FEATURES

justfeatures

In 1972, the U.S. Senate approved the Equal Rights Amendment, which bans laws that discriminate on the basis of sex, but it was not ratifed by enough states to become part of the Constitution. The hummingbird lays the smallest egg of any bird, about the size of a pea. The ostrich egg is the largest, at approximately the size of a cantaloupe.

The Disabled Students’ Network: Creating a community for all

Last spring, Zoe Pringle ’22 and Luca Swinford ’22 created the Disabled Students’ Network — which recently hosted a panel discussion about disability in public health — in response to the lack of community spaces for disabled students at Brandeis. The Justice spoke to the students about disability justice and their goals for the club.

By MADDY DULONG

JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The Disabled Students’ Network, run by Luca Swinford ’22 and Zoe Pringle ’22, got its start in April 2021, a year after Swinford and Pringle met in the course “Disability Policy” taught by Prof. Monika Mitra (Heller) in spring 2020. It was during this class that they discovered that there wasn’t a space for the disabled community at Brandeis, and this inspired them to create one themselves. Unfortunately, these plans were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, it was during this time that Swinford and Pringle realized there needed to be a community more than ever. According to Swinford, “It was because of the conditions of COVID, how isolating it was, that we sort of realized, like, there’s no better time than to start this club right now. And so, in one way [the pandemic] delayed it, but it also kind of reinvigorated the idea for us to start a club like this.” Thus, the Disabled Students’ Network was created in April 2021 and offcially chartered in December of 2021.

This club has two main goals: the frst is to build a community for those with disabilities here on campus. “Our goal is to be a robust support system for disabled students, where we can really build that community that we might not have otherwise,” Swinford said. “We just really felt like there wasn’t any way for students to connect with each other or even fnd each other,” Pringle added, explaining, “[DSN] is just kind of like a chill space where you don’t have to necessarily come in and be super informed about anything political or social.” The biggest part of creating a community is ensuring that it is open for everyone: those of all races, ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and disabilities.

Pringle said that when developing DSN, she and Swinford emphasized incorporating the “10 Principles of Disability Justice,” which is a framework created by members of the disability-justice performance group Sins Invalid. She explained that the creators of the framework identify with a variety of intersectional and marginalized identities, along with being part of the disability community, and spoke about why these individuals decided to develop this framework: “It was them feeling excluded from a lot of general advocacy spaces and activist spaces, but also disability rights and movement spaces [which are] very predominantly white and physically-disabled dominated,” she said, and added, “[DSN] really tried to incorporate these values with the sense of community.”

Pringle mentioned that one of the biggest misconceptions about the disabled community is the idea that it isn’t diverse. “We have people with all sorts of disabilities; some people prefer to disclose their disability and are very open and others aren’t.” Both Swinford and Pringle stressed the importance of including those of all backgrounds and disabilities, because ableism affects everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or disability.

Spreading activism and disability movements on campus is the other goal of the DSN. As Swinford said, “We hope that the existence of our club will push people to examine [ableism] in their own lives because ableism impacts everyone’s life, regardless of disability status.” He explained that the club has two different visions: one for people who are disabled and one for people who are not. “Even abled people would beneft from less ableism, and disability justice movements are so tied to racial justice and anti-capitalist movements, and everything is just so interconnected,” said Pringle, explaining that the DSN hopes that their impact will reach beyond those who are already thinking about and involved with disability justice or who identify as disabled. Her hope is that this will lead able-bodied people to understand their role in fghting against ableism and for disability justice: “We need both disabled and non-disabled people to be involved for a better future. It’s not just one side or one facet of a community. We really need to include everybody.”

Pringle describes how other movements centered around marginalized identities almost always include those with disabilities, and yet it is common to see disability movements be overlooked or not taken as seriously. As she put it, “Hearing all these different things be mentioned and accounted for and looking for ways to support marginalized communities and never hearing disability mentioned, it’s kind of mind blowing, given that the disability community is one of the largest marginalized populations in the world.”

A common thread in the disabled community at Brandeis, and in general, is the frustration at the lack of accessibility and understanding from others. Pringle spoke about how many students have voiced their frustrations over diffculties dealing with Student Accessibility Services. Getting accommodations in classes, or even acknowledgement for accommodations, is something that she says is “always a hassle” and getting accommodations off-campus is an even bigger challenge. “One general thread I’ve noticed is that a lot of professors just never mention disability. It’s relevant in every single class,” Swinford said, adding that he has taken it upon himself to bring up disability in his classes. “I think a lot of professors don’t think about it … And so we really hope that that’s something that the Brandeis community takes note of and then adapts.”

