Conditions of Citizenship: Disability at the End of the Welfare State

• In Event: Moving Law Otherwise

Abstract

In May 2015, families, students, and teachers filed a lawsuit against the Compton, California Unified School District alleging that it had failed to meet the needs of students exposed to “complex trauma” as a result of violence, abuse, poverty, and housing and food insecurity (among other adverse events). Although the court did not “endorse the legal position that exposure to two or more traumatic events is, without more, a cognizable disability under [Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act]” they did “acknowledge[] the allegations that exposure to traumatic events might cause physical or mental impairments that could be cognizable as disabilities under the two Acts” (emphasis in original). See P.P., et al. v. Compton Unified School District, et al., 135 F.Supp.3d 1098, at 1103 (C.D. Cal. 2015).

A little over a year later, in October 2016, families of children in Flint, Michigan, filed a class-action lawsuit against local and state education authorities citing “systemic violations” of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Individuals with Disabilities Education ACT (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. See D.R. et al., v. Michigan Department of Education et al., Case No. 16-13694 (E.D. Mich). Precipitated by the Flint water crisis and the estimated 30,000 children exposed to lead-contaminated water, the lawsuit anticipated an increased need for special education services as the health consequences of the water crisis became more apparent. A settlement reached in 2020 included the establishment of a $9 million special education fund for students impacted by the crisis and a widespread review of existing special education programs (D.R. v. Michigan, exhibit A).

Using these two cases as examples, I show how disability is deployed to both seek redress for specific harms and to stage a broader critique of the political and economic forces that have left cities like Flint and Compton unable to provide even the most basic services. Indeed, in the absence of a more robust welfare state, “claiming disability” (Eyer 2021) has become one of the few remaining ways to access the resources, goods, and services necessary for full citizenship. Where previous literature has focused on the negative downstream effects of this “medicalization of civil rights” (Konnoth 2020, see also Bridges 2011, Roberts 1997, Spade 2003, Zola 1972), here I consider how these cases model an alternative approach to citizenship that disrupts the antinomy between citizenship and dependency. Insofar as disability has become a condition of citizenship, then, it offers a generative site for rethinking the terms of political inclusion.

Author

• Ann Kathleen Heffernan, University of Michigan