Abstract
This Article argues that disability misappropriation is a systemic problem that undermines movement toward disability justice. By disability misappropriation, this Article refers to the tendency of the political right to assert a false concern for disability issues in service of a political agenda that actually harms the disability community. This tactic has influenced the adverse treatment of disabled people in the educational, institutional, and reproductive arenas. From birth to death, it has often had an adverse influence on the lives of disabled people as they receive inadequate and coercive health care, poor education, and limited housing options. While federal law has sometimes sought to provide some legal protection against this coercion, judges have been too willing to accept limitations on those rights in the purported name of protecting disabled people. This Article argues that the disability slogan of “Nothing about us without us” must mean that disability is not appropriated merely out of service to a political agenda that harms the disability community.
