The Convergence of Disability Law and Policy: Core Concepts, Ethical Communities, and the Notion of Dignity

Rud Turnbull: At the same time, parents in North Carolina, where I was living before I came to Kansas, wanted to organize to create some initiative to support families, and this initiative was known as Families First of North Carolina. I was a consultant to that group. We got family support stated in North Carolina. Now time passes and in 1980 I go out to North Carolina from North Carolina to the University of Kansas.

In 1988, Ann and I get an opportunity to compete for a large grant awarded from the Department of Education and we succeeded. The grant was all about supporting families or family support. And there were a couple things important that happened with that grant.

The first was, an opportunity for me to analyze all of the Supreme Court decisions and all the acts of Congress having anything to do with any kind of a disability, and my analysis consisted of I was reading them, laying everything out, seeing what the trends are, where what the themes are, what what we call the doctrines or the principles are. And from that work, I was able to identify 18 core concepts of disability policy, nine overarching principles, three constitutional, three ethical, three administrative principles.

And those that analysis helps advocates and policy analysts to organize their thoughts and their critiques of present proposed and existing law so as to improve those statutes. That was one part of some of the work I did.