with
disabilities was not a violation of their constitutional rights. This decision removed all
restraints for eugenicists. By the 1970s, over 60,000 disabled people were sterilized
without their consent” (Temple University, 2002).
 The Skinner v. Oklahoma case challenging the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act was
heard by the Supreme Court in 1942. The Court “was unanimous in holding that the
Oklahoma law was unconstitutional” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 19).
 The Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act was only overturned because the Justices had no
evidence that the trait of criminality could be inherited, and thus “the validity of
eugenically-founded, hereditary assumptions as a basis for law remained alive after
Skinner” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 19).
 After World War 2, the number of compulsory sterilizations actually increased in some
states, “with some 23,000 operations recorded between 1943 and 1959. Most
sterilization laws survived until at least the 1970s, with surgeries documented until at
least 1979…. The final law that allowed involuntary surgery as a state eugenic
intervention was not repealed until 2013” (Lombardo, 2018, p. 1308).
 “The eugenic intent of the [Federal Immigration Restriction Act], and the national origins
quota system it enforced, remained in place until they were repealed by the Immigration
and Nationality Act of 1965” (Lombardo, 1996, pp. 5-6; Lombardo, 2018, p. 1308).
 “Racially targeted marriage restriction legislation remained formally in place until the
1960s” (Lombardo, 2018, p. 1308). The 1958 Loving v. Virginia case was heard in 1967
by the Supreme Court, which “held that the Virginia Racial Integrity Act and related laws
limiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional” (Lombardo, 1996, p. 23).
 “While the unemployment rate for Vietnam era veterans at the end of 1971 was
estimated at 8.8 percent, 87.7 percent of handicapped veterans were unable to find jobs”
 Gays and lesbians who wanted to immigrate were denied admission to the U.S. under
the 1917 Immigration Act clause that prohibited ‘persons with abnormal sex instinct.’
This restriction remained in effect until “the decision by the American Psychiatric
Association in 1973 to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses … [meant]
gays and lesbians were declared not to be disabled” (Baynton, 2017, p. 46).
 In the early 1970s, many reports surfaced of disabled infants dying as a result of
urgently-needed medical care being denied to them by parents or medical providers—
care that would have been provided without question to non-handicapped babies. One
New York Times article in 1974 estimated “that unnecessary deaths of handicapped
babies in the U.S. may number in the thousands each year” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975,
p. 867).
12
 “In 1974, the Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act was repealed and in 1979, other
statutory language that contained authorization for most involuntary sterilization was also
repealed (Footnote: Between 1924 and 1979, it is estimated that between 7,325 and
8,300 individuals were forcibly sterilized in Virginia.)” (Eugenics Sterilization
Compensation Program, 2017).
 The last arrest under one of the unsightly beggar ordinances was in Omaha, Nebraska,
in 1974 (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 864).
 It was not until 1974 that the Supreme Court ruled that “’[h]armless’ persons who are
mentally ill or mentally retarded, physically unattractive, or otherwise socially
unacceptable, have the right to remain in the community if they so choose” (Burgdorf &
Burgdorf, 1975, p. 896).
“The legal vestiges of eugenics remained in place in the United States into the twenty-first
century; … Even more critically, the attitudes toward poverty, race, sexuality, and disability
that provided the initial impetus for such laws were openly embraced for decades after
Hitler, and continue to be invoked as a justification for coercive reproductive interventions
today” (Lombardo, 2018, pp. 1308-1309).
1960s to the Present Day

 Contemporary Institutions
By the 1960s, the combined effects of the medical model, the charity model, and the
eugenics movement had produced contemporary institutions that were deplored as “an
agency of dehumanization; … residents are subjected to physical and mental abuse, to
neglect and inadequate care and services, to environmental deprivation, and to restriction of
the most basic rights and dignities of a citizen” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 35).
 “The extreme social antipathy toward disabled persons which flared in 1910 had quieted
by 1925” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 889) but “essentially, many of our institutions …
operate in the spirit of 1925 when inexpensive segregation of a scarcely human
retardate was seen as the only feasible alternative to combat a social menace”
(Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 34).
 Even a cursory review of progress and achievements revealed that institutionalization
“did not contribute much to prevention of retardation” and “was not accomplished
inexpensively, as had been claimed” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 36).
 In addition, and of more concern, it was found that “professionals who are alcoholics,
drug addicts, unstable, or health-handicapped … have become concentrated in our
institutions. Professionals not good enough to work on us or our normal children were, it
seems, good enough to work on our retarded children. Employees, as much as
residents, become ‘institutionalized’” (Gleland & Peck, 1967, as quoted by
Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 36).
 Some of the inhumane practices that were common in institutions included “denial of
property rights, of human contacts and perceptual stimulation; restriction of movement
and communication; denial of wages for work; compulsion to use nonprivate toilets;
denial of the privilege to wear clothes; behavior control by means of medication rather
than education or guidance; [and] enforced idleness” (Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 36).
13
 “The current model, the entire system, … is inconsistent with contemporary cultural
values and scientific knowledge. We need a model of services that is appropriate to
knowledge, resources, and needs of the 1970's and beyond, and that is based on a
contemporary perception of the nature and role of the retarded person in our society”
(Wolfensberger, 1969, p. 37).
 “Although there was no longer a social rationale for the existence of such subhuman
facilities, large numbers of handicapped persons continued to be placed in these
institutional ‘warehouses’ located in the country” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 889).
Following a series of legal cases in the 1960s and early 1970s, the courts “significantly
restricted the criteria under which either an adult or a child can be constitutionally committed
to a state institutional facility. There must be full procedural due process as well as a finding
of dangerousness and a prior exhaustion of all the less restrictive alternatives” (Burgdorf &
Burgdorf, 1975, p. 898-899).
 Social Model of Disability

The social model of disability was developed in the early 1980s as a result of social and
disability rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s and “in reaction to the limitations of the
medical model of disability” (D’Alessio, 2011, as cited by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3). This
model moved “beyond the previous narrow, medical view of disability to a new, wider,
societal view” (Jackson, 2018, p. 13).
 The social model presented “a major new conceptualization of disability: ‘handicaps’
result from the interaction of individuals with the social and build environment; ‘disability’
is primarily a socially constructed and stigmatized role” (Longmore, 1987, p. 362).
 For social model theorists, “the problem is that medical professionals fail to distinguish
between a person’s illness and his or her disability” (Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 5).
 “Social model theorists argue that the term ‘people with disabilities’ is directly linked to
the philosophy underlying the medical model and therefore insist that the term ‘disabled
people’ better reflects the societal oppression that people with impairments are faced
with every day” (Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 4).
 According to this model, “it is society ‘which disables people with impairments, and
therefore any meaningful solution must be directed at societal change rather than
individual adjustment and rehabilitation’” (Barnes, Mercer, & Shakespeare, 2010, as
quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 “The various models are reflective of their different historical periods. The particular
value of the social model to built environment practice is the emphasis on the way
environment, including the built environment, constructs disability. Disability is not a
preexisting, independent, condition; the nature and experience of disability is directly
linked to the build environment, among other factors” (Jackson, 2018, p. 17).
 “It could be argued that a crucial consequence of the historically pervasive ideology of
institutionalization is that much of the general built environment is inaccessible for
people with disability” (Jackson, 2018, p. 12).
14
 “[A] common consequence of de-institutionalization is the inability to access other built

environments … due to the legacy of poor urban-scale design … a somewhat inevitable
consequence of the charity model’s invisible segregation of people with disability”
(Jackson, 2018, p. 12).
 “Much existing public transport infrastructure has also been built under the legacy of the
charity and medical models of disability and is, therefore, inaccessible for many people
with disability” (Jackson, 2018, p. 13).
 “[M]edical model ideology tends to lead to the (unacknowledged) belief among built
environment practitioners that built environment accessibility needs of people with
disability will be resolved by individual provision of personalized, medical intervention
and/or assistive technology” (Jackson, 2018, p. 13).
 The social model posits that “disability arises from barriers within ‘an oppressive and
discriminating society’ rather than impairment per se” (Soder, 2009, as quoted by
Jackson, 2018, p. 14). In doing so, it forces recognition “that the built environment is a
disabling instrument in itself” (Jackson, 2018, p. 14).
Society’s acceptance of “the idea that disability is a legitimate reason for inequality, is
perhaps one of the factors responsible for making discrimination against people with
disabilities so persistent and the struggle for disability rights so difficult” (Baynton, 1996, p.
51).
From this review of the social and cultural influences that have conditioned society since
the civilizations of ancient Greek, it is clear that until very recently and with few exceptions, the
historical approaches to disability have been simply appalling. Since the 1800s, the combined
influences of the medical model, the charity model, and the eugenics movement have inflicted
immeasurable suffering on generations of people simply because they were different in some
way. As the following timeline shows, our legal approach to disability has changed radically
since the 1960s, but cultural progress has been made much more slowly and has faced great
resistance.
The Timeline
1841 to 1880
 Dorothea Dix, a Pioneering Advocate for Humane Treatment of the Mentally Ill
A 40-year crusade to improve the lives of institutionalized people who were mentally ill or
insane began with a visit in 1841 to a Massachusetts prison (Dorothea Dix, 2019).
 After 2 years of investigating and documenting her findings throughout the state,
Dorothea Dix presented a report to the Massachusetts state legislature in 1843, which
included the words “The present state of Insane Persons confined within this
Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with
rods, and lashed into obedience!” (Dix, 1843, p. 7).
 Over 4 decades, the ongoing efforts of Dorothea Dix led to the construction or
improvement of 32 mental hospitals (Dorothea Dix, 2019) in an estimated 20 states and
the District of Columbia (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 886).
15
1896 to the Present Day

