Disability Law Commons^™

The Inconvenience Of Justice: How Unmitigated Official Misconduct Almost Destroyed The Lives Of Five Young Boys From Harlem, Stefania Bordone, David Wright

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Enabling The Best Interests Factors, Adrián E. Alvarez

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

For over a century, state courts and other child welfare agencies in the United States have been applying the “best interests of the child standard” to all decision-making concerning children. The standard is also enshrined within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)—a treaty that every nation in the world has ratified except the United States. Notwithstanding its widespread adoption in family law, the standard is, with only a few exceptions, noticeably missing from American laws and policies pertaining to children in the immigration system.

There is a rich literature arguing that children should enjoy special …

When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro*: Management Best Practices In The Age Of Medicinal Marijuana, John I. Winn Jd, Llm

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Medicalization And The New Civil Rights, Craig Konnoth

Publications

In the last several decades, individuals have advanced civil rights claims that rely on the language of medicine. This Article is the first to define and defend these “medical civil rights” as a unified phenomenon.

Individuals have increasingly used the language of medicine to seek rights and benefits, often for conditions that would not have been cognizable even a few years ago. For example, litigants have claimed that discrimination against transgender individuals constitutes illegal disability discrimination. Others have argued that their fatigue constitutes chronic fatigue syndrome (which was, until recently, a novel and contested diagnosis) to obtain Social Security disability …

Resolving Tensions Between Disability Rights Law And Covid-19 Mask Policies, Elizabeth Pendo, Robert Gatter, Seema Mohapatra

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Washington’S Young Offenders: O’Dell Demands A Change To Sentencing Guidelines, Erika Vranizan

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that the O’Dell decision was a watershed moment for criminal justice reform. It argues that the reasoning in O’Dell should be seized upon by the legislature to take action to remediate instances in which defendants are legal adults but do not possess the cognitive characteristics of an adult sufficient to justify adult punishment. Given both the scientific impossibility of identifying a precise age at which characteristics of youthfulness end and adulthood begins and the Court’s repeated recognition that these very factors impact culpability, the current approach to sentencing young offenders aged eighteen to twenty-five as adults simply …

The Role Of Law And Policy In Achieving Healthy People’S Disability And Health Goals Around Access To Health Care, Activities Promoting Health And Wellness, Independent Living And Participation, And Collecting Data In The United States, Elizabeth Pendo, Lisa I. Iezzoni

Articles

Ensuring that the almost 60 million Americans with disabilities live as healthy and independent lives as possible is an important goal for our nation. This evidence-based report highlights efforts to better use law and policy to support and protect people with disabilities. Specifically, it examines how existing federal laws and policies could be leveraged by states, communities, and other sectors to reduce barriers to primary and preventive care; reduce barriers to local health and wellness programs; increase access to leisure, social, or community activities (and indirectly, to religious activities) for individuals with disabilities; and generate better disability data needed to …

Anticipating Accommodation, Jennifer B. Shinall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In theory, a reasonable accommodation mandate can remedy worker marginalization by requiring employers to make small adjustments in the workplace that have big payoffs for employees. But in reality, a reasonable accommodation mandate may be an empty promise. Reasonable accommodation is the hallmark feature of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA "), yet decades of empirical studies indicate that wage and employment outcomes of disabled individuals have not improved--and may have even worsened--since the Act's passage. Economists have been quick to blame the reasonable accommodation mandate for the ADA's failure, but they have lacked sufficient data to discern both what …

Beyond The Marrakesh Vip Treaty: Typology Of Copyright Access-Enabling Provisions For Persons With Disabilities, Caroline B. Ncube, Blake E. Reid, Desmond O. Oriakhogba

Publications

This paper builds upon the evidence drawn from a scoping study on access to copyright works by persons with disabilities. It identifies and discusses specific access‐enabling technologies for persons with aural, cognitive, physical, and visual disabilities and how they are affected by the exercise of exclusive rights. It shows how, and the extent to which states' ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled (Marrakesh Treaty) has enabled the making of accessible format of copyright works for persons with disabilities. To this end, the paper examines …

Internet Architecture And Disability, Blake E. Reid

Publications

The Internet is essential for education, employment, information, and cultural and democratic participation. For tens of millions of people with disabilities in the United States, barriers to accessing the Internet—including the visual presentation of information to people who are blind or visually impaired, the aural presentation of information to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the persistence of Internet technology, interfaces, and content without regard to prohibitive cognitive load for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities—collectively pose one of the most significant civil rights issues of the information age. Yet disability law lacks a comprehensive theoretical approach …

Medical Civil Rights As A Site Of Activism: A Reply To Critics, Craig Konnoth

Publications

See Craig Konnoth, Medicalization and the New Civil Rights, 72 Stan. L. Rev. 1165 (2020).

