2013-14
JOHN NEAR GRANT Recipient
The Hidden History of the Disability Rights Movement: Improving Access to Education in the Shadow of the Feminist and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and 1970s
Zina Jawadi, Class of 2014
The Hidden History of the Disability Rights Movement: Improving Access to Education in the Shadow of the Feminist and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and 1970s
2014 Near Scholar
Mentors: Dr. Ruth Meyer and Ms. Susan Smith April 11, 2014
Zina JawadiAcknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Ruth Meyer and Ms. Susan Smith, my two mentors at Harker; Dr. Kim Nielsen, author of A Disability History of the United States, for guiding me and for accepting to be interviewed; and Dr. Corinne E. Kirchner, Columbia University disability studies professor, for accepting to be interviewed.
I chose this topic because of my passion for hearing loss. The disability rights movement was established in the 1960s, which resulted in removing physical barriers, and I would like to lead the next phase by removing attitudinal barriers. This research helped me formulate my threestep advocacy plan.
In his speech, "The Emergence of the Disabled," the father of the disability rights movement, Ed Roberts, explained his epiphany: “I suddenly realized something that has since been extremely important to me —that I'm part of a minority that is as segregated and devalued as any in America's history. I am part of the disabled minority.”1 Prior to the 1950s, people with disabilities had limited educational rights and opportunities. In the second half of the twentieth century, the 1960s social change, student protests against the Vietnam War, grievances about civil rights stagnation, and increased opportunities from World War II sparked a disability rights movement.2 As a result, two main disability-related laws were passed and reinforced by several Supreme Court cases. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 outlawed discrimination against people with disabilities and established special-education schooling. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA) introduced the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and the Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) concepts, reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Mills v. Board of Education. Cumulatively, these acts and court cases revolutionized the American educational system for people with disabilities. The civil rights court case, Brown v. Board of Education, served as a catalyst not only for the civil rights movement but also for the disability rights movement, granting minorities the right to education. Furthermore, the feminist movement cultivated complete access to education for people with disabilities, such as through the National Disabled Women's Educational Equity Project lead by Corbett O'Toole.
In contrast to the eminence of the civil rights and feminist movements, the disability rights movement is mostly unknown. Consequently, this paper seeks to analyze the hidden links between the civil rights, feminist, and disability rights movements in the 1960s and early 1970s by explaining how the disability rights movement was inspired by the African American civil
rights and feminist movements, by exploring how campus-based student protests influenced the disability rights movement in educational settings, and by explicating how the zeitgeist of the 1960s and early 1970s accelerated these three movements.
Disability Rights Founders
The co-founders of the disability rights movements were Ed Roberts and Judith Heumann. Ed Roberts (1993-1995) was a University of California at Berkeley student in the 1960s. Roberts, quadriplegic from polio, first had to fight to gain his acceptance to UC Berkeley. When Roberts arrived with his wheelchair as well as his 800-pound iron lung and oxygen tank, he realized that he was unprepared for the campus' hilly terrain; without ramps, he was unable to reach any classroom or dorm room. Against insuperable obstacles, Roberts ceaselessly fought for not only his own rights but also the rights of all people with disabilities, stressing, “I'm paralyzed from the neck down, not from the neck up.”3 Judith Heumann (born 1947) was a UC Berkeley graduate student in the 1970s. Heumann dedicated her entire life to disability rights causes and is internationally renowned for her accomplishments on behalf of people with disabilities. She has been a Special Advisor for International Disability Rights at the U.S. Department of State since 2010.4
The Need for Research and Review of the Literature
Although the civil rights, feminist, and disability rights movements in the 1960s and 1970s cumulatively revolutionized the education sy stem, of the three movements, the disability rights movement is under-researched. For example, as of January 25, 2014, a quantitative search on the Harker Database Summon tool and Google Scholar with no date limitation demonstrated
significantly fewer articles and studies about disability rights, compared to the civil rights and feminist movements: Search Term
only)
Despite the revolutionary changes to the education system propelled by the disability rights movement in the 1960s and early 1970s, little research is available on disability rights. Although each movement focused on reforming perceptions and eradicating stereotypes, the disability rights movement receives significantly less recognition.
A second quantitative search conducted on January 25, 2014 on the Harker Database
Summon tool and Google Scholar with no date limitation depicted the under-recognition of the co-founders of the Disability Rights Movement, Ed Roberts and Judith Heumann: Search Term
only)
Compared to the fame deservedly earned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and by Betty Friedan, most people have never heard of Ed Roberts and Judith Heumann, the two co-founders of the disability rights movement. Promisingly, a search of the Harker databases shows a dramatic increase in published journal titles related to the disability rights movement, especially in 2011, spiking from one publication in 1979 to 1,328 publications in 2011.
In 2004, feminist disability leader Corbett O’Toole identified three obstacles facing disability studies: establishing disability studies as an academic field, applying academic rigor to disability studies, and informing people with disabilities and the world at large about disability.12
Starting in the 1970s, disability studies initially tackled the first hurdle.13 The starting point was transitioning perceptions of disabilities from medical conditions to social rights.14 As an aspiring disability rights advocate and leader, I feel it is my duty to confront the last two challenges.
