Disability Law and Policy provides an overview of the major themes and insights in disability law. It is also a compelling compendium of stories about how our legal system has responded to the needs of impacted individuals. Peter Blanck is University Professor & Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. The year 2020 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. During the past three decades, disability law and policy, including the law of the ADA itself, have evolved dramatically in the United States and internationally. Walls of inaccessibility, exclusion, segregation, stigma, and discrimination have been torn down, often brick-by-brick. But the work continues, many times led by advocates who have never known a world without the ADA and are now building on the efforts of those who came before them.
Lex Frieden, former Chairperson of the National Council on Disability, writes in the book's Foreword: "In 1967, I survived a head-on car crash. When I woke up, I was paralyzed from the shoulders down... My story is one of many in the modern disability rights movement. In Disability Law and Policy, Peter Blanck retells my story, and the personal experiences of many others living with disabilities, in a master tour of the area. Peter is a world-renowned teacher, researcher, lawyer, and advocate. He has been central to the modern sea change in disability civil rights... Disability Law and Policy should be read by all of us—people with the lived experience of disability and their advocates, parents, family members, and friends."
