My Spin: 
A Disability Hierarchy? 
By Laura Remson Mitchell
 

It's hardly surprising that much of the nondisabled world misunderstands and misrepresents the Americans with Disabilities Act. Unfortunately,  far too many people with disabilities do the same thing, treating the ADA as if it were some kind of special benefits program instead of a law to protect our civil rights.

Even more damaging, some of our own seem to believe in a hierarchy of disability that leads them to discount as "pseudocrips" — in the words of Alan Troop's May "My Spin" column with that title — those who don't meet their personal definition of "disabled."

The hierarchy concept is not only mean-spirited and offensive; it's dangerous to the cause of disability rights. It reinforces the public's mistaken perception that the ADA is widely abused by malingerers and cheats. It is that perception — not the reality of the ADA — that is responsible for much of the backlash we see.

The concept of a disability hierarchy may be useful for distributing scarce resources in benefits programs, but it's not appropriate for civil rights! Would any reasonable person say that light-skinned African Americans aren't entitled to civil rights protection because their skin isn't dark enough? Yet some people think it's perfectly acceptable to apply such a standard to the ADA, limiting protection to 
those who have very obvious disabilities.

I've been a disability rights advocate for the past 12 years. Although I now use a scooter, often confronting the same physical and social barriers faced by full-time wheelchair users, job discrimination hit me long before. 

I lost one opportunity when a prospective employer saw me walking with a cane. Even earlier, a job I had been promised evaporated when the employer learned I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. At the time, I had no permanent disabling symptoms — just a diagnosis. Did that make me a "pseudocrip," unworthy of civil rights protection? It would according to Troop’s way of thinking.

The disability hierarchy concept fits right in with recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that whittle away at the civil rights foundations of the ADA, putting many of us into a no-win bind: In the view of the Supreme Court, if your condition can be "mitigated" enough that you can do your job, then you aren't really disabled and therefore can't turn to the ADA for protection against on-the-job discrimination. But if you are unable or unwilling to "mitigate" the condition, the employer can refuse to hire you — or keep you on the payroll — because you can't perform the "essential functions" of the position!

The hierarchy concept of disability sometimes reminds me of an exclusive private club guarding the sanctity of its membership rules. But as longtime disability activists often say, disability is a club that anyone can join — and most will at some point in their lives.

Important legislation like S. 1935 (MiCASSA) needs broad support from nondisabled voters and members of Congress. Do we tell the "pseudocrips" not to bother helping us win this support? Or do we encourage those with less severe impairments to identify with the civil rights perspective on the disability experience? It is up to us to show temporarily able-bodied people that it is in their best interest to address disability concerns.  Certainly, we can use as many
allies as possible. Our alternative is to play the helpless victim and depend on charity to get our needs met — either directly or in the form of paternalistic public policies enacted out of pity rather than respect. Our alternative is to play the helpless victim and depend on charity to get our needs met — either directly or in the form of paternalistic public policies enacted out of pity rather than respect.

We can show nondisabled people that they have a stake in doing right by us. We can win their respect as valued partners in resolving the problems that face us all. But in order to achieve that goal, we must use whatever personal experience nondisabled people have had with disability — no matter how minimal it may seem to us — to help them identify with us and with our cause. Sadly, the disability hierarchy concept pushes us in the opposite direction. It is isolating, divisive, often insensitive — and if we're not very careful, it will destroy most of what the disability rights movement has achieved in the last 10 years.

Laura Remson Mitchell is a public policy analyst, consultant and writer.