See also Rabia Belt & Doron Dorfman, Response, Reweighing Medical Civil Rights, 72 Stan. L. Rev. Online 176 (2020), https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/reweighing-medical-civil-rights/; Allison K. Hoffman, Response, How Medicalization of Civil Rights Could Disappoint, 72 Stan. L. Rev. Online 165 (2020), https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/how-medicalization-of-civil-rights-could-disappoint/.

Can You Hear Me Later And Believe Me Now? Behavioral Law And Economics Of Chronic Repeated Ambient Acoustic Pollution Causing Noise-Induced (Hidden) Hearing Loss, Peter H. Huang, Kelly J. Poore

Publications

This Article analyzes the public health issues of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (“NIHL”) and Noise-Induced Hidden Hearing Loss (“NIHHL”) due to Chronic Repeated Ambient Acoustic Pollution (“CRAAP”). This Article examines the clinical and empirical medical data about NIHL and NIHHL and its normative implications. It applies behavioral law and economics and information economics to advance legal policies to reduce CRAAP. Finally, this Article advocates changing individual and social attitudes about deafness and hearing loss to raise political awareness and social consciousness about NIHL and NIHHL. One way to change our attitudes is by practicing compassion, empathy, and kindness, including Loving-Kindness Mindfulness …

The Trump Administration’S Social Security Rules Will Harm Innovation In The Assistive Technology Industry And People With Disabilities, Christopher Buccafusco, Mariel Talmage

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

The following essay was adapted from the authors’ comment submitted in opposition to the Trump Administration’s Proposed Rules Regarding the Frequency and Notice of Continuing Disability Reviews.

Accommodating Pregnancy Five Years After Young V. Ups: Where We Are & Where We Should Go, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This Article will explore how pregnant employees fare when they are denied accommodations in the workplace that would have allowed them to work safely through their pregnancies. The two most commonly used legal avenues for pregnant plaintiffs are the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Successful cases under the ADA were rare until Congress expanded the ADA’s definition of disability in 2008. PDA claims became easier after the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc. This Article will analyze both the body of PDA cases decided since Young, and …

Adverse Employment Actions In Failure-To-Accommodate Claims: Much Ado About Nothing, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This Article addresses a circuit split in the disability law jurisprudence. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employees generally bring two types of claims against their employers—discrimination claims and failure-to-accommodate claims. Succeeding on a discrimination claim requires proving that the employee suffered an adverse employment action. Succeeding on a failure-to-accommodate claim does not. But several courts—including a recent case in the Tenth Circuit—have added this adverse-employment-action requirement into failure-to-accommodate claims. In doing so, these courts have camouflaged important issues about an employer’s obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation to disabled employees. Although I believe that courts that require an …

Book Review Essay: Invisibility, Inclusivity & Fraternity: Was Yosef On The Spectrum? Understanding Joseph Through Torah, Midrash And Classical Jewish Sources (Samuel J. Levine, Urim Publications (2019)), Stephen A. Rosenbaum

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Jewish And American Disability Law And On The God Who Makes All Things Good, Randy Lee

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Resolving Tensions Between Disability Rights Law And Covid-19 Mask Policies, Elizabeth Pendo, Robert Gatter, Seema Mohapatra

Articles

As states reopen, an increasing number of state and local officials are requiring people to wear face masks while out of the home. Grocery stores, retail outlets, restaurants, and other businesses are also announcing their own mask policies, which may differ from public policies. Public health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus such as wearing masks have the potential to greatly benefit millions of Americans with disabilities, who are particularly vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19. But certain disabilities may make it difficult or inadvisable to wear a mask.

Mask-wearing has become a political flashpoint, putting people with …

Supporters And Advocates In Disability Accommodations Meetings: Using Title Ix As A Framework, Marissa Ditkowsky

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Content Warning: This piece contains some discussion of sexual assault and violence.

The Intersection Between Disability And Lgbt Discrimination And Marginalization, Victoria M. Rodríguez-Roldán

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.