The DSN’s message to the greater Brandeis community is one of a desire for acceptance and unity. “Our message is this: that disability is worth space at Brandeis. Disability is worth recognition. And it’s something to be proud of. And so for disabled students, for people who are unsure, we want them to know that there’s a space for you here. And there’s people that really care about you and are rooting for you,” Swinford said, continuing, “For non-disabled people the hope is really, you know, maybe get involved in some advocacy. Maybe learn a little bit about what ableism might be.” He explained that DSN seeks to show that the disability community is one that should be paid attention to and talked about, not only in discussions of accessibility but also in academic spaces and general university discussions as well.

Disability discussion

This past Friday, March 18, the DSN held a panel discussion titled, “A Critical Discussion of Disability in Public Health,” featuring panelists Mitra, associate professor of disability policy and director of the Lurie Institute at the Heller School, and Prof. Stephen Gulley (HSSP), a health and disability researcher and lecturer at Brandeis. The panel discussed the relationship between disability and public health and where things are headed as far as including those with disabilities in public health discussions.

“We are noticing the lack of disability in conversations in public health. And so this is really an extension of conversations in the disability community about being ignored in the COVID-19 pandemic response … This is refecting an attitude towards disability that’s been prevalent in public health for a long time.”

Speaking to the Justice ahead of the event, Swinford talked about how disability impacts every facet of people’s lives, even for those who are not disabled. Of the event, he said, “This is a great chance to learn, one: about a community that you might not know much about, and two: how to talk about some possible solutions and where we go from here.”

During the panel, Mitra and Gulley felded questions about how public health initiatives can be more inclusive of disabled people and what steps the Brandeis community should take to incorporate disability justice and awareness into its public health policies, with a focus on the changes being made as COVID-19 precaution guidelines continue to be loosened on campus and elsewhere. Mitra and Gulley shared their insights, with Mitra citing her experiences working in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in her answers, and Gulley emphasizing the importance of inclusion in public health spaces, especially for those with invisible disabilities.

When answering a question on the connection and history between public health and disability, Mitra responded, “Nothing is going to happen if the decisions are made by able-bodied people who have no understanding of disability. Hiring, retention, training, inclusion of the folks that are in decision making throughout the pipeline, throughout different sectors is absolutely critical … Investments in research, policy, and practice that need to go into programs that are disability-centric are really, really important.”

Gulley also brought up the topic of inclusivity while discussing a hopeful future for healthcare and disability, saying, “Instead of going off of some white privileged benchmark, we need a notion of health. We need to understand disability. We need to understand well-being, not on the basis of some nebulous majority group.” He stressed the importance of advocating for “Much more fully individualized, culturally-aware, person-centered, and culturally responsive health and healthcare.”

Swinford described his hopes for the Brandeis community’s takeaways from this event via email, stating, “Dr. Mitra and Dr. Gulley’s insights were invaluable and provided a perspective on public health that is needed and critical, especially at this moment where COVID-19 restrictions are being dropped. I hope that the Brandeis community can take the insights they shared on Friday and refect on the ways that we can learn from the past and the relationship between disability and public health to push public health in a more equitable direction.”

For students interested in learning more about the disabled community, disability policy, or advocacy, Swinford and Pringle’s advice is to look into classes on disability policy. Two of their suggestions are “Sociology of Disability” with Gulley and “ Disability Policy” with Mitra.

If you want to get more involved with the Disabled Students’ Network, this panel is just one of many events and meetings the DSN has held. Community meetings happen weekly from 8 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays. These meetings are hybrid, so if you are interested you can either attend via Zoom or show up in person in Heller G55. Advocacy meetings occur every other week from 6:30 to 7 p.m. on Zoom. Feel free to follow their Instagram @dsnbrandeis or fnd them on their Facebook page, “Disabled Students’ Network Brandeis,” for more up-to-date information and to be updated on future events and meetings.

Photo Courtesy of ZOE PRINGLE CLUB FAIR: Luca Swindon ’22 and Zoe Pringle ’22 promoted the Disabled Students’ Network at the club fair in February.

