INVERSE INTEGRATION AND THE RELATIONAL DEFICIT OF DISABILITY RIGHTS LAW

Integration has long been a central tenet of U.S. disability law. In both doctrine and scholarship, however, disability integration has been understood to operate in only one direction: integrating disabled persons into mainstream society. This conventional approach has overlooked a different model, inverse integration, whereby nondisabled persons enter or participate in disability-focused settings or activities. As this Article demonstrates, inverse integration is surprisingly popular. For example, nondisabled children study in special education programs, nondisabled persons reside in housing projects for disabled individuals, hearing actors perform in Deaf theaters, and nondisabled athletes compete in wheelchair sports. This Article develops a typology of inverse-integration practices and analyzes the interaction of such practices with existing U.S. disability law. It shows that legal and social norms generally hinder the involvement of nondisabled persons 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, involves interpersonal relationships. Combining insights from various disciplines, this Article demonstrates how inverse integration fosters relationships by allowing disabled and nondisabled persons to share experiences, interests, and common language with family members, friends, and significant others. These interactive features of inverse integration, in turn, highlight disability law’s failure to protect and facilitate interpersonal relationships, which is particularly problematic in an increasingly lonely society. Drawing upon instances of inverse integration, this Article imagines what a more relational disability rights regime would look like and proposes specific interventions.