Stigma, Law and Policy

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Stigma, Law and Policy

• Scott Burris, J.D.
• Temple University Beasley School of Law
• Center for Law and the Publics Health
• at Georgetown Johns Hopkins Universities

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Tunnel Vision
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Social Progress

• Life in the State of Nature is nasty, brutish
  and short.
• Thomas Hobbes

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Social Progress

• Life in the United States is nasty, brutish and
  long.
• Anonymous

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Social Dispute is Everywhere

• All the Protestants hate the Catholics
• And the Catholics hate the Protestants
• All the Hindus hate the Moslems,
• And everybody hates the Jews
• Tom Lehrer, National Brotherhood Week circa
  1963

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So we have to ask

• When does inter-group tension or conflict become
  stigma?

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Link Phelans Social-Level Model
Differences noted
Link to negative stereotypes
POWER
Us vs. them distinctions

• Discrimination
• Direct
• Structural

Status loss discrimion
Internalized stigma
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Link Phelans Social-Level Model
Differences noted

• The big questions
• How does law help create and enforce stigma at
  each step?
• How can it be effectively used to reduce direct
  discrimination?
• How can law be used to change the very social
  structures it constitutes?

Link to negative stereotypes
POWER
Us vs. them distinctions

• Discrimination
• Direct
• Structural

Status loss discrimion
Internalized stigma
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Research Questions
Differences noted
Targeting services?
Link to negative stereotypes
Criminalization of sex work, drug use?
Testing and reporting?
POWER
Us vs. them distinctions

• Discrimination
• Direct
• Structural

Status loss discrimion
Internalized stigma
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Swanson et al. Justice Disparities Does the
ADA Enforcement System Treat People with
Psychiatric Disabilities Fairly? 66 Maryland L.
Rev. __ (forthcoming 2006) (Thanks, NIMH)
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Link Phelans Social-Level Model
Differences noted
But we also have a set of very hard issues about
the role of law in the creation and reduction of
internalized stigma
Link to negative stereotypes
POWER
Us vs. them distinctions

• Discrimination
• Direct
• Structural

Status loss discrimion
Internalized stigma
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Scamblers Hidden Distress Model
Diagnosis
At the individual level, there has been a tension
between protective policies like
antidiscrimination law and privacy protection,
and the impulse to support resistance strategies
Internalizes stigma
Resists stigma
Concealment strategies
Resistance strategies
Status loss discrimion
Hidden distress
Less harm?
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to FIGURE OUT HOW TO INTEGRATE LAW INTO YOUR
RESEARCH