Silence on the stomping grounds: a case study of public communication about disability in the 1990s

Abstract

This case study describes the manner in which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – the first state-funded institution of higher education in the United States – publicly addressed the disability civil rights movement just before and after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. An analysis of archived documents, reports, and correspondence among administrators coupled with a review of news coverage in two of the most prominent news sources on campus indicated that there was no attempt to create and sustain significant public communication efforts about disability. Public communication focused on accessibility issues and rarely acknowledged the significance of the disability civil rights. The potential benefit of public communication about disability issues is discussed as it relates to higher education’s obligation to assume social leadership.