Mainstreamed Education: Civil Rights and Feminism in Relation to Disability
The 1960s and 1970s revolutionized education for people with disabilities and the American Education system by mandating special-education public schooling. For example, Section 504 and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act were inspired by Brown v. Board of Education of 1954, which desegregated public schools, and by Betty Friedan’s 1963 Feminine Mystique, which sparked the second wave of feminism.15
Civil Rights Inspiration
Brown v. Board directly and indirectly impacted education for people with disabilities. Prior to the 1950s, the United States experienced a huge educational gap based on race. For instance, whereas on average schools invested 570 dollars per white student in an Atlanta public school, African American students received only 228 dollars.16 Furthermore, the average classroom size was 22.6 for white students but 36.2 for African American students in 19491950.17 The resources available in desegregated classrooms also substantially varied. The highest paid teacher in an African American school received lower wages than the lowest paid teacher in white schools.18 Consequently, African American students were at a significant disadvantage in schooling, especially in the South. When the Brown v. Board case about an African American’s inability, due to racial segregation, to enroll in a neighborhood school with whites reached the Supreme Court in 1954, the ruling, “separate schools are inherently unequal,”
established racial desegregation in all schools in the United States.19 Like African Americans, people with disabilities were disadvantaged and were only given limited educational opportunities. Additionally, disability was taken into account in the decision-making of Brown v. Board of Education. For example, Jacobus TenBroe, founder of the National Federation of the Blind, collaborated with Thurgood Marshall on legal matters of Brown v. Board; several senators, such as Knute Nelson, discussed potentially incorporating disability in the civil rights legislation.20 In other words, disability was considered in civil rights, even as early as the 1950s.21 Scholars Dr. Kim Nielsen and Dr. Felicia Kornbluh have argued that the civil rights, feminist, and disability rights movements occurred simultaneously rather than through a domino effect.22
Brown v. Board advanced educational opportunity for African Americans and all minorities, including people with disabilities. Despite the initial struggles to abide by the Supreme Court desegregation ruling, the percentage of African American students in white schools from 1954 to 1996, after Brown v. Board, nevertheless skyrocketed from nearly zero percent in 1954 to almost 25 percent in 1968 and to almost 45 percent in 1986.23 In addition to significantly influencing African American education, Brown v. Board considered education for minorities, including people with disabilities. The effects of Brown v. Board across America contributed to the disability rights movement in the 1960s and early 1970s.24 For example, Counsel for the State of Southern Carolina and attorney John W. Davis’s defense for racial segregation in Brown v. Board soon served as the key comparison of the disability rights movement in the second half of the 1900s:
May it please the Court, I think if appellants’ construction of the Fourteenth Amendment should prevail here, there is no doubt in my mind that it would
catch the Indian within its grasp just as much as the Negro. Should it prevail, I am unable to see why a state would have any further right to segregate its pupils on the ground of sex or on the ground of age or on the ground of mental capacity.25
Similarly, in 1969, Thomas K. Gilhool, the lead attorney of the landmark Supreme Court case Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Pennsylvania, and Gunnar Dybwad, a disability advocate and former executive director of the National Association for Retarded Children, used Davis’s statement in the PARC case, citing the Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection used in Brown v. Board to close state institutions confining tens of thousands of children with disabilities.26 Regularly labeled “mentally retarded,” “idiots,” “morons,” and “imbeciles,” people with disabilities were the only social group ranked lower than African Americans, and Davis’s argument indirectly suggested that if African Americans are to be integrated in classrooms, people with disabilities should also be given the same rights as African Americans.27 In 1972, Mills v. Board sued for discrimination because of disability under the due-process legislation, the same justification used in Brown v. Board 28 Becoming a landmark Supreme Court Case for people with disabilities, Mills established Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for all children, including those with disabilities, and greatly shaped the Education for All Handicapped Children legislation enacted in 1975.29
When children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman started the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973, she was shocked to discover from the US Census Bureau that 750,000 children, aged seven to thirteen, did not attend school. These children were not African Americans but were youth with disabilities from white areas.30 With these jarring statistics, a parent movement formed, advocating for disability civil rights. Naturally, in pushing for mainstreamed education
for students with disabilities – or integrating students with disabilities into schools for students without disabilities –, parent groups employed civil rights themes and terms such as segregation, because African American students and students with disabilities both desired social equity and barrier-free education.31 As a result of the parent movement, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which was instituted in 1975 to ensure education for the eight million students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment, became equivalent to Brown v. Board. 32 Although racial segregation was outlawed in 1954, disability segregation was not banned until 1975.
Feminist Inspiration
In the 1960s, people with disabilities and women in the 1960s experienced similar challenges in their quest for equal access to education. For example, female disability rights leaders, such as Corbett O’Toole and Judith Heumann, were active in both the feminist and disability rights movements. Despite the parallels between the disability rights movement and the civil rights movement, people with disabilities shared more commonalities with women than with African Americans.
People with disabilities and women faced similar problems in the second half of the 1900s. In her 1963 groundbreaking book, The Feminine Mystique, feminist leader Betty Friedan argued that education for American women was too focused on domesticity and that not enough women graduated from university.33 For example, two out of three female college students dropped out, and in the 1950s, the life goals of female college graduates focused on suburban housewife tasks and motherhood.34 People with disabilities faced analogous educational obstacles. Just as biological predispositions blocked people with disabilities from accessible
education, American women endured a comparable predicament, unable to escape societal norms or expand beyond college subjects related to marriage, family, and gender roles.35 The slogan of a well-known college for women boasted its goal as preparing women for their domestic and motherly duties rather than for academic accomplishment.36 Naturally, with the underestimated expectations for women, drop-out rates were substantially higher for women than for men. For example, in 1955, in the state of Indiana, of the top ten percent of graduating students, two out of three of female high-school graduates pursued more education, compared to six out of seven male graduates.37 Furthermore, sixty-three percent of female college students dropped out versus forty-five percent for men.38 People with disabilities and women shared many of the same struggles in education. Betty Friedan critiqued educators’ proposition to delay education for women until after pregnancy, which she believed would cause women to “diffuse feeling of purposelessness” and to express “anomie, or lack of identity.”39 Just as pregnancy and motherhood became barriers for women to complete college, physical barriers often prevented people with disabilities from receiving education, who regularly had to prove that they were not impaired and had to demonstrate their abilities.40 To receive education, women had to either conform to societal gender expectations or risk creating discord and being ostracized.41 In order to have the same educational opportunities offered to less disenfranchised groups, people with disabilities and women both had to prove their abilities and worthiness. Because people with disabilities and women faced similar obstacles, feminist and disability leaders in the 1960s focused on equivalent barriers to educational rights. Founded by Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, and Muriel Fox in 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW)’s purpose was: “to take the actions needed to bring women into the mainstream of American society.”42 Like NOW, disability rights advocates
aimed to mainstream students with disabilities. Ed Roberts, the father of the disability rights movement, and other disability advocates fought to remove physical barriers in the 1960s; likewise, NOW feminist leaders concentrated on ending discrimination in work, education, and the media, for example, by eliminating the deliberate limits on admission of women in graduate schools and eradicating the stereotypes perpetuated by the media.43 Furthermore, both attempted to dissolve physical barriers, feminists by granting the right to abortion and disability rights advocates by establishing ramps. The landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade upheld the state law against abortion with the justification of the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments as a right to privacy.44 Likewise, Brown v. Board and Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Commonwealth cited the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment in the ruling.45 By giving women the abortion option, Roe v. Wade indirectly removed a major educational barrier; likewise, disability advocates, such as Ed Roberts, circumvented physical barriers by successfully lobbying for public ramps in all public buildings. The feminist and disability rights movements often collaborated, with female disability leaders, such as Judith Heumann and Corbett O’Toole, often active in both.46 On the other hand, some disability leaders, including Ed Roberts, participated in the African American civil rights movement, but African American civil rights remained more as a source of inspiration to disability advocates.47 Furthermore, “[just] like the civil rights movement critiqued hierarchy based on racial differences, and just as the feminist movement critiqued hierarchy based on sex and gender differences, the disability rights movement critiqued hierarchy based on the physical, sensory, and mental differences of disability.”48 Ultimately, although their relation to the disability rights movement differed, both the civil rights movement and the feminist movement largely influenced the disability rights movement.