 Special Education Programs in Public Schools
“All of the 50 states have statutes authorizing and requiring the maintenance of a system of
free public educational programs, and all but one of the states make attendance at school
compulsory for persons of specified ages” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 868-869). “The
theoretical ideal of education for all, however, has proved to be an empty promise for many
persons with physical, mental and emotional handicaps. Over the years, large numbers of
handicapped persons have been denied their right to equal educational opportunities and
have been systematically excluded from the public schools” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, p. 869).
 Special education classes in the U.S. were originally begun as ‘opportunity’ or ‘vestibule’
classes that “were intended primarily to assist slow learners drawn from the population
of immigrants to this country [and were intended to] prepare him or her for eventual
absorption into regular public school classes” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 872).
 Over time, these ‘opportunity’ classes instead “became the dumping grounds for many
students who could not fit into or manage to succeed in the normal classrooms. In
addition to those with language deficiencies, these programs came to include persons
with perceptual and communication problems, slow learners, and persons with other
mild mental and physical handicaps” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 872-873).
 “For many years, there were no educational strategies at all for teaching persons with
mental handicaps. Educators had neither learned nor sought to learn the techniques of
educating such persons” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 871).
 “Any person who deviated from the norms of what was expected of a pupil, and thereby
caused extra work for the teacher, was viewed as disruptive and burdensome and thus
not suited for classroom instruction. As a result of either formal policy or informal
practices, most physically handicapped children did not attend the public schools”
(Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 871-872).
 “[A]ttempts to provide public school programs for mentally retarded persons did not
begin until about 1900” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 872). “The cities of Providence,
Springfield, Boston and Chicago initiated special classes for the mentally retarded
shortly before the turn of the century” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, p. 872).
 Classes began in Providence in 1896, Boston in 1899, and Philadelphia in 1901, with
classes being developed in New York City, Springfield, and Worcester by 1904 (Chase,
1904, para. 18, 23, 28, 32, and 46, respectively).
 “In 1911, New Jersey became the first state to legislate special education by statutorily
authorizing classes for the mildly mentally retarded. Formal classes for mentally
retarded children were introduced in other states in the early 1920's” (Burgdorf &
Burgdorf, 1975, p. 873).
 Between the 1920s and the 1960s, “special education programs remained ‘permissive’
undertakings at the discretion of local school officials.… Over time, “experimental
teaching techniques resulted in the development of new educational strategies [and] the
number and variety of special education programs grew” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p.
874).
16
 “In spite of progress and important breakthroughs in the [1950s and 1960s], the public
education systems in this country [were] still a very long way from providing equal
educational opportunities for all handicapped children” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p.
875).
 In 1974, it was estimated that over 50% of school age children in the U.S. with a
disability, about 3.7 million children, were not receiving any kind of special education
services (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 875).
Beginning in the 1970s, “legal action to obtain equal educational opportunities for
handicapped children resulted from the conjunction of three factors: school desegregation
lawsuits, a shift in professional attitudes toward handicapped people, and the emergence of
advocates for them. The legal basis for the movement was established by the education
lawsuits which had been a major part of the civil rights struggle waged by racial minorities”
1935 to 1970
 The Disability Rights Movement
The disability rights movement is an umbrella term used for various organized efforts on
behalf of disabled people, which were undertaken by groups of disabled people or by their
parents, friends, or other advocates. Most of the eight events associated with the disability
rights movement on the timeline came about because of the relentless efforts of these
unsung heroes. The following organizations, activities, and laws are only a representative
fragment of the efforts of the disability rights movement. Their persistence and incremental
progress over nearly four decades ultimately culminated in the events on the timeline.
 1935: “The League for the Physically Handicapped in New York City was formed to
protest discrimination by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The Home Relief
Bureau of New York City stamped all applications with “PH” which stood for physically
handicapped. Members of the League held a sit-in at the Home Relief Bureau for nine
days and a weekend sit-in at the WPA headquarters. These actions eventually led to
the creation of 1500 jobs in New York City” (Temple University, 2002).
 1940: “The National Federation of the Blind was formed in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
by Jacobus Broek and others. They advocated for white cane laws, input by blind
people for programs for blind clients and other reforms” (Temple University, 2002). They
also “adopted a strong civil rights stance and lobbied for equal rights of all disabled
persons” (Longmore, 1987, p. 363).
 1940: “The American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, founded by Paul
Strachan, was the first cross-disability national political organization to urge an end to
job discrimination, lobby for passage of legislation, call for a National Employ the
Physically Handicapped Week and other initiatives” (Temple University, 2002).
 1944: “Howard Rusk began a rehabilitation program for disabled airmen at the U.S.
Army Air Force Convalescent Center in Pawling, New York [which was] dubbed ‘Rusk’s
Folly’ by the medical establishment” (Temple University, 2002).
 1946: “The National Mental Health Foundation was founded by World War II
conscientious objectors who served as attendants at state mental institutions rather than
17
in the war. The Foundation exposed the abusive conditions at these facilities and
became an impetus toward deinstitutionalization” (Temple University, 2002).
 1947: “The Paralyzed Veterans of America was organized” (Temple University, 2002).
 1948: “The National Paraplegia Foundation, founded by members of the Paralyzed
Veterans of America as the civilian arm of their growing movement, took a leading role in
advocating for disability rights” (Temple University, 2002).
 1948: “We Are Not Alone (WANA), a mental patients’ self-help group, was organized at
the Rockland State Hospital in New York City” (Temple University, 2002).
 1950: “Several local groups came together and formed the National Association for
Retarded Children (NARC). By 1960, NARC had tens of thousands of members, most
of whom were parents. They were dedicated to finding alternative forms of care and
education for their children” (Meldon, 2017).
 “Howard Rusk opened the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York
University Medical Center in New York City” and “rehabilitation medicine became a new
medical specialty” (Temple University, 2002).
 1961: “The American National Standard Institute, Inc. (ANSI) published American
Standard Specifications for Making Buildings Accessible to, and Usable by, the
Physically Handicapped. This landmark document became the basis for subsequent
architectural access codes” (Temple University, 2002).
 1963: President Kennedy called for significant and ongoing reductions in the number of
institutionalized mentally ill and mentally retarded people and “‘better health programs
and strengthened educational and rehabilitation services.’ This resulted in
deinstitutionalization and increased community services” (Temple University, 2002).
 1965: “Medicare and Medicaid were established through passage of the Social Security
Amendments of 1965, providing federally subsidized health care to disabled and elderly
Americans covered by the Social Security program. These amendments changed the
definition of disability under Social Security Disability Insurance program from ‘of long
continued and indefinite duration’ to ‘expected to last for not less than 12 months’”
(Temple University, 2002).
 1965: “Vocational Rehabilitation Amendments of 1965 were passed authorizing
federal funds for construction of rehabilitation centers, expansion of existing vocational
rehabilitation programs and the creation of the National Commission on Architectural
Barriers to Rehabilitation of the Handicapped” (Temple University, 2002).
 1968: “The Architectural Barriers Act became law in the U.S., and required all
federally owned or leased buildings to be accessible to disabled people” (Stroman,
2003).
1970s
 Rehabilitation Act of 1973
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 authorized grants to States for vocational rehabilitation
services, with special emphasis on services to those with the most severe disabilities. It
required affirmative action in employment by the federal government and by government
18
contractors and prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by

