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Receiving gender-affirming care in the carceral setting--or any setting--remains a controversial and litigious process. Plaintiffs have relied on the Eighth Amendment, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and disability protections, all of which have led to inconsistent or inadequate outcomes among lower courts. However, receiving appropriate care can be the difference between life and death for those in need of it. The Fourth Circuit's decision in Williams v. Kincaid provides a path forward for those seeking gender-affirming care by clarifying the provision in the Americans with Disabilities Act ('ADA') that states its inapplicability to 'gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments' and discussing whether the law protects those with gender dysphoria. Ultimately, the Fourth Circuit held that the ADA protects individuals with gender dysphoria. However, as transformative as the decision may be, it revives concerns that have always existed about whether disability law adds to the stigma associated with the LGBT+ community, pathologizes aspects of people's identities, and gives credibility to those who seek to harm those communities by framing their identity as a diagnosis. While we should celebrate the increased access and protections that the ADA provides, we should be cautious of how it may further the marginalization that transgender and nonbinary persons experience. Furthermore, we should be cautious of overreliance on medical diagnosis when healthcare inequities are prevalent among the communities who stand to benefit the most from the ADA's protection. While relying on disability law to provide for the needs of transgender and nonbinary persons is one solution, we should think about other paths for expanding access to gender-affirming care. We should start by questioning the viability of the ADA's exclusion of 'gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments,' which has its roots in historic disapproval of LGBT+ communities. Though litigation is likely to continue on this issue in the years ahead, the hope is that the courts that have to decide whether or not to protect access to lifesaving care will provide a meaningful path forward to those whose lives depend on the recognition and affirmation of their identities and humanity., INTRODUCTION One of the most mainstream media portrayals of a transgender ('trans') person is that of Laverne Cox's character, Sophia Burset, in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. [...]

Jurisprudential regimes theory (JRT) has argued that scholars could detect the effects of legal doctrine on Supreme Court decision-making by analyzing major changes in legal doctrine. Critics of JRT have argued that the evidence constitutes a simple statistical artifact and that appropriate analyses find no such results. I investigate whether changes in the legal regime affect judicial decision-making by changing the population of cases available for the courts to rule on. I find evidence that changes in the legal regime have contingent effects on decision-making. A decision that changed potential litigants' eligibility for bringing claims had negative effects on dispute generation and settlement payouts. A decision that made proof of claims easier for plaintiffs to establish increased litigant selection but decreased payouts, suggesting that plaintiffs may have reacted overconfidently. Finally, another decision that was believed to make plaintiffs' proof easier to show, but was widely disregarded, increased payouts in all cases. That decision had an initial positive effect on settlements that later shifted, suggesting that litigants saw the way lower courts were treating the decision and shifted away from their pro-plaintiff positioning. Taken together, these results offer evidence that merely asking if law constrains judicial decision-making is an incomplete inquiry. Litigants change their behavior in response to changes in the law, which affects the sample of cases that judges get to decide., INTRODUCTION 397 I. THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE 403 A. The Doctrine: Changing Employment Law in the 1990s AND 2000s 403 1. Quantitative Analysis of Case Outcomes in Employment Law 404 [...]

Employees in the United States are protected from unlawful harassment that rises to the level of a 'hostile work environment.' Federal circuits recognize that employers could be liable under Title VII when their employees experience hostile work environments because of harassment from nonemployees. However, outside of Title VII, not all federal circuits have recognized that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protect employees from hostile work environments. As a result, employees are vulnerable with respect to age and disability-based harassment. This Comment argues that all federal circuits should allow hostile work environment claims under the ADA and ADEA. The reasons to recognize hostile work claims under the ADA and ADEA are simple but powerful: to uphold uniformity in federal law, protect American workers equally from harassment based on a protected characteristic, and recognize the influence of Title VII. Additionally, this Comment argues that liability should extend under the ADA and ADEA when employees experience hostile work environments due to nonemployee harassment. Because Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA each intend to prohibit unlawful discrimination in employment, the ADA and ADEA should be treated the same as Title VII in this context., INTRODUCTION A customer walks into the same bank every day and harasses an employee because of their age or disability. This repeated harassment creates a hostile work environment that interferes [...]

Washington State utilizes the Involuntary Treatment Act (ITA) to civilly commit individuals experiencing behavioral health crises. Although civil commitment involves stripping away fundamental rights, it receives less attention than criminal incarceration. The ITA is meant to protect not just the general community, but also the rights of people with behavioral health disorders who utilize the ITA system. Yet, its implementation tells a different story. Individuals in King County are detained and committed repeatedly, without receiving consistent care. Furthermore, the ITA disproportionately impacts unhoused individuals and Black individuals. As the ITA continues to grow both in utilization and expense, other community-based behavioral health interventions are unable to thrive. This is not just a social services issue: the implementation of the ITA in King County does not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act or Washington's constitutional duty to foster and support institutions for individuals who are 'mentally ill.' Implementation of civil commitment law in King County is ethically and legally questionable, and raises disturbing questions about civil commitment statewide. This Comment suggests that federal litigation may be necessary to persuade state and local governments to alter how they implement the ITA and to bring that implementation into alignment with state and federal disability law., INTRODUCTION In 2019, Michael's (1) mother took the stand to testify that she thought her son should be involuntarily committed. She was tearful as she explained that she could not [...]