Mainstreamed Education for People with Disabilities
In his speech, “The Emergence of the Disabled Civil Rights Movement,” Ed Roberts, the father of the disability rights movement, emphasized the importance of guaranteeing education for children with disabilities through federal and state legislation.49 The enactment of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA) in the 1960s and 1970s revolutionized the American education system by establishing the separate but equal special education schooling system, ensuring education for people with disabilities.
An outgrowth of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 banned discrimination against people with disabilities. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited racial and ethnic discrimination in federal frameworks.50 Since disability was not included, disability advocates hoped to extend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover people with disabilities.51 Even though there were connections between the various social rights movements, these groups competed for the spotlight. In fact, African American disability rights activist and head of blind services at the Center of Independent Living and of Berkeley’s Black Caucas, Donald Galloway, noted that Senator Hubert Humphrey tried to include people with disabilities in the original Civil Rights act of 1964.52 However, African American civil rights activists denied the request, who, as Galloway documented, proclaimed: “‘This is a civil rights bill that is going to have to be limited to the [racial] minorities.’”53 A decade later, disability rights advocates strived to outlaw discrimination against people with disabilities. For example, in 1976, the Action League for Physically Handicapped Adults (ALPHA) and James L. Cherry successfully sued the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare for not
implementing Section 504.54 Additionally, in January 1972, when Senator Hubert Humphrey and Congressman Charles Vanik failed to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 was enacted in 1972 and was worded almost identically to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.55 For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stated:
No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.56
Similarly, Section 504 states:
No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 705 (20) of this title, shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, 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 or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service.57
The parallel wording of the Section 504 to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 epitomized and symbolized how the disability rights movement became an extension of civil rights. In relation to the education system, Section 504 guaranteed necessary accommodations for students with disabilities in mainstreamed classrooms, such as extended time in tests.58 Section 504 also required schools to provide to students with disabilities the same activities as those given to other students, which later distinguished Section 504 from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.59
A noteworthy similarity between the feminist movement and the disability rights movement was in the way these two movements were regarded by social rights advocates. For instance, the section on gender in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was discounted amongst social rights advocates.60 Likewise, Section 504, which outlawed discrimination against people with disabilities, was met with indifference by social rights activists at the time it was released and in later administrations, such as Reagan’s administration.61
In the 1970s, because 1.5 million children with disabilities were without access to education, Congress instituted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975.62 This groundbreaking law ensured education for the eight million students with disabilities in the “least restrictive environment,” requiring an Individual Education Plan (IEP) to each student with a disability, establishing the “zero reject” policy of banning discrimination in special education and exclusion from school because of disability, and ensuing due process.63 Although the Education for All Handicapped Children Act attempted to desegregate education for people with disabilities, segregation persisted in most school districts. Systemically, the only way to mainstream a student was for parents to sue schools.64
By 1970s, for the first time since the 1920s, people with disabilities had the legal right for full education and could not be lawfully discriminated against due to disabilities.65 The progress made in the 1960s and 1970s in special education schooling was revolutionary, but, in practice, the laws were not always applied. For instance, in the late 1980s, fewer than a third of students with disabilities spent the majority of their school time in regular education settings.66 As a result, disability advocates continued to strive for more advancement, leading Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and other significant laws to improve the special
education system. Nevertheless, even in the 1990s, sixty-six percent of people with disabilities were unemployed.67
Student Protest Movements
During the 1960s and 1970s, a revolutionary period for people with disabilities, college setting became a locus for disability rights activism, surrounded by civil rights, feminist, and other leading movements. Student protest movements became not only a source of inspiration for disability rights leaders, such as Roberts and Heumann, but also key in disability rights activism.68 Although students with disabilities protested in colleges across the country, the hotbeds of the disability student protest movement was at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, and especially UC Berkeley, the colleges that Fred Fray, Ed Roberts, and Judith Heumann attended.69
Civil Rights Inspiration
Student protest disability leaders, including Ed Roberts, were inspired by the civil rights movement. People with disabilities and African Americans both suffered from oppression; as a result, both yearned to be liberated, emboldened by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.70
Cofounder of the disability rights movement, Judith Heumann, underscored that disability advocates “had the civil rights aura,” because disability activists witnessed the civil rights movement in college settings.71
Although some disability advocates participated in the civil rights movement, the civil rights movement served more as a source of inspiration, rather than as a partner of synergistic initiatives. For example, at UC Berkeley, African American blind activist, Donald Galloway, noted that disability advocates focused on disability, not racial civil rights, and civil rights
activists wanted to focus on civil rights.72 In fact, according to Galloway, the civil rights movement often did not integrate people with disabilities fearing that the disability rights movement would dilute the civil rights message, which emphasized African American history.73 Moreover, civil rights activists did not consider people with disabilities minorities; as a result, they did not appreciate the battle, in which the Center for Independent Living engaged.74
The disability rights activists incorporated civil rights values, albeit not consciously advocating for the civil rights movement. Furthermore, through his political science background and college major, Ed Roberts recognized the many similarities between the goals of the black movement and of the disability rights movement.75 Although most disability rights activists did not willfully form a connection between the disability and civil rights movements, their leader’s – Ed Roberts’ – recognition of these connections indicates that the disability rights movement was largely inspired by the civil rights movement. African American blind activist, Donald Galloway, pointed out that disability advocates consciously understood that they were initiating a movement emphasizing disability causes and that they would apply civil rights approaches of “nonviolence,” “advocacy,” and “protest.”76 For instance, in her journal article, “Points of Access,” Lindsey Patterson notes that in demonstrations at the University of Illinois, the Disability in Action (DIA) activists employed civil rights terminology used by their African Americans counterparts.77 Disability leaders Judith Heumann, Ed Roberts, and Fred Fray sometimes referred to the disability rights movement as a student protest movement. Additionally, disability rights activists would include civil rights terms in their chants:
‘Not being able to get into a restaurant because of stairs is no different than a black person barred from one. Not being able to attend school because it is
inaccessible is no different than James Meredith not being admitted to a college in the south.’78
However, blind activist Donald Galloway also clarified that disability activists connected the disability rights movement with the civil rights movement for empathy but did not participate deliberately in the civil rights movement.79 Although some advocates considered disability a part of civil rights, as demonstrated in Brown v. Board, at the college level, the movements operated separately but in parallel during the same time period.