federal agencies, in programs receiving federal financial assistance, in federal employment,
and in the employment practices of federal contractors (Rehabilitation Act of 1973).
 Significant amendments in 1974 included a much broader definition of ‘handicapped
individual’ applicable to: employment by the federal government (Section 501),
modification or elimination of architectural and transportation barriers (Section 502),
employment by federal contractors (Section 503), and programs receiving federal
financial assistance (Section 504) that was not related to employability through
vocational rehabilitation services (Rehabilitation Act of 1973).
 The social model of disability was “central to the interpretation of the fundamental civil
rights statute for handicapped citizens, the 1973 Rehabilitation Act’s Section 504, which
protects them from discrimination in federally funded programs” (Longmore, 1987, p.
362). “For the first time in history, civil rights of people with disabilities were protected by
law” (Anti-Defamation League, 2019).
 “Several sections of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which specifically address disability
discrimination, are especially important to the disability rights movement. Section 501
supports people with disabilities in the federal workplace and in any organization
receiving federal tax dollars. Section 503 requires affirmative action, which supports
employment and education for members of traditionally disadvantaged minority groups.
Section 504 prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in the workplace
and in their programs and activities. Section 508 guarantees equal or comparable
access to technological information and data for people with disabilities” (Meldon, 2017).
 “Adaptive devices and services (e.g., wheelchairs and sign language interpreters) had
been considered special benefits to those who were fundamentally dependent and
incapacitated. 504 moved beyond these social welfare notions by viewing such devices
and services as simply different modes of functioning and departed from traditional civil
rights concepts by defining them as legitimate permanent differential treatment
necessary to achieve and maintain equal access. This perspective was the heart of the
emerging disability rights ideology” (Longmore, 1987, pp. 362-363).
 “Key language in the Rehabilitation Act, found in Section 504, states ‘No otherwise
qualified handicapped individual in the United States, shall, solely by reason of his
handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be
subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial
assistance’” (Temple University, 2002).
 However, “the 504 regulations perpetuated differential treatment by rejecting, for
reasons of political and financial expediency, a standard of total architectural
accessibility, in favor of ‘program accessibility’: all federally supported activities, but not
all facilities, must be accessible” (Longmore, 1987, p. 362).
 Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975

 “In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed to guarantee equal
access to public education for children with disabilities. This [Act] specified that every
child had a right to education, and mandated the full inclusion of children with disabilities
19
in mainstream education classes, unless a satisfactory level of education could not be

achieved due to the nature of the child’s disability” (Anti-Defamation League, 2019).
 “The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was renamed in 1990 to the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which further elaborated on the
inclusion of children with disabilities into regular classes, but also focused on the rights
of parents to be involved in the educational decisions affecting their children. IDEA
required that an Individual Education Plan be designed with parental approval to meet
the educational needs of a child with a disability” (Anti-Defamation League, 2019).
 The Disability Rights Movement in the 1970s

“In the 1970s, the disability rights movement rejected institutionalized perspectives and
practices. It secured passage of federal laws prohibiting discrimination in federally funded
programs, guaranteeing the right of equal access to public places and public transportation,
establishing the right of developmentally disabled citizens to appropriate treatment and
habilitation, and establishing the right of children with disabilities to public education”
(Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
Physically disabled activists created independent living arrangements for those with physical
disabilities, while the advocates for people with mental disabilities … pressed for
independent living or community-based group living arrangements. Their lobbying prompted
Congress to pass laws and to approve appropriations for the resources to achieve these
ends” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
 1970: “Developmental Disabilities Services and Facilities Construction
Amendments were passed which contained the first legal definition of developmental
disabilities. They authorized grants for services and facilities for the rehabilitation of
people with developmental disabilities and state DD Councils” (Temple University,
2002).
 1970: “The Physically Disabled Students Program (PDSP) was founded … at UC
Berkeley. With its focus on community living, political advocacy and personal assistance
services, it became the nucleus for the first Center for Independent Living, founded in
1972” (Temple University, 2002).
 1971: “The National Center for Law and the Handicapped was founded at the
University of Notre Dame, Indiana. It became the first legal advocacy center for people
with disabilities in the U. S.” (Temple University, 2002).
 1972: “The U.S. District Court, District of Columbia ruled in Mills v. Board of Education
that the District of Columbia could not exclude disabled children from the public schools.
The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in PARC v. Pennsylvania
struck down various state laws used to exclude disabled children from the public
schools. Advocates cited these decisions during public hearings that led to the passage
of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975” (Temple University, 2002).
 1973: “The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities advocated for passage of what
became the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975 and the
Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975” (Temple University, 2002).
20
 1973: “Handicap parking stickers were introduced in Washington, D.C.” (Temple

University, 2002).
 “The Federal-Aid Highway Act authorized federal funds for construction of curb cuts”
 “The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board established
under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 enforced the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968”
 1975; “The American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities was founded. It became
the leading national cross-disability rights organization of the 1970s” (Temple University,
2002).
 1975: “The Association of Persons with Severe Handicaps (TASH) was founded by
special education professionals in response to PARC v. Pennsylvania (1972) and other
right-to-education cases. This organization called for the end of aversive behavior
modification and the closing of all residential institutions for people with disabilities”
 1977: “The White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals drew 3,000
disabled people to discuss federal policy toward people with disabilities. It resulted in
numerous recommendations and acted as a catalyst for grassroots disability rights
organizing” (Temple University, 2002).
 1977: “In Lloyd v. Regional Transportation Authority, the U.S. Court of Appeals,
Seventh Circuit ruled that individuals have a right to sue under Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and that public transit authorities must provide accessible
service. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, in Snowden v. Birmingham Jefferson
County Transit Authority undermined this decision by ruling that authorities need to
provide access only to ‘handicapped persons other than those confined to wheelchairs’”
 1978: “Handicapping America by Frank Bowe was a comprehensive review of the
policies and attitudes denying equal citizenship to people with disabilities. It became a
standard text of the general disability rights movement” (Temple University, 2002).
“In the 1970, federal courts issued landmark rulings protecting the civil rights of Americans
with disabilities…” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83). With the passage of such laws, for the first time
in history disabled people had the right to sue because of discriminatory treatment. But the
remarkable accomplishments of the disability rights movement can only be properly
understood if the opposition to them is also considered.
 “At every step, this series of political actions met massive resistance. Between 1973
and 1977, the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations delayed implementing § 504, the
fundamental civil rights law for Americans with disabilities” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
 “The regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 were written but not
implemented. In 1977, the disability rights community was tired of waiting, and
demanded that President Carter sign the regulations. Instead, a task force was
appointed to review them. Afraid that the review would weaken the protections of the
Act, the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD) insisted they be enacted
21
as written by 5 April 1977, or the coalition would take action. When the date arrived and
the regulations remained unsigned, people across the country protested by sitting-in at
federal offices of Health, Education, and Welfare (the agency responsible for the review).
In San Francisco, the sit-in at the Federal Building lasted until April 28, when the
regulations were finally signed, unchanged” (Meldon, 2017; Longmore, 1987, p. 363).
 “Higher education vigorously opposed compliance with § 504 [and] public transit
authorities in all but a few cities resisted making transportation systems accessible…”
(Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
 “Opposition to the disability rights agenda also arose in society at large. In some
localities, attempts to establish small group homes for adults with developmental
disabilities met with protests, lawsuits, and threats, even vandalism, beatings, and fire
bombings” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
1980s
 World Health Organization 1980 International Classification of Impairments,
Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH)
The 1980 International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH),
published by the World Health Organization, was intended to be a companion to the
International Statistical Classification of Diseases. Injuries, and Causes of Death (lCD). The
ICD was used by health care providers to classify diseases, and the ICIDH was intended to
be used to classify the consequences of disease (WHO, 1980, p. 1).
 The ICD was based on the medical model of illness, “which conceptualized disease as a
sequence of etiology, leading to pathology, leading to manifestation” (WHO, 1980, p.
10). In the ICIDH, consistent with the medical model, the consequences of disease were
“conceptualized as disease, leading to impairment, leading to disability, leading to
handicap” (WHO, 1980, p. 11).
 The manual contained “three distinct and independent classifications, each relating to a
different plane of experience consequent upon disease” (WHO, 1980, p. 13).
 Impairments were “concerned with abnormalities of body structure and appearance and
with organ or system function, resulting from any cause; in principle, impairments
represent disturbances at the organ level” (WHO, 1980, p. 14).
 Disabilities were seen as “the consequences of impairment in terms of functional
performance and activity by the individuals; disabilities thus represent disturbance at the
level of the person” (WHO, 1980, p. 14).
 The ICIDH further defined disability as “any restriction or lack (resulting from an
impairment) of ability to perform an activity in a manner or within the range considered
normal for a human being” (WHO, 1980, p. 28).
 The ICIDH cautioned that “disability is concerned with what happens … in a relatively
neutral way, rather than with the absolute or ideal and any judgements that may attach
thereto. To say that someone has a disability is to preserve neutrality, nuances of
interpretation in regard to his potential still being possible. However, statements
phrased in terms of being rather than having tend to be more categorical and
22
disadvantageous. Thus to say that someone is disabled, as if this were an adequate