Known for his role in the early 20th-century Progressive movement, Brandeis University namesake Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ entanglement with eugenics raises concerns. Profs. George Hall (ECON) and Daniel Breen (LGLS) weigh in.

Justice Justice Justice Justice

JACK YUANWEI CHENG/the Justice BRANDEIS: A statue of Justice Louis D. Brandeis sits atop a hill in the center of the campus bearing his name.

Justice Justice Justice Justice

By DRAKEN GARFINKEL

JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Standing atop Fellows Garden with the sun to his back, a bronze Justice Louis D. Brandeis watches over the campus bearing his name. It is a heroic statue, triumphant even. The Justice withstands an adverse wind, his gaze fxed on the heavens like the statues of classical antiquity. It also resembles the numerous statues of the American South which depict Confederate icons in similarly honorifc poses. Like them, Justice Brandeis helped advance caustic ideology tied to many of the 20th-century’s tragedies.

Before joining the Supreme Court, Brandeis served as legal counsel for a think tank responsible for numerous Progressive-Era economic reforms. This group, however, was riddled with disciples of an ideology which seemingly had no place in Progressive-Era thought. This group was so infuential that not even the Presidency, nor modern economics as we know it, escaped its clutches. History has all but forgotten them; their Wikipedia page is less than fve hundred words long. They were the American Association of Labor Legislation, and they were eugenicists.

Eugenics, characterized as a secular religion by its late 19th century founder Francis Galton, is the pseudoscientifc belief that human races exist in a hierarchy, the “higher races” genetically predisposed to morality and intelligence, the “lower, undesirable races” crime and stupidity. Eugenicists, furthermore, believe that any interbreeding between races always creates a child of the “lesser race.”

Eugenicists therefore wish to “improve” the human species by promoting policies that increase birth rates for “desirables” and decrease birth rates for “non-desirables.” Throughout the 20th century, eugenics was used in the U.S. to justify segregation and forced sterilization, such as that of numerous Black women in North Carolina from the 1930s through the 1960s. Ideologically, it has historically guided attempts to outright exterminate groups deemed inferior, including that of Hitler and the Nazi party. Eugenics nevertheless gained such wide support in America and abroad that by 1933, 150 million Americans lived in jurisdictions affected by forced sterilization laws. Numerous American presidents were also eugenicists.

Eugenics has no basis in scientifc fact: Fundamentally, it is little more than the application of racist dogmas. Even so, eugenics’ interventionism appealed to early 20th-century Progressivists, namely those of the American Association for Labor Legislation. “It is undeniable that many in the Progressive movement of the early 20th century did think of eugenics laws — as cruel as they were — as ways to ‘perfect’ society,” Prof. Daniel Breen (LGLS) explained to the Justice during a March 8 interview. Breen currently teaches a course about Justice Brandeis called “Louis Brandeis: Law, Business and Politics.”

The AALL’s sixth president, eugenicist and economist Irving Fisher, devised the Immigration Act of 1924, a bill imposing race-based quotas on Southern and Eastern European immigrants. “America must remain American,” President Coolidge said when signing the bill into law. 15 years later, this bill would close America to countless Jews feeing the Nazis.

Fisher also founded the American Eugenics and Econometrics Societies, becoming the latter’s frst president. Econometrics as a feld uses statistics to suggest causal relationships between datasets, oftentimes demographic groups and social outcomes. Today, econometric applications (e.g., FBI crime statistics) are used to perpetuate racist beliefs in the United States. Fisher’s personal ideology suggests that this isn’t a bug, but a feature.

Besides Brandeis himself, who served as the AALL’s legal counsel before his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1916, other notable members include Frank Taussig and Sidney Webb. Taussig, founder of trade theory (an economic feld explaining trade patterns between countries), believed that the feebleminded, drunkards, congenitally ill, and habitual criminals “should simply be stamped out.” How? “Chloroform.” Webb co-founded the London School of Economics and coined the term “adverse selection” to describe “race suicide,” a eugenicist term for how “non-desirables” would outbreed “desirables” without eugenicist intervention.

While not members per se, other infuential eugenicists were Francis Amasa Walker and Margaret Sanger. Walker, president of MIT from 1881 to 1897 and director of the U.S. Census before that, referred to immigrants as “beaten men from beaten races; representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.” Sanger, intending to quell the birthrates of “undesirables” opened the United States’ frst birth control clinic.