The Section 504 demonstrations around the Section 504 legislation discussed earlier epitomized how the civil rights and disability rights student protest movements were related. Because many Section 504 activists had demonstrated for other causes before, they fully understood that disenfranchisement associated with disability was analogous to biases faced by other minority groups. Consequently, the Section 504 demonstrations were interconnected with and derived from the civil rights, feminist, and free speech movements.80 Although the civil rights advocates separated themselves from the disability rights advocates, the civil rights advocates came to their rescue in dire times. Perhaps the largest reason the Black Panthers assisted the Section 504 protesters was that Bradley Lomax, one of the activists, was also a Black Panther.81 Lomax propelled the Black Panthers to become involved in the Section 504 sit-ins.82
The Black Panthers also promoted the Section 504 cause in their newspaper.83 Without the Black Panthers’ assistance in the Section 504 protests, as feminist disability leader Corbett O’Toole wrote, that the Section 504 sit-ins would have failed.84 It is for this reason that UC Berkeley professor Susan Schweik termed Section 504 the “Black Power of 504.”85
Furthermore, as cited by Schweik, Kitty Cone, who organized the Section 504 sit-ins and who was also a Center for Independent Living disability rights activist, stated that the sit-in concept
was derived from 1960s civil rights movement.86 Civil rights tactics were adapted from the disability rights movement, as exemplified by the Section 504 sit-in.
The connections formed in the Section 504 sit-ins demonstrate the similarities of the two movements. For example, both the Panthers and disability rights advocates exemplified the time period’s unique political approaches as described by Alondra Nelson in her Ph.D. thesis, “Black Power, Biomedicine, and the Politics of Knowledge,” and cited by Susan Schweik.87 Additionally, the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Emotional Plea for Handicapped” published on April 16, 1977, called the Section 504 demonstration “the nation’s most poignant civil rights demonstration, that of the disabled, blind, deaf.”88 Nevertheless, the Panthers were more “in fluidarity” rather than “in solidarity” with the Section 504 sit-ins.89 The term fluidarityfluidity, coined by Duke University Professor, Diane Nelson, means “a practice and theory of identity-information,” acknowledging the fluidity of the alliance between the groups.90
Disability leaders in college settings in the 1960s used civil rights as a source of inspiration. In 1964, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Fred Fay, who had previously suffered a spinal cord injury, initiated his disability rights efforts. According to Lindsey Patterson, in her journal article, "Points of Access,” Fay depicted in the college newspaper the discrimination and subjugation of students with disabilities with African American students using a photo with college administrators in Ku Klux Klan attire with signs saying, “‘Disabled Keep Out.’”91 In the short run, the college added additional ramps, and in the long run, these demonstrations established the disability rights movement nationwide. For example, students with disabilities later emulated Fay's tactics to gain concessions from their schools.92 For Fay, surrounded by civil rights advocates, the college experience was his “first
taste of political change.”93 The college atmosphere became a source of inspiration and of political change for leading disability rights advocates.
On the other side of the country, at UC Berkeley, co-founder of the disability rights movement, Ed Roberts, envisioned the connection between the civil rights and disability rights and established the disability rights movement with such a connection in mind. For example, he stated that he was a participant in the civil rights student protests and that during his advocacy for civil rights, he had an epiphany and decided to form his own civil rights movement for people with disabilities, because he felt that people with disabilities are underrepresented and unrecognized.94 While Ed Roberts perceived the hidden links between the civil rights and disability rights movements, African American advocates did not return or express interest in the disability rights movement.95 For example, even though Roberts contacted Native American advocate Leonard Pelletier as well as civil rights leaders, such as Stokely Carmichael, saying that they “were all fighting the same civil rights battle;” Roberts notes: “they didn’t understand our similarities. I did. Even now, many people don’t realize it.”96 While the civil rights and disability rights advocates may not have fought for identical causes, they both focused on equality for groups of minorities.
