The Disability Rights Movement: A Sociological Perspective David Pettinicchio PhD 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 1960s We also found that groups became more professionalized over time and less protest oriented in the 1970s and 1980s

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) 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 these 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 Organizational ecology Professionalized groups are able to use resource-expensive tactics like lobbying and legal mobilization but this won’t 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?

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

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 1970s 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?