description of that individual, is to risk being dismissive and invoking stigma” (WHO,
1980, p. 28).
 Handicaps were “concerned with the disadvantages experienced by the individual as a
result of impairments and disabilities; handicaps thus reflect interaction with and
adaptation to the individual's surroundings” (WHO, 1980, p. 14).
 The ICIDH stressed that “the Handicap classification is radically different from all other
lCD-related classifications. The items are not classified according to individuals or their
attributes but rather according to the circumstances in which people with disabilities are
likely to find themselves, circumstances that can be expected to place such individuals
at a disadvantage in relation to their peers when viewed from the norms of society”
(WHO, 1980, p. 14).
 The ICIDH integrated the concepts of disease and the consequences of disease in the
following way: A disease or disorder was an intrinsic condition, an impairment was an
exteriorized condition, a disability was an objectified condition, and a handicap was a
socialized condition (WHO, 1980, p. 30).
 The ICIDH conceptualized this relationship from the perspective of the medical model,
which is reflected in their conclusion that “[t]he great value of presenting the concepts in
this way is that a problem-solving sequence is portrayed…” (WHO, 1980, p. 30).
Neither the medical model nor the ICIDH takes into consideration that “…many chronically ill
or disabled people do not consider themselves as sick. Furthermore, the ‘sick role’
approach fails to take account of the vital distinction between impairment and sickness”
(Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3). “Many disabled people are not sick, but have ongoing
impairments that do not present as daily health problems” (Llewellyn, Agu, & Mercer, 2005,
as quoted by Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 3).
 The Disability Rights Movement in the 1980s

During the 1980s, a number of cases that resulted from enactment of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973 and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 reached the Supreme
Court. Throughout the 1980s, “disability rights activists continued to press for civil rights
laws and public policies that would uphold the rights to equal access, education, medical
and supportive services, employment, and family life. That effort culminated with the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
 1981: “The Telecommunications for the Disabled Act mandated telephone access for
deaf and hard-of-hearing people at public places like hospitals and police stations. All
coin-operated telephones had to be hearing aid-compatible by January 1985. The Act
called for state subsidies for production and distribution of TDD’s” (Temple University,
2002).
 1983: “The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) was founded by Max
Starkloff, Charlie Carr and Marca Bristo” (Temple University, 2002).
 1984: The U.S. Supreme Court, in “Irving Independent School District v. Tatro ruled
that school districts are required under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of
1975 to provide intermittent catheterization performed by the school nurse or a nurse’s
23
aide as a ‘related service’ to a disabled student. School districts can no longer refuse to
educate a disabled child because they might need such service” (Temple University,
2002).
 1984: “The National Council of the Handicapped became an independent federal
agency” (Temple University, 2002).
 1984: “The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act mandated that
polling places be accessible” (Temple University, 2002).
 1985: “The Mental Illness Bill of Rights Act required states to provide protection and
advocacy services for people with psychological disabilities” (Temple University, 2002).
 1985: “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Burlington School Committee v. Department
of Education that schools must pay the expenses of disabled children enrolled in
private programs during litigation under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act
of 1975, if the courts ruled that such placement is needed to provide the child with an
appropriate education in the least restrictive environment” (Temple University, 2002).
 1985: “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center
that localities cannot use zoning laws to prohibit group homes for people with
developmental disabilities from opening in a residential area solely because its residents
are disabled” (Temple University, 2002).
 1988: “The Air Carrier Access Act was passed prohibiting airlines from refusing to
serve people simply because they are disabled and from charging people with
disabilities more for airfare than non-disabled travelers” (Temple University, 2002).
 1988: “The Fair Housing Act amendments prohibited housing discrimination against
people with disabilities and families with children. It also provided for architectural
accessibility of certain new housing units, renovation of existing units and accessibility
modifications at the renter’s [not the tenant’s] expense” (Temple University, 2002).
 1988: “The Technology-Related Assistance Act for Individuals with Disabilities was
passed authorizing federal funding to state projects designed to facilitate access to
assistive technology” (Temple University, 2002).
 1988: “The Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of
Americans with Disabilities was created by Rep. Major R. Owens, with Justin Dart and
Elizabeth Boggs, co-chairs. The Task Force began building grassroots support for
passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)” (Temple University, 2002).
 In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court, in “Honig v. Doe … affirmed the stay-put rule
established under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. School
authorities cannot expel or suspend or otherwise move disabled children from the setting
agreed upon in the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) without a due process
hearing” (Temple University, 2002).
The disability rights movement had achieved enactment of historic civil rights legislation in
the 1970s, but this did not mean that the deeply ingrained cultural biases and personal
prejudices of Americans were instantly transformed. Resistance to their efforts and to equal
access by and equal treatment of disabled people continued throughout the 1980s.
24
 From 1981 to 1984: “The Reagan administration threatened to amend or revoke

regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the
Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. Disability rights advocates … led an
intense lobbying and grassroots campaign that generated more than 40,000 cards and
letters. After three years, the Reagan Administration abandoned its attempts to revoke or
amend the regulations” (Temple University, 2002).
 From 1981 to 1984: “The Reagan Administration terminated the Social Security benefits
of hundreds of thousands of disabled recipients. Distressed by this action, several
disabled people committed suicide. A variety of groups including the Alliance of Social
Security Disability Recipients and the Ad Hoc Committee on Social Security Disability
fought these terminations” (Temple University, 2002).
 During the 1980s, the Supreme Court “repeatedly restricted the scope of [the 1970s civil
rights legislation], among other things, limiting the right of persons with disabilities to
education, the right of people with mental disabilities to live in the community, and the
right of infants with disabilities to medical treatment” (Longmore, 1995, p. 83).
 1987: “Justin Dart, Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, was
forced to resign after he testified to the U.S. Congress that ‘an inflexible federal system,
like the society it represents, still contains a significant portion of individuals who have
not yet overcome obsolete, paternalistic attitudes toward disability...’” (Temple
University, 2002).
In contrast to the US resistance to change, “the 1980s were pivotal in disability discourse
and activism, globally. Along with the emergence of [the] social model of disability in the
early 1980s, 1981 was the UN-decreed International Year of Disabled Persons, 1983-1992
was the UN Decade of Disabled Persons, Universal Design (UD) arrived in 1984, and the
UN Convention [on the] Rights of the Child encompassing children with disability was
adopted in 1989” (Jackson, 2018, p. 16).
1990s
 Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 “provided comprehensive civil rights protection
for people with disabilities. Closely modeled after the Civil Rights Act and Section 504, the
law was the most sweeping disability rights legislation in history. It mandated that local,
state and federal governments and programs be accessible, that businesses with more than
15 employees make ‘reasonable accommodations’ for disabled workers and that public
accommodations such as restaurants and stores make ‘reasonable modifications’ to ensure
access for disabled members of the public. The act also mandated access in public
transportation, communication, and in other areas of public life” (Temple University, 2002).
 In the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, one of the key findings of Congress was
that “individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular minority who have been faced
with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment,
and relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society, based on
characteristics that are beyond the control of such individuals and resulting from
stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the individual ability of such individuals to
participate in, and contribute to, society” (ADA, 1990, Sec. 12101(a)(7)).
25
 Congress adopted the definition of a handicapped individual from the 1974 amendments
to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, substituting the term ‘disability’ for ‘handicapped.’ The
ADA defined ‘disability’ as: “…with respect to an individual – (A) a physical or mental
impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such
individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such an
impairment” (ADA, 1990, Sec. 12102(2)).
 Title I bans disability discrimination in employment, requires that covered employers
must provide reasonable accommodations for disabled employees, and delegates
regulatory and enforcement authority over Title I to the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. Title II prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs and
services provided by all public entities, public transportation, and state and local public
housing. Title III specifies the same protections for all public accommodations and
commercial facilities provided by private entities, including use of service animals. Title
IV covers telecommunication relay services for the hearing- and speech-impaired, and
mandates provision of functionally equivalent services for disabled people. Title V
includes special rules for insurance providers, prohibits retaliation or coercion, and
contains various miscellaneous provisions (ADA, 1990, Sec. 12111-12117; Befort &
Thomas, 1999, p. 32).
 The Disability Rights Movement Continued After the ADA