Feminist Inspiration
In addition to serving as a source of inspiration for disability advocates, the feminists also played a large role in disability activism, especially in college settings.97 For instance, in the University of Illinois, Judith Heumann, the co-founder of the disability rights movement, was a feminist disability advocate, who also established the Handicapped Integration Movement, rooting for equality and accessibility for people with disabilities in higher education.98
At UC Berkeley, some disability leaders were also feminist advocates, while others were inspired by feminism. Surrounded by leading feminists, including Betty Friedan, at UC Berkeley, disability advocates incorporated feminist techniques, such as organizing, rallying, and activism. Just as people with disabilities espoused freedom from physical barriers, women embraced liberty from gender boundaries.99 In her research, feminist disability leader Corbett O’Toole discovered that the disability rights movement often imitated and relied on the techniques of the civil rights and feminist movements.100 Just as the feminists defined gender and gender roles as social constructions, disability advocates, such as O’Toole, also described disability as a social construction, especially constrained within the medical view of disability.101 Decades later, society continues to grapple with disability. In the author interview of disability studies expert and Columbia University Professor Dr. Corinne E. Kirchner, she articulated that: “Impairment is a physical difference, but disability is a social difference.”102 Nevertheless, O’Toole also argued that the disability rights movement is sexist and racist, with the highest positions mostly occupied by white men.103 Furthermore, despite the racial diversity in the disability population in America, there is a positive correlation between poverty and the number of people with disabilities.104 However, in the 1960s and 1970s, American disability rights leaders were mostly white, middle-class, and male.105 Despite efforts to instill equality, women and racial minorities were excluded from top leadership positions in the disability rights movement. Many women, including Corbett O’Toole, were feminist disability activists and networked extensively, for example, through the establishment of the Womyn’s Braille Press for blind women, through publications on feminism and disability in magazines, newspapers, literature, and female festivities, such as hosting a tent in the Michigan Women's Music Festival.106
Despite the apparent synergy between the feminist and disability rights movements, tensions were unavoidable. Whereas feminists objected to being viewed as sex objects, disability activists balked at being pitied.107 Although the feminist and disability rights advocates did not exhibit hostility toward each other, they were not arch supporters of each other either.108 Early interactions between the feminists and disability rights activists were somewhat stilted.109 Subsequently, the feminist and disability rights movements developed separately.110 Additionally, male disability leaders, including Ed Roberts, were also inspired by the second-wave feminism.111 Roberts attended feminist meetings, where he fathomed how to turn his weaknesses into strengths. For instance, Roberts could immediately identify when a person was staring at Roberts’ ventilator and wheelchair than at Roberts.112 Furthermore, Roberts realized that whenever he was treated as subhuman, he could turn the situation to his advantage, as long as the intention is to provide positive change to the world.113 Consequently, Roberts states, “Disability can be very powerful.”114 In other words, Roberts saw that he, too, could use the “charitable and protective instincts of his enemies.”115 Furthermore, disability rights leaders utilized tactics similar to those of the feminists.116 Just as women used stereotypes to their advantage, Roberts observed that disability advocates could do the same.117 For example, in part, the Section 504 demonstration was effective, because of a communication scheme established by Deaf people.118 Indeed, the hidden links between the feminist and disability rights movement strengthened the disability rights movement and were integral to the success of the Section 504 demonstration.
Why Student Protest Movements? Why the 1960s and early 1970s? Why Berkeley?
The disability rights movement was centralized largely in few specific college campuses and was sparked in the 1960s and early 1970s. These facts leads to two grander questions: why student protest movements and why the 1960s and early 1970s?
In an email interview, Kim Nielsen wrote that college settings offered advocates of many movements the optimal environment to interact and share ideas.119 She further illuminated that the vigor, vitality, and vibrancy of college campuses influenced the civil rights movement. As students interact, they also witnessed successful maneuvers and formed relationships.120 Naturally, observing other movements caused disability leaders, in their chants, to often use language related to racial, gender, and religious prejudice.121 For example, Disabled in Action (DIA) activists at the University of Illinois, demonstrating against Nixon’s second veto of the Rehabilitation Act on May 5, 1973, compared themselves to African Americans and women in their chants. Civil rights campaigners, feminists, and disability advocates sought to prove that their bodies were not “defective” but rather a source of strength in activism.122 For generations, discrimination based on color, gender, and disability had created educational obstacles, and disability advocates were motivated by the surrounding movements in college settings to end this “oppression.”123 Because of the shared cause to achieve equality, the disability rights movement was galvanized by the other social movements nationwide and propelled by the 1960s and 1970s atmosphere, filled with a sense of power, pride, and panache.124 Civil rights, feminist, and disability rights activists collaborated at UC Berkeley and campaigned together for educational access issues through student organizations like Camp Jened to remove physical barriers in educational settings.125
Specifically, the UC Berkeley campus atmosphere greatly influenced the disability rights movement. UC Berkeley alumnus Catherine Caulfield articulated it best, stating that Berkeley was where the action was.126 Blind activist Donald Galloway proclaimed that in the 1960s Berkeley was a “radical” place for germinating ideas where intellectual conflicts were accepted. 127 Consequently, many of the advocacy leaders were UC Berkeley students, including the cofounders of the disability rights movement, Ed Roberts and Judith Heumann. When Judith Heumann spoke at colleges across the country, including the University of Illinois, movements were soon established on those campuses. Since the University of Illinois at the time was somewhat progressive with an accessible campus, rare for the 1960s, a movement could easily be established there, with Judith Heumann and Fred Fay to pave the way.128
People with disabilities have united in common causes since the middle ages, which brings up the next question: why the 1960s and 1970s?129 The answer lies in the intermingling and outcomes of the civil rights and feminist social movements in college campuses and the establishment of political foundations for “cooperation and competition.”130 The progress from World War II and the desire for change pushed forward in the 1960s also laid the foundation for the disability rights movement.131
Another reason for the success of the disability rights movement was the location of its origin: Berkeley. Berkeley was the hub of many of the central social movements in the 1960s, including the Vietnam War protests, civil rights movement, second-wave feminism, and the free speech Movement.132 Interestingly, the Berkeley administration did not welcome civil rights protests, yet the students wanted to, and hence continued to, promote these “liberal” social changes.133 Furthermore, Berkeley’s large campus also allowed for huge cross sections of intelligent people from different backgrounds to intermingle.
With the 1960s and 1970s zeitgeist, the ground was ripe for change. The disability rights movement ceased the opportunity to empower millions of people with disabilities in America, and the hidden links between the civil rights, feminist, and disability rights movements contributed greatly to the success of the disability rights movement. Ed Roberts’ epiphany on the underrepresentation of people with disabilities epitomized the focus and struggles experienced by those with disabilities.134 Education and the disability rights movement went hand-in-hand. Interconnected with the civil rights and feminist movements, the disability rights movement established special education schooling, and the college setting gave advocates the opportunity to learn from each other. The legacy of the disability advocacy in the 1960s and early 1970s must be continued. While laws have “improved” access to education for people with disabilities, today, high-school and college graduation rates for students with disabilities continue to be lower than those without disabilities.135 Despite the hills that Ed Roberts successfully climbed, challenging mountains remain for disability rights advocacy.
Notes
1 "The Emergence of the Disabled Civil Rights Movement," Online Archive of California, http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb6m3nb1nw&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text.
2 Kim Nielsen, interview by the author, USA, November 7, 2013.
3 Norma Carr-Ruffino, Diversity Success Strategies (Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999), 250, accessed April 14, 2014, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780750671026.
4 "Judith E. Heumann," Diplomacy in Action, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/144458.htm.
