The Willowbrook Wars is a dramatic and illuminating account of
the effort to close down a scandal-ridden institution and return
its 5,400 handicapped residents to communities in New York. The
wars began in 1972 with Geraldo Rivera's televised raid on the
Willowbrook State School. They continued for three years in a
federal courtroom, with civil libertarian lawyers persuading a
conservative and conscience-stricken judge to expand the rights of
the disabled, and they culminated in a 1975 consent decree, with
the state of New York pledging to accomplish the unprecedented
assignment in six years.
From 1975 to 1982, David and Sheila Rothman observed this
remarkable chapter in American reform of mental disabilities care.
Would the state live up to its agreement without "dumping"
residents into other nightmarish institutions? Would the lawyers
prove as interested in meeting client needs as in securing client
rights? Could a tradition-bound bureaucracy create a new network of
community services? And finally, would a governor and a legislature
tolerate such outside intervention, and if so, for how long? In
answering these questions,
The Willowbrook Wars takes us behind the scenes to clarify the
role of the judiciary, the fate of the underprivileged, and the
potential for social justice. In their new afterword, the authors
bring the story up to date, describing the results of the closing
of the institution in 1987 from the experiences of integrating the
former residents into communities to the legal battles between the
state of New York and advocates for the mentally handicapped.
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