From a global perspective, “the 1990s saw an expanded commitment to disability
antidiscrimination legislation, for example, the [US] ADA, the Australian DDA, and the UK
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (now the Equality Act 2010) (Jackson, 2018, p. 16).
However, passage of the ADA did not automatically eliminate stereotypes and assumptions
about disabled people, remove employment discrimination and media bias, or improve
access to buildings, transportation, and affordable insurance. The disability rights
movement continued to make progress in some court cases, but the general trend of court
decisions was slowly eroding the protections of the ADA (National Council on Disability,
2004).
 1993: “Holland v. Sacramento City Unified School District affirmed the right of
disabled children to attend public school classes with non-disabled children. The ruling
was a major victory in the ongoing effort to ensure enforcement of IDEA” (Temple
University, 2002).
 1995: “Justice for All was organized by Justin Dart and others in Washington, D.C., in
order to advocate against calls to amend or repeal the Americans with Disabilities Act
and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act” (Temple University, 2002).
 1995: “The American Association of People with Disabilities was founded in
Washington, D.C.” (Temple University, 2002).
 1995: “The U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit in Helen L. v. Snider ruled that
continued institutionalization of a disabled Pennsylvania woman, when not medically
necessary and where there is the option of home care, was a violation of her rights
under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Disability rights advocates perceived
this ruling as a landmark decision regarding the rights of people in nursing homes to
personal assistance services” (Temple University, 2002).
26
 1996: “Not Dead Yet, formed by disabled advocates to oppose those who support
assisted suicide for people with disabilities, focused on the idea of rationing health care
to people with severe disabilities and imposition of “do not resuscitate” (DNR) orders for
disabled people in hospitals, schools, and nursing homes” (Temple University, 2002).
 1999: In Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc. (97-1943) 527 U.S. 471 (1999), the Supreme
Court ruled that “determination of disability under the ADA should be made in reference
to an individual's ability to mitigate his or her impairment through corrective measures.”
The Court based this determination, in part, on their conclusion that Congress had not
intended the ADA to include everyone with correctable impairments (Sutton, 1999).
 2001: Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356
(2001), was a Supreme Court case contesting Congress’s enforcement powers under
the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled that Title I
of the ADA was unconstitutional, insofar as it allowed states to be sued by private
citizens for money damages (Board of Trustees, 2001).
 2002: In Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184 (2002),
the Supreme Court interpreted the meaning of the phrase "substantially impairs" in the
ADA differently than lower courts. Based on the Justices’ interpretation, the Supreme
Court reversed the decision by the Court of Appeals to grant a partial summary judgment
in favor of Ella Williams, which had qualified her inability to perform manual job-related
tasks as a disability (Toyota, 2002).
 2002: In the Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines, Co., 227 F. Supp. 2d 1312 (S.D.
Fla. 2002), the US District Court ruled that Southwest Airlines’ website was not a ‘place
of public accommodation’ as defined in Title III of the ADA because the ADA concerns
physical barriers and thus does not govern cyberspace. The court ruled that because
Southwest Airlines’ website was a virtual construct, “To expand the ADA to cover ‘virtual’
spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards” (Access, 2002).
 2002: In US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391 (2002), the Supreme Court ruled
“that a requested accommodation ordinarily will be unreasonable if it conflicts with a
seniority system, even if the employer has imposed that system unilaterally and is under
no contractual obligation to maintain it” (Silvers, 2005, pp. 571-572). With this and
similar rulings in ADA cases, the Court stigmatized reasonable accommodations for the
disabled by conceptualizing them as preferential treatment (Silvers, 2005, p. 572).
 Such rulings prompted the National Council on Disabilities (NCD) to conclude that
“…some decisions and opinions of the Supreme Court have unduly narrowed the broad
scope of protection afforded in the ADA, have eliminated or narrowed remedies meant to
be available under the Act, and have recognized certain defenses that run counter to the
purposes of the Act” (National Council on Disability, 2004).
 Specific examples cited by the NCD included that “contrary to carefully crafted language
in the ADA, the Supreme Court has recognized a reasonableness standard for
reasonable accommodation distinct from the undue hardship standard that Congress
had imposed; … [and] contrary to congressional intent, the Supreme Court has made
the reasonable accommodation rights of workers with disabilities under the ADA
subordinate to seniority rights of other employees…” (National Council on Disability,
27
2004). The NCD’s review of these court cases and the concerns they prompted
ultimately led Congress to enact the ADA Amendments Act of 2008.
2000s
 World Health Organization 2001 International Classification of Functioning, Disability,
and Health
In the 2001 International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), WHO
took a fundamentally different approach to disability than in the 1980 ICIDH. Significantly
departing from the medical model, the ICF no longer used a “normal” person as the
standard for comparison and no longer defined disability as an abnormal condition. (WHO,
2001). This change reflected the widespread acceptance of the social model of disability.
 “As a classification, ICF systematically groups different domains for a person in a given
health condition (e.g. what a person with a disease or disorder does do or can do).
Functioning is an umbrella term encompassing all body functions, activities and
participation; similarly, disability serves as an umbrella term for impairments, activity
limitations or participation restrictions” (WHO, 2001, p. 3).
 “ICF also lists environmental factors that interact with all these constructs. In this way, it
enables the user to record useful profiles of individuals’ functioning, disability and health
in various domains” (WHO, 2001, p. 3).
“The ICF approach distinguishes that everyone has areas of more or less functional ability”
(McDowell, 2013). The ICF presents disability “as a continuum of achievement that
considers the complex relationship between health, mobility, and participation in social
activities” (Lowry, Vallejo, & Studenski, 2012).
 United Nations 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)
“The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and
approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing
persons with disabilities as ‘objects’ of charity, medical treatment and social protection
towards viewing persons with disabilities as ‘subjects’ with rights, who are capable of
claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed
consent as well as being active members of society” (UNCRPD, 2006).
 “The purpose of the … Convention [was] to promote, protect and ensure the full and
equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with
disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity” (UNCRPD, 2006, Article 1).
 “Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual
or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full
and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others” (UNCRPD, 2006,
Article 1).
 “‘Discrimination on the basis of disability’ means any distinction, exclusion or restriction
on the basis of disability which has the purpose or effect of impairing or nullifying the
recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal basis with others, of all human rights
and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other
28
field. It includes all forms of discrimination, including denial of reasonable

accommodation;
 “‘Reasonable accommodation’ means necessary and appropriate modification and
adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a
particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an
equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms;
 “‘Universal design’ means the design of products, environments, programmes and
services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for
adaptation or specialized design. ‘Universal design’ shall not exclude assistive devices
for particular groups of persons with disabilities where this is needed” (UNCRPD, 2006,
Article 2).
“There is no doubt that in its various explicit and implicit references, the UNCRPD effectively
requires all the built environment to be accessible for people with disability of all ages.
Disability advocates believe that the UNCRPD’s rights-based sociopolitical approach to
barrier removal will engender both nondiscrimination and social inclusion” (Berghs et al.,
2016, as quoted by Jackson, 2018, p. 16).
 ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA)