The dominance of 'cost narratives' in disability law and discourse warranted the inclusion of a scholarly roundtable discussion devoted to the topic. The transcription below captures this discussion among three [...]

INTRODUCTION 1905 I. DISABILITY FRAMES IN CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT LITIGATION 1910 A. Stigmatizing Disability Frames 1912 B. Productive Disability Frames 1916 II. DISABILITY RIGHTS AND DISABILITY JUSTICE MOVEMENTS: FROM PRISON [...]

Civil rights legal scholars and practitioners have lamented the constraints of the largely intent-based legal framework required to challenge racial discrimination and injustice. As a result, they have sought alternative methods that seemingly require less overt proof of discrimination and are more equipped to address structural harm. One of these proposed solutions involves the use of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)--due to its affirmative mandate to address discrimination by reasonable modification or accommodation--and the framing of issues of racial injustice in terms of disability or the deprivation of medical rights. Environmental justice, an area in which issues of both race and disability are salient and affect one another, is one such context in which advocates have tried to use the ADA to challenge broader structural harm. This Article analyzes cases in which practitioners have used the ADA to challenge issues of environmental injustice to examine the purported utility of the ADA, and disability and medicalization framing, more generally, in addressing structural racism and injustice. Specifically, I discuss the attempted use of the ADA to stop the construction of a petrochemical plant in 'Cancer Alley,' Louisiana and to challenge mold on behalf of public housing residents in New York City. The use of the ADA to challenge environmental injustice has clear legal and social justice narrative benefits that explain its appeal, including the required inclusion of people with disabilities in environmental justice campaigns that disproportionately impact them, but from which they are often left out--except for as examples of the negative consequences of harm. However, the promise of these legal theories has not been adequately tested to proffer the ADA as a true alternative to race-based civil rights laws, and there are many suggestions that it is not. Furthermore, the use of disability as both narrative harm and legal strategy in environmental justice campaigns raises important considerations for racism and ableism as interrelated institutional harms. Therefore, any attempt to expand the disability frame in this direction requires an understanding of racism that does not exclude or otherwise undervalue ableism and vice versa. Otherwise, we risk perpetuating the same problems., Introduction 1723 I. Environmental Justice as a Field of Advocacy 1726 A. History and Origins 1726 B. Environmental Justice and Public Health 1728 II. The Limitations of the Civil Rights [...]

In this Article, I argue that the requirement to claim status as an 'individual with a disability' to seek reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act undermines the advancement of structural reform that could promote broad conceptions of disability justice. I urge the reader to consider how the ADA could better advance disability justice if we focused on its ex ante requirements rather than the post hoc rules made possible by the statute's reasonable accommodation requirement. It makes more sense to build a society under the expectation that people with a range of disabilities will be part of our community than make one-at-a-time retrofits after someone identifies themself as disabled. One should not need to publicly claim disability to be treated with compassion and respect., INTRODUCTION 1814 I. The Reasonable Accommodation Concept 1820 A. The Statute 1820 B. The Case Law 1823 C. The Costs 1830 II. Critical Examination of Reasonable Accommodation Requirement 1835 A. [...]

'According to ADA Masks Not Required Anywhere in America!' (1) So read a flyer circulated on Facebook in the summer of 2020, as the global COVID-19 pandemic raged and mask [...]

INTRODUCTION 305 I. AUTOMATED TOOLS AND GUIDELINES FOR WEB ACCESSIBILITY 308 A. GUIDELINES 310 B. AUTOMATED TOOLS 312 II. EXISTING LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR WEB ACCESSIBILITY 314 A. STATUTES 314 B. [...]

'A bove all, the [Americans with Disabilities Act] is about one clear and forth-right message: That discrimination of any kind has no place in America.... Discrimination no longer has a [...]

Menopause is not a punch line. (1) Menopause is defined by its relationship to menstruation--it is the cessation of menstruation. Medical texts identify menopause as part of the cycle of [...]

Constitutional Law--Supreme Court Expands Ministerial Exception to Lay Teachers at Catholic Elementary Schools--Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020). The First Amendment to the United [...]

Society benefits when every person has the education and skills to contribute to the best of their abilities. Education is fundamental to that ability to contribute. Access to education is a social determinant of health that can predict a student's future health, contributions, and financial opportunity even into adulthood and a potential future family. This article introduces a case study of a student with a disability and with discussion and application of statutes requiring a free and appropriate public education. The discussion includes history of support for students with disabilities, the school nurse role, and principles of nursing support, including resources for practice. Finally, a brief description provides information about important professionals who can contribute as members of the school team. Supporting students with disabilities in schools provides the foundation for their ability to function and contribute as adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]