Tools of Exclusion: Race, Disability, and (Re)segregated Education

  • The authors shows how the rhetoric of race and the rhetoric of disability overlap and are used to justify exclusion.
  • The discourses on desegregation and inclusion are examined as they relate to the topic of change at the local level in response to two federal mandates: Brown and IDEA.
  • Editorials during the Brown era emphasized the merits of gradual implementation of desegregation practices.
  • The authors find that the delay was used to circumvent desegregation orders.
  • With the passage of IDEA, opposition to inclusion of students with disabilities into general education classes shifted to advocating a gradual, cautious implementation.
  • The article demonstrates how groups negotiated inequality and sought to change it or maintain it.
  • Racism and ableism function together as a means of exclusion.
  • Inclusion and desegregation are connected. Gradualism in both cases allowed discourses of exclusion to thrive.