The ADA Amendment Act of 2008 came about after the National Council on Disability (NCD)
conducted a two-year “…in-depth analysis of the Supreme Court's interpretations of the
ADA [which] determined that, while some of the Court's decisions have clearly liberated
people with disabilities, … several of the Court's rulings involving the ADA depart from the
core principles and objectives of the ADA” (National Council on Disability, 2004).
 The NCD found that “…courts all too often have been out of step with the congressional,
presidential, and public consensus in favor of ADA objectives, and have taken
antagonistic and restrictive approaches to the ADA. In particular, a string of decisions by
the Supreme Court has significantly diminished the civil rights of people with disabilities.
Such rulings of the Court and the attendant harmful media portrayals of the ADA have
had a detrimental impact on the lives of many Americans with disabilities, threatening a
return to second-class citizenship” (National Council on Disability, 2004).
 NCD concluded that “…legislation is necessary to return the ADA to the breadth of
coverage, the array of remedies, and the finely calibrated balance of standards and
defenses Congress intended when it enacted the Act” (National Council on Disability,
2004). NCD submitted their report to the President of the United States on December 1,
2004 (National Council on Disability, 2004) and the concerns raised by NCD eventually
resulted in the ADA Amendments Act of 2008.
The full title of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 was “An Act to restore the intent and
protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990” (ADAAA, 2008). The amendment
was necessary because “while Congress expected that the definition of disability under the
ADA would be interpreted consistently with how courts had applied the definition of a
handicapped individual under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, that expectation has not been
fulfilled” (ADAAA, 2008, Sec. 2(a)(3)).
29
 The intent of the ADAAA of 2008 was “to carry out the ADA’s objectives of providing ‘a
clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination’ and
‘clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination’ by reinstating
a broad scope of protection to be available under the ADA” (ADAAA, 2008, Sec. 2(b)(1)).
 The ADAAA of 2008 was also enacted specifically to overturn two controversial
Supreme Court decisions based on interpretations of the ADA that “narrowed the broad
scope of protection intended to be afforded by the ADA, thus eliminating protection for
many individuals whom Congress intended to protect” (ADAAA, 2008, Sec. 2(a)(4)).
 Furthermore, “…as a result of these Supreme Court cases, lower courts have incorrectly
found in individual cases that people with a range of substantially limiting impairments
are not people with disabilities” (ADAAA, 2008, Sec. 2(a)(6)). In effect, the courts found
that an individual with a significant physical or mental impairment that would qualify as
‘substantially limiting a major life activity’ under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 did not,
according to the court’s interpretations, qualify as disabled under the ADA.
 Congress found that “the Supreme Court … interpreted the term ‘substantially limits’ to
require a greater degree of limitation than was intended by Congress” (ADAAA, 2008,
Sec. 2(a)(7)) and that “the current Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ADA
regulations defining the term ‘substantially limits’ as ‘significantly restricted’ are
inconsistent with congressional intent, by expressing too high a standard” (ADAAA,
2008, Sec. 2(a)(8)).
 Contrary to the narrow definitions the courts had used, the ADAAA of 2008 made it clear
that Congress’ intent in the ADA had been for the protections under the ADA and other
Federal disability nondiscrimination laws to be applied as broadly as possible to the
greatest number and types of disabled people.
 To ensure that their intent could not be ignored in the future, Congress kept verbatim the
ADA's basic definition of ‘disability’ in the ADAAA of 2008, but expanded the definition
section in the ADAAA to include explicit definitions of the terms ‘major life activities’ and
‘regarded as having such an impairment’ and added a section specifying ‘rules of
construction regarding the definition of disability’ (ADAAA, 2008, Sec. 4).
 The ADAAA of 2008 also explicitly stated “that it is the intent of Congress that the
primary object of attention in cases brought under the ADA should be whether entities
covered under the ADA have complied with their obligations, and to convey that the
question of whether an individual's impairment is a disability under the ADA should not
demand extensive analysis” (ADAAA, 2008, Sec. 2(b)(5)).
The ADAAA of 2008 was necessary because, in case after case, the courts had focused on
the technical definition of disability and on determining whether or not the person was
disabled and had never gotten to the question of whether discrimination actually occurred.
In today’s political rhetoric, those who have ears to hear will discern the unmistakable
echoes of the rhetoric that spawned the eugenics movement. “Lately we have seen public
displays of contempt for the disabled, and a chorus of hate for people who violate conventional
sexual norms. We hear daily about the need to eradicate social welfare programs that are
focused on addressing crime, poverty, and disease, and the nation’s attention is now focused
on an open campaign to amplify the rhetoric of decay and fear to justify closing the borders
30
against people whose presence could threaten the majority white demographic balance. We
also hear the old mantra: all of this must be done to make us safe in future generations and
lower our taxes today” (Lombardo, 2018, pp. 1309-1310). We have been down this road before
and its effects are still being felt today.
Efforts to undo the legal protections afforded by the ADA did not end with the passage of
the ADAAA. Just last year, the US House of Representatives passed the ADA Education and
Reform Act, which, “if enacted, would essentially gut the ADA’s provisions dealing with public
accommodations by removing any incentive that businesses have to comply with the law before
a complaint is filed…. Under the bill, those wishing to sue businesses in federal court over an
ADA public-accommodations violation must first deliver a written notice to that business
detailing the illegal barrier to access and then give that business 60 days to come up with a plan
to address the complaints and an additional 60 days to take action” (DeBonis, 2018).
Why is it still necessary, 29 years after the passage of the ADA, to sue for compliance?
Why must people with disabilities—the disenfranchised and discriminated against, who typically
have the fewest resources—bear the legal and financial burden of attempted enforcement?
Summary and Future Directions

