The Disability Rights Movement A Sociological Perspective David

The Disability Rights Movement: A Sociological Perspective David Pettinicchio Ph. D Candidate Department of Sociology

What’s 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

Social movement success • What do social movements do and how do we know they’re 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

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

Findings • How have we empirically tested these theories? • Two major cases: women’s 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 1960 s • We also found that groups became more professionalized over time and less protest oriented in the 1970 s and 1980 s

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 80 s. • Were organizations actually able to mobilize resources for beneficiaries so as to promote social change? (RM) • Doesn’t 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 theories to explain disability rights mobilization – Because the same processes are at work, just that the case and timing is different than women’s movement and black civil rights

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? • Don’t have a “necessary opposition” • A movement that already had an advantage that most other movements didn’t 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”

What do I expect to find? • Resource Mobilization – Professionalized groups are able to use resource-expensive tactics like lobbying and legal mobilization but this won’t happen until there advocacy oriented organizations • Organizational ecology – Prior to the late 1970 s, 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 70 s and 80 s? Rather than responding to an opening in the Political opportunity structure, they were responding to retrenchment. • What am I referring to here?

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 resourceexpensive strategy because it requires money, staff and expertise • But the payoffs could be great – Monetary, expansion of case law, setting precedent

What do studies show? • Extra-legal or policy based models for legal outcomes – Justices’ party affiliation, preferences, won’t hear cases they know the court won’t 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 1970 s experienced a favorable tide when courts were sympathetic to African American and women plaintiffs

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.

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

A victory for one minority is victory for all? Why do you think scholars would say this? Do you agree?