The contact hypothesis posits that increasing opportunities for interactions between diverse groups can, under the right conditions, foster greater acceptance. Disability rights law, like other areas of antidiscrimination law, relies on contact theory and its chosen prescription, integration. The aesthetics of disability are visible sensory and behavioral markers that trigger particular aesthetic and affective judgments about marked individuals. What explains the absence of meaningful normative shifts in the context of disability?ĭisability legal theories do not account for the ways in which the aesthetics of disability mediate rights and the integrative ideal. The ADA also advanced integration as a prospective tool to reduce disability discrimination-a familiar remedial strategy in the civil rights playbook. Prescriptively, Congress designed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure that people with disabilities are not denied access to employment, public services, and places of public accommodations. Nearly three decades ago, Congress identified the primary barrier facing people with disabilities as prejudicial attitudes, a product of historical segregation and invisibility. It eliminates generalizations and stereotypes, by focusing on the person rather than the disability.”). 6, 2019) (“By placing the person first, the disability is no longer the primary, defining characteristic of an individual, but one of several aspects of the whole person. See What Is People First Language?, The Arc, (last visited Apr. This Article uses “people first” language consistent with the view within the U.S. This Article proposes a novel theoretical lens to more accurately reflect the complexity of the aesthetic– affective process of discriminatory behavior in the context of disability.ĭisability rights law has failed to change public hearts and minds about people with disabilities. Contact and engagement with the aesthetics of disability may fail to provide the benefits assumed by contact theory, but more perversely, under certain conditions, they may trigger negative affective responses that may stunt the very normative change sought through antidiscrimination law. ![]() ![]() The aesthetics literature introduces a significant complication to uncritical reliance on contact as the theoretical and remedial basis for our inclusive ideal. However, neither the scholarship nor disability law sufficiently accounts for what this Article calls the “aesthetics of disability,” the proposition that our interaction with disability is mediated by an affective process that inclines us to like, dislike, be attracted to, or be repulsed by others on the basis of their appearance. This central faith, which is rooted in contact theory, has encouraged integration of people with and without disabilities, with the expectation that contact will reduce prejudicial attitudes and shift societal norms. The foundational faith of disability law is the proposition that we can reduce disability discrimination if we can foster interactions between disabled and nondisabled people.
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