Inverse Integration and the Relational Deficit of Disability Rights Law | Yaron Kobo

Integration has long been a central tenet of disability law. In both doctrine and scholarship, however, disability integration has been understood to operate in only one direction: integrating disabled people into mainstream society. This conventional approach has overlooked a different model, inverse integration, whereby nondisabled people enter disability-focused settings, frameworks, or activities. As this Article demonstrates, inverse integration is ubiquitous. For example, in contemporary society, nondisabled students study in “special education” programs, nondisabled people reside in housing projects for disabled individuals, hearing actors perform in deaf theatres, and nondisabled athletes compete in wheelchair sports. This Article develops a typology of inverse integration practices and analyzes the model’s interaction with existing disability rights law. It shows that legal and social norms generally push against the involvement of nondisabled people in disabled spaces or activities. Against this backdrop, the seeming popularity of inverse integration is a puzzle. What is driving this practice? The answer, this Article argues, has to do with relationships: Inverse integration allows disabled and nondisabled people to share experiences, interests, and common language with family members, friends, and intimate partners. These features of inverse integration are of particular importance given the failure of disability rights laws to protect, facilitate, and reinforce interpersonal relationships. Thus, both descriptively and prescriptively, inverse integration is best understood as a relationships-based model. Drawing upon disability studies and social science literature, the Article concludes by proposing preliminary interventions to promote socially desirable forms of inverse integration.

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מעגליות ותנועתיות בעולם התעסוקתי של אדם עם מוגבלות | אילון ברכפלד