“Disability is everywhere in history, once you begin looking for it, but conspicuously
absent in the histories we write” (Baynton, 1996, p. 52). “Historians have scrutinized the
attribution of mental and physical inferiority based on race and ethnicity, but only to condemn
the slander. With their attention confined to ethnic stereotypes, they have largely ignored what
the attribution of disability might also tell us about attitudes toward disabled people. Racial and
ethnic prejudice is exposed while prejudice against people with disabilities is passed over as
insignificant and understandable” (Baynton, p. 50). Moreover, “[t]he conceptual revolution that
rejected stereotyping women’s differences as marks of inferiority did not extend to disabled
individuals’ differences, which still are thought of as deviations that make them defective”
(Silvers, 2005, p. 578).
“When historians do take note of disability, they usually treat it merely as personal
tragedy or an insult to be deplored and a label to be denied, rather than as a cultural construct
to be questioned and explored” (Baynton, 1996, p. 52). In truth, “disability is a socially
constructed disadvantage, which is, in a very real sense, imposed on people with disabilities,
constituting ‘a particular form of social oppression’” (Retief & Letšosa, 2018, p. 4). “Rarely have
oppressed groups denied that disability is an adequate justification for social and political
inequality. Thus, while disabled people can be considered one of the minority groups
historically assigned inferior status and subjected to discrimination, disability has functioned for
all such groups as a sign of and justification for inferiority” (Baynton, 2017, p. 34).
“A principal problem in establishing the concept of disabled persons as an oppressed
group has been the prevalent assumptions of their biological inferiority…. [M]any professional
as well as popular images of disabled individuals continue to harbor presuppositions of
inferiority based on their functional incapacities. Consequently, it has been commonly
overlooked that the origins of prejudice are based on widespread perceptions that disabled
individuals violate important cultural norms and values, and that this fact permits them to be set
apart from the remainder of the population” (Hahn, 1988, p. 41).
31
“The fine line between ‘handicapped’ and ‘normal’ has been arbitrarily drawn by the
‘normal’ majority. Frequently, the various disabilities called ‘handicaps’ have nothing in common
except the label itself” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, p. 858). “Unlike other disadvantaged groups,
citizens with disabilities have not yet fully succeeded in refuting the presumption that their
subordinate status can be ascribed to an innate biological inferiority” (Hahn, 1996, as quoted by
Baynton, 1996, p. 51). Because of this ongoing othering, based on supposed inferiority, “… a
majority of Americans with disabilities have come to view themselves as members of a
stigmatized minority group” (Longmore, 1995, p. 82).
“Handicapped persons are a distinct minority, frequently isolated from the rest of society.
They bear the brunt of social prejudice and tend to be actively and passively cut off from the
political process. Handicaps have traditionally meant social opprobrium and stigmatization for
those afflicted. Indeed, ostracism of handicapped individuals is one of ‘normal’ society's
standard practices” (Burgdorf & Burgdorf, 1975, pp. 907-908). In 1985, Justice Thurgood
Marshall rightly said that the historical treatment of people with disabilities was “a regime of
state-mandated segregation and degradation … that in its virulence and bigotry rivaled, and
indeed paralleled, the worst excesses of Jim Crow” (Silvers, 2005, p. 579).
“Unlike racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, disabled people experience attacks cloaked
in pity accompanied by a widely held perception that no one wishes them ill. Yet while people in
many other marginal groups have campaigned with some success to change their public image,
disability carries a negative social charge still supported by dominant cultural assumptions
across the economic, political, and intellectual spectrum” (Kudlick, 2003, p. 768). “The
legislative history of the ADA is replete with testimony about the extent to which disabled people
pay the price of forfeited opportunity for being ascribed to a group that is misrecognized as
incompetent and burdensome” (Silvers, p. 578).
“To be associated with disabled people or with the accommodations accorded disabled
people is stigmatizing…. Deaf people throughout the twentieth century have rejected the label of
disability, knowing its dangers; and the tendency of those with less-stigmatized disabilities to
distance themselves from those with more highly stigmatized disabilities is a common
phenomenon…. This common strategy for attaining equal rights, which seeks to distance one’s
own group from imputations of disability and therefore tacitly accepts the idea that disability is a
legitimate reason for inequality, is perhaps one of the factors responsible for making
discrimination against people with disabilities so persistent and the struggle for disability rights
so difficult” (Baynton, 1996, p. 51).
Although the social model has reframed the definition of disability, “the socio-political
approach indicates the need for strengthened laws to combat discrimination against persons
with disabilities…. [It] “emphasizes that the functional demands exerted on human beings by the
environment are fundamentally determined by public policy. The present forms of architectural
structures and social institutions exist because statutes, ordinances, and codes either required
or permitted them to be constructed in that manner. These public policies imply values,
expectations, and assumptions about the physical and behavioral attributes that people ought to
possess in order to survive or to participate in community life. [Thus] characteristics of the
environment that have a discriminatory effect on disabled citizens cannot be considered simply
coincidental…. They represent the consequences of prior policy decisions” (Hahn, 1988, p. 40).
32
In addition, “awareness that the environment is basically molded by past and present
public policy suggests public attitudes as a crucial component of the surroundings with which
disabled people must contend. From a minority-group perspective, many of their difficulties can
be traced to the attitudinal environment of society” (Hahn, 1988, p. 40). “Yet policy makers and
courts usually have been reluctant to implement the principle of equality by mandating
environmental modifications in response to people’s clinically demonstrable organic defects or
deficiencies” (Hahn, p. 40). These persistent public attitudes are not only reflected in the
decades-long resistance to voluntary implementation of ADA standards by both public and
private enterprises and the ongoing reluctance to mandate compliance by policy makers and
courts, but also by the recently passed House bill that actually “permits entities to discriminate
with impunity until victims experience that discrimination and educate the entities perpetrating it
about their obligations not to discriminate” (DeBonis, 2018).
Public attitudes also extend to discriminatory employment practices as evidenced by
decades of disproportionately high rates of unemployment among the disabled. “Historically,
disabled people suffered [discrimination] through lack of accommodation to their differences….
[which] resulted in exclusion from, or inferior treatment in, the workforce” (Silvers, 2005, p. 561).
By prohibiting employment discrimination, the ADA theoretically establishes equal access and
opportunity by eliminating exclusion and inferior treatment, but inexplicably, the courts have
viewed providing such accommodation as preferential treatment. “The [Supreme] Court
conceptualizes reasonably accommodating disabled individuals in the workforce as a particular
kind of preference that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to extend to
members of the disabled group at the expense of members of other groups or of the general
public. By invoking the specter of losses to nondisabled coworkers, the Court’s account invites
the pernicious, but familiar, objection that affirming minority groups by accommodating their
differences is reverse discrimination” (Silvers, p. 561).
Whether attitudinal, physical, or organizational, barriers to access perpetuate ostracism
and isolation of people with disabilities. It seems obvious that people with disabilities simply
have different access requirements which, if met, enable full participation in civic and social life,
but “for hundreds of years of modern history, almost no thought was given to the possibility that
human capabilities could be increased by altering the environment in which people lived” (Hahn,
1988, p. 43). Barriers to access include “…environments built on the assumption that everyone
is young, strong, tireless, healthy, of similar size and shape, independent, and with all physical
and mental components and in perfect working order” (Kudlick, 2003, p. 769). Thus “…the
power of the built environment over people’s lives and its discriminatory ability, through design
and planning mechanisms, [continues] to segregate thereby reducing opportunity and
autonomy” (Schindler, 2015, as cited by Jackson, 2018, p. 16).
Lack of accessibility in the US is not due to lack of knowledge about how to remove
barriers. In 1961, “American National Standard Institute, Inc. (ANSI) published American
Standard Specifications for Making Buildings Accessible to, and Usable by, the Physically
Handicapped. This landmark document became the basis for subsequent architectural access
codes” (Temple University, 2002). The ANSI A117.1 standard was adopted by the US federal
government General Services Administration under 35 FR 4814 (1970), 39 FR 23214 (1974), 43
FR 16478 ABA (1978), 44 FR 39393 (1979), and 46 FR 39436 (1981).
33
Barrier-free design is widely used in other countries. “Soon after its establishment in
1993, the European Institute for Design and Disability (EIDD) developed the mission statement:
‘Enhancing the quality of life through Design for All’” which led to the Design for All Declaration
at EIDD’s annual meeting in Stockholm in 2004 (European Institute for Design and Disability,
2004). The Scandinavian ideas of functionalism, ergonomic design, and accessibility were
“streamlined into the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for
Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1993…
Comparable concepts have developed in parallel in other parts of the world. The Americans
with Disabilities Act contributed to the evolution of Universal Design, while Inclusive Design has
gained ground in the UK” (European Institute for Design and Disability, 2004).
There is global recognition that everyone will experience some impairment of function
during their lifetime and will need accommodation. WHO’s publication of the ICF in 2001 has
established that ability and disability are not a dichotomy but a continuum that universally
applies to humanity, with more or less functionality experienced in different domains at different
times in a person’s life. Passage of the UNCRPD reframed the inaccessibility of the built
environment as a human rights problem. The UNCRPD articulated a global recognition of
“established power imbalances constraining the ability of marginalized and/or minority groups to
fully participate in all aspects of society” (Jackson, 2018, pp. 15-16). The UNCRPD has been
ratified by more than 90% of the member states in the United Nations: as of April, 2019, the
UNCRPD had 162 signatories and 177 parties. The US signed the UNCRPD in 2009, but ten
years later, it still has not been ratified (United Nations Treaty Collection, 2019).
Unfortunately, the eugenics legacy is still deeply ingrained in the social, cultural, and
political approach to disability in the US. Lack of accessibility appears to be driven by ongoing
stigmatization and prejudice, lack of political will, and failure to enforce existing laws, policies,
and standards. Given the progress made in the rest of the world, there is no other reasonable
explanation for the fact that, 46 years after the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and 29 years after the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, people with disabilities in the US continue to face
significant barriers to access and lack of accommodation in the public and private sectors.
Despite these barriers, over the last 60 years, the disability rights movement in the US has
fought for and achieved significant progress toward obtaining for the disabled the same rights
and privileges enjoyed by ‘normal’ people for centuries. But these achievements are not a
guarantee of continued or future rights.
It must have seemed that discrimination against people with disabilities had been dealt a
mortal blow when Justin Dart proudly proclaimed, "The Americans with Disabilities Act is the
world's first declaration of equality for people with disabilities by any nation. It will proclaim to
America and to the world that people with disabilities are fully human; that paternalistic,
discriminatory, segregationist attitudes are no longer acceptable; and that hence forth people
with disabilities must be accorded the same personal respect and the same social and
economic opportunities as other people” (Alaska DHSS, 2019, Panel 15).
Not yet, Justin. Not yet.
34
References
Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines, Co., 227 F. Supp. 2d 1312 (S.D. Fla. 2002). Retrieved
from https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/227/1312/2529905/
Acton, H. B. (2019). Herbert Spencer. In Encyclopaedia britannica. Retrieved April 23, 2019,
from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herbert-Spencer
ADA Amendments Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-325, § 2, 122 Stat. 3553 (2008). Retrieved from
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-110publ325/html/PLAW-110publ325.htm
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Governor’s Council on Disabilities & Special
Education. (2019). Disability history exhibit. Retrieved April 19, 2019, from
http://dhss.alaska.gov/gcdse/pages/history/html_content_main.aspx
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as Amended, 42 U.S.C.A. § 12101 et seq. Retrieved
from https://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm
Anti-Defamation League. (2019). A brief history of the disability rights movement. Retrieved
April 20, 2019, from https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/disability-
rights-movement
Barnes, C. (1991). A brief history of discrimination and disabled people. In Disabled people in
Britain and discrimination: A case for anti-discrimination legislation (Chapter 2). London:
Hurst & Co.
Baynton, D. (1996). Forbidden signs: American culture and the campaign against sign
language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from Ebook Central
Academic Complete.
Baynton, D. C. (2017). Disability and the justification of inequality in American history. In L. J.
Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (5th ed., pp. 33-57). New York, NY: Routledge.
Befort, S. F., & Thomas, H. L. (1999). The ADA in turmoil: Judicial dissonance, the supreme
court’s response, and the future of disability discrimination law. Oregon Law Review,
78(1), 27-104. Retrieved from
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1393&context=faculty_articl
es
Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 (2001). Retrieved from
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/356/
Braddock, D. (2011). History of disability [PowerPoint presentation]. Retrieved from Coleman
Institute for Cognitive Disabilities, University of Colorado Boulder at
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Braddock/publication/311337335_History_of
_Disabilities/links/5842191908ae8e63e6219cef/History-of-Disabilities.pdf
Burgdorf, M. P., & Burgdorf, R. (1975). A history of unequal treatment: The qualifications of
handicapped persons as a “suspect class” under the equal protection clause. Santa
Clara Lawyer, 15(4), 855-910.
Carlson, E. A. (2011). The Hoosier connection: Compulsory sterilization as moral hygiene. In P.
A. Lombardo (Ed.), A century of eugenics in America: From the Indiana experiment to
35
the human genome era. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Retrieved from Ebook
Central Perpetual Titles.
Chase, L. G. (1904). Public school classes for mentally deficient children. In Proceedings of the
national conference of charities and correction. Retrieved from
https://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=1742&print=1
Crouch, B. A., & Greenwald, B. H. (2007). Hearing with the eye: The rise of deaf education in
the United States. In J. V. Van Cleve (Ed.), The deaf history reader. Washington, D.C.:
Gallaudet University Press. Retrieved from ProQuest Ebook Central.
DeBonis, M. (2018, February 15). House passes changes to Americans With Disabilities Act
over activists’ objections. The Washington Post. Retrieved February 17, 2019, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-passes-changes-to-americans-with-
disabilities-act-over-activists-objections/2018/02/15/c812c9ea-125b-11e8-9065-
e55346f6de81_story.html?utm_term=.44d8d9bcb272
Dix, D. (1843). Memorial: To the legislature of Massachusetts. Boston: Munroe & Francis.
Dorothea Dix. (2019). Encyclopaedia britannica. Retrieved April 20, 2019, from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothea-Dix
Eugenics Sterilization Compensation Program, 12 Va. Admin. Code § 35-240 (2017). Retrieved
from https://law.lis.virginia.gov/admincodeexpand/title12/agency35/chapter240
European Institute for Design and Disability. (2004, May 9). Design for All Declaration.
Retrieved from http://dfaeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/stockholm-
declaration_english.pdf
Hahn, H. (1988). The politics of physical differences: Disability and discrimination. Journal of
Social Issues, 44(1), 39-47. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1988.tb02047.x
History of Gallaudet University. (2013). Gallaudet University. Retrieved from
https://www.gallaudet.edu/Gallaudet_University/About_Gallaudet/History.html
Jackson, M. A. (2018). Models of disability and human rights: Informing the improvement of built
environment accessibility for people with disability at neighborhood scale? Laws, 7(1),
10-31. doi:10.3390/laws7010010
Kretser, H. (2017, April 26). Understanding disability: Part 2-The eugenics model. Retrieved
from https://www.drakemusic.org/blog/hdekretser/understanding-disability-part-2-the-
eugenics-model/
Kudlick, C. J. (2003). Disability history: Why we need another “other”. The American Historical
Review, 108(3), 763-793. doi:10.1086/529597
Lombardo, P. (1996). Medicine, eugenics, and the supreme court: From coercive sterilization to
reproductive freedom. The Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, 13(1), 1-25.
Lombardo, P. (2018). The power of heredity and the relevance of eugenic history. Genetics in
Medicine 20(11), 1305-1311. doi:10.1038/s41436-018-0123-4
Longmore, P. K. (1987). Uncovering the hidden history of people with disabilities. Reviews in
American History, 15(3), 355-364. doi: 10.2307/2702029
36
Longmore, P. K. (1995). Medical decision making and people with disabilities: A clash of
cultures. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 23(1), 82-87.
Lowry, K. A., Vallejo, A. N., & Studenski, S. A. (2012). Successful aging as a continuum of
functional independence: Lessons from physical disability models of aging. Aging and
Disease, 3(1), 5-15.
Mackelprang, R. W., & Salsgiver, R. O. (1996). People with disabilities and social work:
Historical and contemporary issues. Social Work, 41(1), 7-14. doi:10.1093/sw/41.1.7
McDowell, I. (2013). Disability. In L. S. Noelker, R. Schulz, K. Rockwood, & R. L. Sprott (Eds.),
Encyclopedia of aging (4th ed., pp. 319-321). New York: Springer Pub. Co.
Meldon, P. (2017, December 1). Disability history: The disability rights movement. Retrieved
April 20, 2019, from National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior at
https://www.nps.gov/articles/disabilityhistoryrightsmovement.htm
National Council on Disability. (2004). Righting the Americans with Disabilities Act. Retrieved
from https://ncd.gov/publications/2004/Dec12004
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Pub. L. 93-112, § 701, 87 Stat. 355 (1973). Retrieved from
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-87/pdf/STATUTE-87-Pg355.pdf
Retief, M. & Letšosa, R. (2018). Models of disability: A brief overview. HTS Teologiese
Studies/Theological Studies, 74(1), 1-8. doi:10.4102/hts.v74i1.4738
Silvers, A. (2005). Protection or privilege? Reasonable accommodation, reverse discrimination,
and the fair costs of repairing recognition for disabled people in the workforce. Journal of
Gender, Race, and Justice, 8(3), 561-594.
Stroman, D. (2003). The Disability Rights Movement. Washington: University Press of America.
Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc. (97-1943) 527 U.S. 471 (1999). Retrieved from
Temple University, Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Independent Living
Management. (2002). Disability History Timeline. Retrieved from
https://web.archive.org/web/20131220065328/http://isc.temple.edu/neighbor/ds/disability
rightstimeline.htm
Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184 (2002). Retrieved from
United Nations. (2006). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Retrieved February
17, 2019, from https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-
rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html
United Nations Treaty Collection: parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities: List of parties. United Nations, as available on
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-
15&chapter=4&clang=_en [April 30, 2019]
US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391 (2002). Retrieved from
37
Wilson, P. K. (2019). Eugenics. In Encyclopaedia britannica. Retrieved April 20, 2019, from
https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics
Wolfensberger, W. (1969). The origin and nature of our institutional models. In R. B. Kugel, &
W. Wolfensberger (Eds.), Changing patterns in residential services for the mentally
retarded. Washington: President's Committee on Mental Retardation. Retrieved from
https://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=1909&page=all
World Health Organization. (1980). International classification of impairments, disabilities, and
handicaps: A manual of classification relating to the consequences of disease. Retrieved
from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/41003/1/9241541261_eng.pdf
World Health Organization. (2001). International classification of functioning, disability and
health. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42407/1/9241545429.pdf
38