5 "People with disabilities" AND "Movement" OR "Disabled People" AND "Movement" OR "Disability rights Movement"
6 "Feminism" OR "feminist movement" OR "women's movement"
7 "Black Freedom Movement" OR “African American” OR “Civil Rights” OR "Blacks"
8 "Ed Roberts" OR "Edward Roberts"
9 "Judith Heumann" OR "Judy Heumann"
10 "Martin Luther King, Jr." OR "MLK"
11 "Betty Friedan"
12 "Sexist Inheritance of the Disability Movement," in Gendering Disability, by Corbett Joan O'Toole (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 296, previously published in Gendering Disability, ed. Bonnie G. Smith and Beth Hutchinson.
13 Ibid.
14 George L. Engel, "The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine," Science 196 (April 8, 1977): 130-131, accessed April 13, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1743658.
15 Margalit Fox, "Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85," The New York Times, February 5, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national/05friedan.html?ex=1296795600&en=30472e5004 a66ea3&ei=5090&_r=0.
16 James T. Patterson, Brown V. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy, ed. David Hackett Fischer and James M. McPherson, Pivotal Moments in American History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 11.
17 Ibid., 11.
18 Ibid., 27.
19 Kathleen A. Hurwitz, MD, "A Review of Special Education Law," Pediatric Neurology 39, no. 3 (September 2008): 148.
20 Kim Nielsen, interview by the author, USA, November 7, 2013.
21 Ibid.
22 Felicia Kornbluh, "Disability, Antiprofessionalism, and Civil Rights: The National Federation of the Blind and the 'Right to Organize' in the 1950s," The Journal of American History 97, no. 4 (March 2011): 2, doi:898239170.
23 Patterson, Brown V. Board of Education, 229.
24 Fred Pelka, What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), 23.
25 Ibid., 1.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., 2.
28 Hurwitz, "A Review of Special," 149.
29 Ibid.
30 Joseph P. Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (New York: Times Books, 1994), 165.
31 Ibid., 167.
32 Ibid., 166.
33 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 2001), 152.
34 Ibid., 150.
35 Ibid., 156.
36 Ibid., 158.
37 Ibid., 162.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid., 181.
40 Kim E. Nielsen, A Disability History of the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), 160.
41 Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 175.
42 Lisa Frederiksen Bohannon, Woman's Work: The Story of Betty Friedan (Greensboro, N.C.: Morgan Reynolds Pub., 2004), 93.
43 Ibid.
44 Alex McBride, "Roe V. Wade (1973)," The Supreme Court, last modified December 2006, accessed April 14, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_roe.html.
45 "Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) V. Commonwealth (1972)," Equity in Education Legal Database, http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/mit2008/Win08handouts/edLaw/equity/disabilities/PA RC.htm.
46 Nielsen, interview by the author.
47 "The Emergence of the Disabled," Online Archive of California.
48 Nielsen, A Disability History of the United, 162.
49 "The Emergence of the Disabled," Online Archive of California.
50 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 65.
51 Nielsen, A Disability History of the United, 166.
52 Susan Schweik, "Lomax's Matrix: Disability, Solidarity, and the Black Power of 504," Disability Studies Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2011): 6, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1371/1539.
53 Pelka, What We Have Done, 222.
54 Pelka, What We Have Done, 239.
55 Nielsen, A Disability History of the United, 166.
56 "Transcript of Civil Rights Act (1964)," Our Documents, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=transcript.
57 "29 USC § 794 - Nondiscrimination under Federal Grants and Programs," Legal Information Institute, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/794.
58 Hurwitz, "A Review of Special," 150.
59 Kelley R. Taylor, "Inclusion and the Law," Education Digest 76, no. 9 (May 2011): 50, https://puffin.harker.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sch& AN=60226901&site=ehost-live.
60 Bohannon, Woman's Work: The Story, 87.
61 "A Chronology of the Disability Rights Movement: 1980-1989," San Francisco State University, http://www.sfsu.edu/~dprc/chronology/chron80s.html.
62 Hurwitz, "A Review of Special," 150.
63 Ibid.
64 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 180.
65 Jan Hall, "Mainstreaming in education," in The Eighties in America, by Milton Berman and Tracy Irons-Georges (Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2008), 2:1, accessed June 19, 2013, http://puffin.harker.org:2316/doi/full/10.3331/1980_460?prevSearch=iep&searchHistoryKey=& queryHash=99c9e14ceaa0c7b009f9189cac8999c9.
66 "Twenty-Five Years of Educating Children with Disabilities: Good News and the Work Ahead," American Youth Policy Forum and Center on Education Policy, last modified 2002, http://www.aypf.org/publications/special_ed.pdf.
67 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 180.
68 Juliet Cassuto Rothman, Social Work Practice across Disability (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2003), 39.
69 Lindsey Patterson, "Points of Access: Rehabilitation Centers, Summer Camps, and Student Life in the Making of Disability Activism, 1960–1973," Journal of Social History 46, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 476, doi:10.1093/jsh/shs099.
70 "The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement," UC Berkeley, last modified May 9, 2010, accessed September 22, 2013, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/.
71 Pelka, What We Have Done, 265.
72 Schweik, "Lomax's Matrix: Disability, Solidarity," 6.
73 Pelka, What We Have Done, 222.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Patterson, "Points of Access: Rehabilitation," 486.
78 Ibid.
79 Pelka, What We Have Done, 222.
80 Nielsen, A Disability History of the United, 168.
81 Schweik, "Lomax's Matrix: Disability, Solidarity," 5.
82 Pelka, What We Have Done, 272-3.
83 Schweik, "Lomax's Matrix: Disability, Solidarity," 4.
84 Pelka, What We Have Done, 273.
85 Schweik, "Lomax's Matrix: Disability, Solidarity," 1.
86 Ibid., 2.
87 Ibid., 8.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid., 10.
90 Ibid., 10.
91 Patterson, "Points of Access: Rehabilitation," 476.
92 Ibid.
93 Pelka, What We Have Done, 104-5.
94 "The Emergence of the Disabled," OAC.
95 Patterson, "Points of Access: Rehabilitation," 479.
96 Ibid., 479-80.
97 Ibid., 482.
98 Ibid., 479-80.
99 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 47.
