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57 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 587 (2015-2016)
The Costs of Easy Victory

handle is hein.journals/wmlr57 and id is 599 raw text is: THE COSTS OF EASY VICTORY MICHAEL E. WATERSTONE* ABSTRACT Studies of law and social change often focus on areas of intense conflict, including abortion, gun rights, and various issues around race, gender, and sexual orientation. Each of these has entered the culture wars, inspiring fierce resistance and organized counter- movements. A reasonable assumption might be that social change in less controversial areas might be easier. In this Article, I suggest that it is not that simple. Using the disability rights movement, I demon- strate how flying under the radar leads to unappreciated obstacles. The disability rights movement had a relatively easy path to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an omnibus federal civil rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. Disability rights were not an issue of major public impor- tance when the ADA was passed; the vast majority of people were completely unaware of the law's passage. Moving forward, to the extent awareness of the ADA exists, it has centered on public and judicial trepidation over granting what is perceived as some form of benefit, for which there has not been an extensive public dialogue, to a large and amorphous category of people, many of whom have no natural claim to any history of discrimination. Thus, a new way to understand the ADA's inability to make more progress on some of its * J. Howard Ziemann Fellow and Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles; Visiting Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, 2014-15. I thank Ruth Colker, Doug NeJaime, Rick Hasen, Michael Stein, Andrew Koppelman, Devon Carbado, Katherine Stone, Noah Zatz, Scott Cummings, Adam Winkler, Julie Waterstone, and Alexandra Natapoff for reviewing drafts and engaging in helpful conversations. I also thank the faculties at Seattle University Law School, Brooklyn Law School, and Northwestern University Law School for helpful feedback and workshops. Tom Gaylord of the Northwestern library provided invaluable research assistance. All mistakes are mine. 587

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