The Evolution of Approaches To Disability

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Evolution of Approaches To Disability

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

HEA 609: Evolution of an Intervention Rose Ewald

The Evolution of Approaches to Disability – A Brief History

The Religious Model: Disability as a Punishment for Moral Failings

Early 1800s to the Present Day

 The daily census of people institutionalized with intellectual or developmental disabilities

Beginning in the 1880s

discourage the reproduction of the undesirable (negative eugenics)” (Rhodes, 1993, as

 Eugenics Influence on Deaf Education in America

 Eugenics Laws: Cleansing the Social Fabric

 By 1907, revisions to the Immigration Act “… added ‘imbeciles’ and ‘feeble-minded

 The Effects of the Eugenics Movement Are Still With Us

1960s to the Present Day

 Social Model of Disability

 “[A] common consequence of de-institutionalization is the inability to access other built

1896 to the Present Day

contractors and prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by

 Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975

in mainstream education classes, unless a satisfactory level of education could not be

 The Disability Rights Movement in the 1970s

 1973: “Handicap parking stickers were introduced in Washington, D.C.” (Temple

disadvantageous. Thus to say that someone is disabled, as if this were an adequate

 The Disability Rights Movement in the 1980s

 From 1981 to 1984: “The Reagan administration threatened to amend or revoke

 The Disability Rights Movement Continued After the ADA

field. It includes all forms of discrimination, including denial of reasonable

 ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA)

Summary and Future Directions

You might also like