Special Education, History of

Isolation and Exclusion

Up until the mid-twentieth century, individuals with disabilities were excluded from mainstream society, often being housed in institutions that isolated them from the outside world and their families. Individuals with disabilities were considered abnormal and unable to function in society. It was said that such individuals disrupted and negatively influenced those in the mainstream, which caused many families to stow away their family member with a disability in attics or remote places. Individuals with disabilities were treated as second-class citizens, and often states took custody, which disempowered families from having rights with regard to their child with a disability.

Because individuals with disabilities were viewed as a burden to society and uneducable, the conditions of institutions were often inhumane, with solitary confinement being the norm. It was not until the early 1900s that schools began to open their doors to individuals with disabilities as a result of parent advocacy groups. However, institutionalization and isolationism continued to prevail until the early 1970s. In fact, the last institutions were dismantled during the Reagan administration in the mid-1980s during the deinstitutionalization movement.

Access and Inclusion

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s had a major impact on the treatment of individuals with disabilities, and its ripple effect took hold through a series of court cases. Brown v. Board of Education forever changed the treatment of all students in education because of the change in educational law and procedure, which had a tremendous effect on school policies and procedures. The Brown case put desegregation at the forefront of equitable education and outlawed segregation based on unalterable characteristics such as race and disability because it violated equal protections and denied children equal educational opportunity.

The primary contention of the Brown case, that segregation by race was a denial of equal educational opportunity, became the gateway for the disability movement because children with disabilities were experiencing total exclusion, at best separate schooling through institutions, with the norm being no access to schooling at all. In 1972, two landmark cases, Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia, became the catalysts for the right-to-education movement in the disability community. The PARC ruling stated that individuals with mental retardation between the ages of six and twenty-one must be provided with a free public education in programs comparable to their nondisabled peers. The Mills case paved the way for the right to due process and procedural safeguards [Page 745]such as the right to a hearing with representation, a record, and an impartial officer; the right to appeal; the right to have access to records; and the requirement of written notice during all phases of the process. Almost simultaneously, in 1973, another important act was passed, Public Law (PL.) 93-112, the Rehabilitation Act. Section 504, as it is often referenced, stated that any agency or activity receiving federal funding could not discriminate against or deny benefits to individuals with disabilities.

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