Taking Disability Public

Authors

Jasmine E. Harris, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Abstract

Anti-discrimination laws enforce the idea that no one should be forced or encouraged to hide their race, gender, sexuality or other characteristics of their identity. So why is disability rights law the glaring exception? Other areas of anti-discrimination law have eschewed forms of enforced privacy about protected classes and, as a result, re-frame privacy norms as problematic, antigenic, and, at times, counter to structural reform goals. In contrast, disability rights law values privacy norms to preempt discrimination; in other words, if you never reveal the information, no one can discriminate against you because of that information. This Article argues that this is a mistake, and that to truly discard stigma and false notions of disability as synonymous with incapacity, we need to fundamentally challenge and re-conceive of how privacy applies to disability identity, legal status, the law’s remedial role and, in some settings, redesign legal interventions to incentivize publicity values.

Keywords

Disability Law, Disability Rights, Privacy Law, Publicity, Americans With Disabilities Act, Anti-Discrimination Law, Equality Law, Civil Rights

Publication Title

University of Pennsylvania Law Review

Publication Citation

169 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1681 (2021)

Repository Citation

Harris, Jasmine E., "Taking Disability Public" (2021). All Faculty Scholarship. 2743.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/2743