100 Patterson, "Points of Access: Rehabilitation," 479-80.
101 O'Toole, "Disability Rights and Independent," interview, Calisphere.
102 Corinne E. Kirchner, interview by the author, New York, NY, April 7, 2014.
103 "Sexist Inheritance of the Disability Movement," in Gendering Disability, by Corbett Joan O'Toole (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 294, previously published in Gendering Disability, ed. Bonnie G. Smith and Beth Hutchinson.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 O'Toole, "Disability Rights and Independent," interview, Calisphere.
107 Kirchner, interview by the author.
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid.
111 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 47.
112 "Highlights from speeches by Ed Roberts," World Institute on Disability.
113 Ibid.
114 Ibid.
115 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 47.
116 Bohannon, Woman's Work: The Story, 93.
117 Shapiro, No Pity: People with, 47.
118 Corbett O'Toole, "Early Days in Berkeley, and Where We Are Now," Ragged Edge, October 19, 2005.
119 Nielsen, interview by the author.
120 Ibid.
121 Scotch, "Politics and Policy in the History," 390.
122 Nielsen, A Disability History of the United, 160.
123 "Introduction," The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement, last modified July 17, 2004, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/introduction.html.
124 Nielsen, A Disability History of the United, 160.
125 Patterson, "Points of Access: Rehabilitation," 486.
126 Pelka, What We Have Done, 201.
127 Ibid., 221-2.
128 Ibid., 104.
129 Scotch, "Politics and Policy in the History," 385.
130 Ibid., 385-6.
131 Nielsen, interview by the author.
132 Berkeley in the Sixties, produced by Susan Griffin.
133 Ibid.
134 "The Emergence of the Disabled," Online Archive of California.
Bibliography
Berkeley. "Introduction." The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement. Last modified July 17, 2004. http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/introduction.html. This page belongs to Berkeley's Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement website, containing numerous pages on disability advocates in the 1960s and 1970s as well as information about the movement itself.
Bohannon, Lisa Frederiksen. Woman's Work: The Story of Betty Friedan. Greensboro, N.C.: Morgan Reynolds Pub., 2004. This book was used to learn more about NOW and Betty Friedan. Lisa Bohannon has written books about other feminists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Carr-Ruffino, Norma. Diversity Success Strategies. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999. Accessed April 14, 2014. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9780750671026.
"A Chronology of the Disability Rights Movement: 1980-1989." San Francisco State University. http://www.sfsu.edu/~dprc/chronology/chron80s.html.
This website provided a detailed timeline about the disability rights movements in the 1980s. The section about the Reagan Administration's response to Section 504 and other disability laws was cited in the paper.
Corbett Joan O'Toole: Exploring Intersections: Queer, Feminist, Disability. http://www.corbettotoole.com/about-corbett-joan-otoole/vita-2009/.
Cornell University Law School. "29 USC § 794 - Nondiscrimination under Federal Grants and Programs." Legal Information Institute. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/794. Primary evidence, this link contains the transcript and official government publication of Section 504.
"The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement." UC Berkeley. Last modified May 9, 2010. Accessed September 22, 2013. http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/.
"The Emergence of the Disabled Civil Rights Movement." Online Archive of California. http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb6m3nb1nw&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text . This speech is primary evidence. Issued in May 19, 1980, this speech was presented by Ed Roberts and confirms this paper's argument about the connection between the civil rights and disability rights movements.
Engel, George L. "The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine." Science 196 (April 8, 1977): 129-36. Accessed April 13, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1743658.
George Engel established the biopsychosocial model. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, attended Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and received his fellowship from Harvard University.
Evergreen State College. "Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) V. Commonwealth (1972)." Equity in Education Legal Database. http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/mit2008/Win08handouts/edLaw/equity/disabiliti es/PARC.htm.
This webpage summarizes the case, ruling, and importance of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth Supreme Court case.
Fox, Margalit. "Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85." The New York Times, February 5, 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/national/05friedan.html?ex=1296795600&en=3047 2e5004a66ea3&ei=5090&_r=0.
This article was used to confirm the importance of The Feminine Mystique both at the time it was published and contemporarily.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton, 2001.
Primary evidence, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is said to have sparked the second wave feminism. The section on education was cited in the paper.
Ganz, Marshall. "Leading Change: Leadership, Organization, and Social Movements." Harvard Business Press. http://leadingchangenetwork.com/files/2012/05/Chapter-19-LeadingChange-Leadership-Organization-and-Social-Movements.pdf.
Hall, Jan. "Mainstreaming in Education." In The Eighties in America, by Milton Berman and Tracy Irons-Georges, 613-14. Vol. 2. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2008. Accessed June 19, 2013. http://puffin.harker.org:2316/doi/full/10.3331/1980_460?prevSearch=iep&searchHistory Key=&queryHash=99c9e14ceaa0c7b009f9189cac8999c9.
"Highlights from speeches by Ed Roberts." World Institute on Disability. http://www.wid.org/about-wid/highlights-from-speeches-by-ed-roberts.
Primary evidence, this link contains the transcripts of speeches by Ed Roberts, the founder of WID and the father of the disability rights movement. The World Institute on Disability's headquarters is located at Berkeley.
Hite, Molly. The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0801480175.
Hurwitz, Kathleen A., MD. "A Review of Special Education Law." Pediatric Neurology 39, no. 3 (September 2008): 147-54.
Dr. Hurwitz received her medical degree from University Of California Irvine College Of Medicine. She is a practicing pediatrician in Murrieta.
"Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 1997/Services to Parentally Placed Private School Students with Disabilities." In US Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education/ Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services/ Office of Special Education Programs, 2005. Last modified October 2001. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/idea1.html.
Kirchner, Corinne E. Interview by the author. New York, NY. April 7, 2014.
Dr. Kirchner is a disability studies Columbia University professor. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She was editor-in-chief of the Disability Studies Quarterly journal.
