Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
This article presents a new framework for analyzing the development and implementation of disability law: the prism of the fear of “the disability con”—popular perceptions of fraud and fakery. We all encounter disability rights and accommodations in everyday life. However, people with disabilities pay a price for the legal recognition of their rights. People who park in disabled parking spots, use service dogs, move to the front of lines, receive Social Security benefits, or request academic accommodations are often viewed as faking disabilities and abusing the law. This disability con stereotype thus serves as an important invisible barrier preventing Americans with disabilities from fully taking part in society, as it not only undermines the public legitimacy of rights but also restricts the design and implementation of the legal regime illustrating those. Nevertheless, this moral panic around disability con in American society and its manifestations has yet to be studied in a systematic-empirical way, nor has it been addressed in sociolegal scholarship. Using a mixed-methods approach composed of an original nationally representative survey along with in-depth interviews, this article fills this gap. The data suggest that the stereotype of disability con applies to multiple disability rights across venues and contexts; that nearly 60% of Americans with disabilities feel that others question their disability; that the stereotype of disability con extends to visible disabilities and to less apparent ones; and that, counterintuitively, the people most suspicious are nondisabled individuals with a personal connection to a disabled person and disabled people who experience suspicion themselves. Based on the richer understanding of the sociolegal phenomenon, this article suggests strategies to increase trust and reduce suspicion of the disability con.
Associate Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law. JSD, JSM, Stanford Law School; LL.B, LL.M, B.A, University of Haifa. This research was funded through the generous support of the Diversity Dissertation Research Opportunity grant (DDRO) awarded by the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education at Stanford University, the graduate fellowship at Stanford University's Center for Ethics in Society, Stanford's Constitutional Law Center's Bradley fellowship, and Alin Beit Noam's Institute for Disability Studies for the Perla & Samuel Rubinstein Scholarship for Disability Studies and Universal Design. I would like to give a special thanks to my doctoral committee Robert MacCoun, Rabia Belt, Hazel Markus, Bernnadette Meyler, and Susan Schweik. I wish to thank Nili Broyer, Jud Campbell, Karen Cook, Leora Dahan-Katz, Lauren Edelman, Brian R. Grossman, Diana Guzman-Rodriguez, Deborah Hensler, Katharina Heyer, Arlene Kanter, Roderick M. Kramer, Tamar Kricheli-Katz, Michael McConnell, Sagit Mor, Zach A. Morris, Anne Newman, Sheraden Nicholau, Ana Cristina Nunez, Jef Pearlman, Emily Polk, Jacob Reinhead, Michael Rosenfeld, Heather Rothman, Maisoon Sahouria, Debra Satz, Jonathan Simon, Michael Ashley Stein, Pnina Steinberg, Susan Sterett, Mark Storslee, Kathleen Tarr, Arm Tungnirun, Katharine Weis, Shirli Werner, Mariela Yabo, and the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript. I would also like to thank the members of the J.S.D program at Stanford Law School for the engagement with this work and their helpful feedback. Finally, I would like to thank the anonymous interviewees for this research for candidly sharing their life experiences with me.