Kohn Lecture - Disability and the Return of Eugenics and the Poor Law

Throughout the 20th Century and the first quarter of the 21st, U.S. disability policy increasingly pursued the goals of equality, inclusion, integration, and empowerment for people with disabilities. Moving away from the eugenic principles that dominated the first part of this period, policy increasingly treated disability as something to be accommodated rather than eliminated, and disabled people as folks who should be supported to live full lives in the community. But recent events -- punitive responses to mental illness and homelessness at the state and federal levels, the dramatic retrenchment of Medicaid and other support programs during the past few months, and others -- threaten to return us to the world of the Eugenics Era and the English Poor Laws before that, in which disability is treated as a drain on society and those with disabilities are to be highly regulated. Have a question for our guest or panel? Submit your question at: https://myumi.ch/4rPZ4