The Disability Rights Movement: A Sociological Perspective

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The Disability Rights Movement A Sociological
Perspective

• David Pettinicchio
• PhD Candidate
• Department of Sociology

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Whats a social movement ?

• A social movement is a set of opinions and
  beliefs in a population which represents
  preferences for changing some elements of the
  social structure and/or reward distribution of a
  society
• social movements are often represented by formal
  organizations
• Targets vary

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Social movement success

• What do social movements do and how do we know
  theyre good at doing them?
• Have to look at the target
• They shift public opinion
• They influence the media
• They affect policy
• They become co-opted into the state
• They influence court cases
• A note on cooption as a negative outcome

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Ways we think of social movements

• I will discuss three major sociological theories
  which I will apply to disability rights
• Resource mobilization
• professionalization
• Organizational ecology
• Density dependence
• Political Process
• Political opportunity structure

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Findings

• How have we empirically tested these theories?
• Two major cases womens movement and black civil
  rights movement
• We found that women and black civil rights
  movements have experienced similar mobilization
  due to political opportunities in the 1960s
• We also found that groups became more
  professionalized over time and less protest
  oriented in the 1970s and 1980s

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What is the disability rights movement?

• Some sociologists would argue there was no
  disability rights movement until much later
• There was little mobilization as sociologists
  would define it until the 80s.
• Were organizations actually able to mobilize
  resources for beneficiaries so as to promote
  social change? (RM)
• Doesnt appear that organizations were organized
  around advocacy (as strategy) (Ecology)
• What political opportunities are they responding
  to if not those other movements were responding
  to? (Political Process)
• Remember, our theories have been tested using
  specific movements
• Does this make sociological theory unable to
  explain disability rights? On the contrary, we
  can use these theories to explain disability
  rights mobilization
• Because the same processes are at work, just that
  the case and timing is different than womens
  movement and black civil rights

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What makes disability rights an interesting
empirical case?

• A movement that has had to define its place
  within a civil rights frame
• What does this mean and why is this important?
• For much of its history, beneficiaries were not
  organizational members
• Why might this matter to social movements?
• Dont have a necessary opposition
• A movement that already had an advantage that
  most other movements didnt have and this is an
  advantage that was not a result of the movement
  The Rehab Act of 1973
• the movement was in the government

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What do I expect to find?

• Resource Mobilization
• Professionalized groups are able to use
  resource-expensive tactics like lobbying and
  legal mobilization but this wont happen until
  there are advocacy oriented organizations
• Organizational ecology
• Prior to the late 1970s, disability groups will
  be service-provision oriented, and probably
  single focused.
• Later, due to density-dependence, organizations
  try to adapt and adopt new more advocacy or
  protest oriented strategies.
• Political Opportunity
• But organizations will only adopt advocacy or
  protests if the environment in which they operate
  calls for it
• Why the late 70s and 80s? Rather than responding
  to an opening in the Political opportunity
  structure, they were responding to retrenchment.
• What am I referring to here?

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Social Movements and Legal Mobilization

• A specific tactic used by movement organizations
  is initializing the courts on behalf of
  plaintiffs
• But legal mobilization is a resource-expensive
  strategy because it requires money, staff and
  expertise
• But the payoffs could be great
• Monetary, expansion of case law, setting
  precedent

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What do studies show?

• Extra-legal or policy based models for legal
  outcomes
• Justices party affiliation, preferences, wont
  hear cases they know the court wont overturn,
  etc.
• We also know that EEO studies have found that
  cases with amicus curiae are more likely to get
  heard, and also more likely to have a favorable
  outcome
• EEO mobilization in the 1970s experienced a
  favorable tide when courts were sympathetic to
  African American and women plaintiffs

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Disability rights and legal mobilization An
empirical question

• What laws are disability plaintiffs mobilizing?
• Does it matter to ask this question?
• Rehabilitation Act Reasonable Accommodation and
  Undue Hardship
• What has been the problem or what may distinguish
  disability plaintiffs from others?
• Did you know that Nixon vetoed the Rehab Act
  twice, but never because of the affirmative
  action section. It was the costs of accommodation
  that sent out a signal.

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What is needed then for disability legal
mobilization to be successful?

• Advocacy organizations
• Resource-rich organizations
• Legislation under which to file suit (or at
  least, an impetus to use the courts)
• Positive/negative reaction by courts can
  stimulate further mobilization

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• A victory for one minority is victory for all?

Why do you think scholars would say this? Do you
agree?