Kitchell, Mark, dir. Berkeley in the Sixties. Narrated by Susan Griffin. 1990. New York: First Run Features, 1990. DVD. The documentary contains primary evidence. The producer, Susan Griffin, is an established feminist and UC Berkeley alumnus. The documentary received multiple awards, including the Best Documentary Award from the National Society of Film Critics in 1990, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
Kornbluh, Felicia. "Disability, Antiprofessionalism, and Civil Rights: The National Federation of the Blind and the 'Right to Organize' in the 1950s." The Journal of American History 97, no. 4 (March 2011): 1023-47. doi:898239170. This journal article was recommended by Dr. Nielsen. Dr. Felicia Kornbluh received her undergraduate degree from Harvard-Radcliffe College and her masters and Ph.D. from Princeton University's Department of History. She is currently a professor at the University of Vermont and specializes in feminism and disability.
Langley, Winston, and Vivian C. Fox. Women's Rights in the United States: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Primary Evidence (Political Acts)
Love, Barbara J. Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
McBride, Alex. "Roe V. Wade (1973)." The Supreme Court. Last modified December 2006. Accessed April 14, 2014.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_roe.html.
Published in PBS, this webpage discusses landmark cases. The author is a law student at Tulane Law School.
Newcomer, Mabel. A Century of Higher Education for American Women. Washington: Zenger Pub., 1975.
Nielsen, Kim. Interview by the author. USA. November 7, 2013. This interview was conducted via email with the author of A Disability History of the United States. Dr. Nielsen is currently a professor of Disability Studies, History, and Women’s & Gender Studies at The University of Toledo. Dr. Nielsen has received numerous teaching awards, is on the Organization of American Historians Committee on Disability and Disability History, and founded the Disability History Association.
Nielsen, Kim E. A Disability History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012. Kim E. Nielsen, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, is a professor of disability studies at the University of Toledo, and worked at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. This is the first book to describe and analyze disability history up to pre-1942, in other words prior to the European arrival.
Office of Specialized Services. "Alternative Special Education Settings and Approved Private Schools." The School District of Philadelphia. http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/s/oss/programs--services/1231. Describe private schools iep - aps
O'Toole, Corbett. "Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Oral History Series: Advocate for Disabled Women's Rights and Health Issues." Interview by Denise Sherer Jacobson. Calisphere. http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt4779n6sq&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_tex t.
———. "Early Days in Berkeley, and Where We Are Now." Ragged Edge, October 19, 2005. Disability Rags Magazine is the first disability magazine and was referenced in Joseph Shapiro's No Pity
Patterson, James T. Brown V. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. Edited by David Hackett Fischer and James M. McPherson. Pivotal Moments in American History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Patterson is a top historian and Ford Foundation Professor of History at Brown University. He has written many books about modern American life and has won the Bancroft Prize in History.
Patterson, Lindsey. "Points of Access: Rehabilitation Centers, Summer Camps, and Student Life in the Making of Disability Activism, 1960–1973." Journal of Social History 46, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 473-99. doi:10.1093/jsh/shs099. This journal article was recommended by Dr. Nielsen. Patterson is a professor at Elmhurst College, focusing on female history, deaf studies, and disability history.
PBS. "Lives Worth Living." Independent Lens. Accessed April 14, 2014. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lives-worth-living/film.html.
Pelka, Fred. What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.
Primary evidence, this book contains collections of different disability advocates' experiences in the movement. The recollections are chronological. Columbia University professor Dr. Corinne Kirchner also recommended the book.
Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Independent Living Management. "Disability History Timeline." Temple University. Last modified 2001. http://courses.temple.edu/neighbor/ds/disabilityrightstimeline.htm.
"Roe V. Wade - 410 U.S. 113 (1973)." Justia US Supreme Court Center. http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/case.html.
This website contains the transcript of Roe v. Wade
Rothman, Juliet Cassuto. Social Work Practice across Disability. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2003.
Schweik, Susan. "Lomax's Matrix: Disability, Solidarity, and the Black Power of 504."
Disability Studies Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2011). http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1371/1539.
UC Berkeley professor Susan Schweik is Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities and has received multiple teaching awards. She played a key role in establishing the Disability Studies program at U.C. Berkeley. She helped establish the Ed Roberts Fellowships in Disability Studies post-doctoral program at Berkeley. Gallaudet students have dedicated a sign in honor of her efforts in the disability community.
Scotch, Richard K. "Politics and Policy in the History of the Disability RIghts Movement." Milbank Quarterly 67, no. 2 (1989): 380-400. JSTOR.
Dr. Richard Scotch is a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Scotch received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the former president of the SOciety for Disability Studies and has served on other disability committees.
"Sexist Inheritance of the Disability Movement." In Gendering Disability, by Corbett Joan O'Toole, 294-300. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Previously published in Gendering Disability. Edited by Bonnie G. Smith and Beth Hutchinson. Corbett O'Toole is a UC Berkeley professor at the Center of Independent Living, one of the leading disability organizations that contributed largely to the disability rights movement. She has published numerous research journal articles on disability and feminism. Dr. Nielsen recommended in the author interview reading Corbett O'Toole's articles.
Shapiro, Joseph P. No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement. New York: Times Books, 1994.
No Pity by Joseph Shapiro is a highly respected and widely used book on disability history, focusing on the disability history movement in the second half of the 20th century. Joseph Shapiro is a social policies writer for U.S. News & World Report.
Taylor, Kelley R. "Inclusion and the Law." Education Digest 76, no. 9 (May 2011): 48-52. https://puffin.harker.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d b=sch&AN=60226901&site=ehost-live.
This article discusses IDEA, Section 504, and the differences between the two acts. The article contains excellent background information on what is available for special need accommodations and services.
"Twenty-Five Years of Educating Children with Disabilities: Good News and the Work Ahead." American Youth Policy Forum and Center on Education Policy. Last modified 2002. http://www.aypf.org/publications/special_ed.pdf.
UC Berkeley. "Activism: A Tradition of Engagement." History of Berkeley. http://www.berkeley.edu/about/hist/activism.shtml.
United States Department of Labor. "Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972." Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management. http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm. This website contains the transcript of Education Amendments regarding gender.
University of North Florida. "Americans with Disabilities Act." ADA Compliance Office. Last modified 2014. Accessed April 14, 2014. http://www.unf.edu/adacompliance/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act.aspx. This website was used to contextualize Section 504 and its impact in future decades.
US Department of State. "Judith E. Heumann." Diplomacy in Action. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/144458.htm.
US Government. "Transcript of Civil Rights Act (1964)." Our Documents. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=transcript.
Primary evidence, this link is a transcript of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
135 Nielsen, interview by the author.