Rabia Belt | Stanford University (original) (raw)

Papers by Rabia Belt

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities

Disability studies is a relatively new academic discipline that approaches disability as a social... more Disability studies is a relatively new academic discipline that approaches disability as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon and has a firm foothold within the humanities. This chapter will offer a broad, interdisciplinary overview of the achievements and challenges of disability law in both the American and international contexts using a disability studies-humanities-oriented approach. The chapter emphasizes the notion of intersectionality and the ways disability correlates with other identity groups such as people of color, women, LGBTQI, and immigrants and their treatment under the law. The use of philosophical, historical, literary, and artistic perspectives will help demonstrate the “disability angle” to the legal story of rights and recognition for individuals with disabilities, as well as for other civil rights groups, while looking ahead and exposing remaining challenges.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

RABIA BELT* "Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying-but when God talks to us, we'... more RABIA BELT* "Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying-but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?" Lily Tomlin The deific decree doctrine allows criminal defendants who believe that God commanded them to kill to plead not guilty by reason of insanity to murder. The insanity defense has remained moored to its Judeo-Christian roots, which has artificially limited its bounds. While civil law has focused on individualism within religion, criminal law has imposed state-defined limits on what religion (or socially acceptable religion) is. This article argues that the deific decree doctrine is too closely tied to artificial limits on insanity imposed by nineteenth-century developments in the mental health profession and criminal law. The doctrine unacceptably privileges certain mentally ill criminal defendants whose delusions fit within an outdated model that is not psychiatrically valid. Moreover, it has disparate gender consequences that harm women with postpartum psychosis who kill their children while supporting men who kill their female partners. The article concludes by calling for the end of the deific decree doctrine and expanding the insanity defense so it more accurately tracks psychiatric understanding of mental illness.

New York University Law Review, Sep 28, 2021

Most scholars who study felon disenfranchisement trace its roots back to Reconstruction. Southern... more Most scholars who study felon disenfranchisement trace its roots back to Reconstruction. Southern states drew up laws to disenfranchise people convicted of felonies as an ostensibly race-neutral way to diminish the political power of newly freed Black Americans. Viewed against this historical backdrop, the onset of mass incarceration in the current era expands the impact of a practice intended to be both racist and punitive from the start.

This account is true, but it is incomplete. Non-criminal mass institutionalization has also played—and continues to play—a role in systematic disenfranchisement. Marshaling a wealth of archival and historical evidence, from newspapers, legislative debates, congressional hearings, and court cases, I reveal that institutional disenfranchisement is not just about mass incarceration—a singular phenomenon sparked by the Civil War that happens solely within the carceral state and targeted only freed Black people. Institutional disenfranchisement began much earlier, included more spaces than the prison, and initially targeted white men. Indeed, the more familiar prison disenfranchisement had a shadowy twin within the welfare state. Civil death includes more ghosts than previously imagined.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

ed.). 4 To qualify for SSDI an individual must show that they are unable to work for a period of ... more ed.). 4 To qualify for SSDI an individual must show that they are unable to work for a period of at least 12 months, have enough earnings in the Social Security System to be insured, have not attained retirement age, have a valid social security number, have filed an application for benefits, and have been disabled for five full months unless certain exceptions apply. Barbara Samuels, 1 SOC. SEC. DISAB. CLAIMS PRAC. & PROC. § 5:3, Westlaw (2nd ed., database updated August 2014).

SSRN Electronic Journal

Over 100,000 veterans lived in a government-funded home after the Civil War. Despite sacrificing ... more Over 100,000 veterans lived in a government-funded home after the Civil War. Despite sacrificing their bodies for the preservation of the nation, these veterans lost the right to vote. This disfranchisement challenges the conventional wisdom that disabled veterans occupied a privileged position in society, politics, and law. Instead, their disability status trumped their military history, and they became part of a set of dependent, disabled people rendered placeless and vote-less by state law.

Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like, 2016

Yale LJ, 1979

Nearly forty states disfranchise people based on their mental status. Despite the patchwork of la... more Nearly forty states disfranchise people based on their mental status. Despite the patchwork of laws limiting the voting rights of people with mental disabilities, one of America's largest minority groups, few researchers have investigated the constitutional strategy utilized for disenfranchisement or the subsequent legal challenges that arose. Through a fine-grained analysis of constitutional and legislative debates, court cases, trade documents, newspapers, and petitions, from the beginning of these suffrage restrictions to the enactment of the 19 th Amendment, I describe a "common sense" disability model-the methodology behind barring people with alleged mental disabilities from the franchise. I consider how and why state legislators prohibited individuals' right to vote based on mental capacity in state statutes and constitutions. I show that two groups-African Americans, and women-were labeled as unfit for suffrage and full political citizenship because of their assumed mental deficiencies, and how each of these groups deployed their own definitions of mental capacity as they fought for the franchise. I then examine the subsequent court and congressional challenges involving people alleged to have voted despite their being judged to lack the necessary mental capacity. I conclude by reflecting on the changed landscape of the twentieth century, as statutory provisions such as the American with Disabilities Act viii and the Voting Rights Act, and political movements such as the disability rights movement challenged the exclusion of the disempowered from the franchise. 2 An increasing number of articles note contemporary difficulties for people with mental disabilities who wish to vote.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

People with disabilities are the ticking time bomb of the electorate. An estimated thirty to thir... more People with disabilities are the ticking time bomb of the electorate. An estimated thirty to thirty-five percent of all voters in the next twenty-five years will need some form of accommodation. Despite the significant and growing population of voters with disabilities, they do not vote in proportion to their numbers. We can consider voters with disabilities as "the canaries in the coal mine," the people who are an advanced warning of the structural difficulties in voting not just for themselves, but also for the system as a whole. Solving problems in voting for people with disabilities will strengthen the entire system and will help improve the voting process for everyone, especially people from disempowered communities. Furthermore, although election law scholars have largely ignored the unique voting problems confronting voters with disabilities, virtually every major voting controversy in contemporary American electoral politics directly implicates issues of disability.

Over 100,000 veterans lived in government-funded homes after the Civil War. Although these vetera... more Over 100,000 veterans lived in government-funded homes after the Civil War. Although these veterans sacrificed their bodies for the preservation of the nation, they ultimately lost the right to vote because of their status as residents of charitable institutions. Their disenfranchisement challenges the conventional wisdom that disabled veterans occupied a privileged position in society, politics, and law. In fact, state laws equated veterans' disabilities and reliance on public funds with dependence. These laws rendered veterans placeless and voteless citizens as a result. * Assistant Professor, Stanford Law School. Ph.D., University of Michigan; J.D., University of Michigan Law School; A.B., Harvard College. Thank you to

... Theory, Reframing Politics & Transforming Movements:‛ 4th Annual Critical Race Studie... more ... Theory, Reframing Politics & Transforming Movements:‛ 4th Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium, University of California at Los Angeles Law School; and the Minorities in the Media‛ Earl Lewis Honorary Panel ... concerning a police officer, the shooting of Officer Kima Greggs ...