Other Progressive initiatives, including child labor laws, compulsory education, and minimum wage, were also based in eugenics. “A crude eugenic sorting of groups into deserving and undeserving classes crucially informed the labor and immigration reform that is the hallmark of the Progressive Era,” Thomas C. Leonard wrote in a 2005 article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Promoters of these Progressive reforms argued that preventing children from working through labor laws would make socalled “low-wage races” have fewer children, since they “would be unable to put their children to work.”

Prof. George Hall (ECON) spoke to the Justice on March 8 about the links between eugenics and the 20th-century Progressive movement. “[These economic reforms] can stand on their own,” Hall insists, “so why did the people at the time need eugenics to argue for them?”

Louis Brandeis re-enters this picture through the AALL’s most famous member: Woodrow Wilson. While both AALL members, Wilson and Brandeis only met in 1912, by which time Brandeis had already been the AALL’s legal counsel for years. They developed a friendship and in 1916, Wilson — the same president who screened the racist flm “Birth of a Nation” in the White House — appointed Brandeis to the Supreme Court, extolling his virtues as “a friend of all just men.”

It wouldn’t be Brandeis’ frst encounter with the highest court in the land. In 1908 he brought the case Muller v. Oregon before the Court, writing that “the overwork of future mothers directly attacks the welfare of a nation.” Brandeis argued that women’s work hours should be better regulated because, as the providers of the next generation, they amounted to collective property which the state had to protect. Breen suggested a possible vindication of Brandeis’ actions: “Many Progressives wanted to limit working hours for everyone … reformers like Florence Kelly thought that if you started with … women, you could eventually get states to pass maximum hours laws across the board.” Less defensible, however, is what Brandeis did next.

In the 1927 case Buck v. Bell, the now-Supreme Court Justice Brandeis sided with the majority in the Court’s 8-1 decision that forcibly sterilizing people for “feeble-mindedness” didn’t violate the Constitution’s Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses. “Three generations of imbeciles is enough” reads the majority opinion handed down by the Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. According to Thomas C. Leonard’s 2016 book “Illiberal Reformers : Race, Eugenics & American Economics in the Progressive Era,” Brandeis endorsed this statement.

By not dissenting against the forced sterilization of “undesirables,” Brandeis tacitly endorsed eugenics and enabled its policies at the nation’s highest legal authority. Whether he truly was a eugenicist is not known. If he was, it seems he would have made it more obvious, based on how he demonstrated his support for other Progressive initiatives. “If he had thought such [eugenicist] laws were good ideas,” Breen commented, “he would very likely have found ways to let other people know he felt that way, just as he did with issues like public utility regulation and banking reform.”

Breen nevertheless called Brandeis’ failure to dissent in Buck v. Bell “deeply disappointing.” “A judge or a politician,” Breen continued, “should always evaluate laws from the standpoint of empathy … I think Brandeis should have found a way to do so in this case, even if that would have meant adjusting the usual 1920s standard of review in 14th Amendment cases.”

Even so, many modern-day Progressives would say that Brandeis — through his advocacy for jurisprudence, personal privacy, and corporate regulation — made the United States a safer, more just society.

What to do with this knowledge of Justice Louis Brandeis’ problematic history is a matter of debate. Like many cities with Confederate statues, Brandeis’ statue could be taken down and the University renamed. Another option is recognizing that the University’s values predate its supposed attribution to Justice Brandeis. Be “Brandeis University, not Brandeis’ University,” in a sense. “You can have great respect and admiration for people while recognizing they have faws,” said Hall. “I don’t know who you name a school after who doesn’t have something in their past that could be problematic.”

When asked for her opinion on whether Brandeis University should be renamed in light of its namesake’s involvement with 20th-century eugenics, Deb Haimowitz ’23 stated, “I don’t think it would be wise to rename it. I do think it should be treated the same way Planned Parenthood treated Margaret Sanger. The school owes it to its students to publicly address it and apologize for it. One of the main ideologies of Brandeis is major social justice progress and a great way to be reminded of that is to be reminded of how things were. We’re better than that.”

Hall feels similarly: “A reassessment of people and history, we should always be doing that … one thing you learn is that all your heroes are fawed.” Brandeis was not a Confederate general, nor a conquistador. His questionable legacy is, however, something that must be reckoned with, even unto its innermost parts.