By defining a disability as what a person cannot do - rather than in terms of a specific medical condition or disease - The ADA has tranformed disability into a non-essential, universal, ever-evolving, socially constructed category. Bodies in Revolt analyzes the ADA's potential to make employers take into account the individuality of their employees, showing how an important branch of feminist theory - an ethic of care - could be studied in a new location: the workplace. Also, if Congress amends the ADA, making it less vulnerable to the conservative federal judiciary's discretion, the definition of a disability could be further universalized, offering women a strategy to feminize the workplace. In many places of employment, pregnancy is already treated like an illness or short-term disability, allowing women to take leave with pay. This leave policy, however, does not alter the workplace culture. - one that recognizes the organic nature of the human mind and body - could include most women (and many men) and offer them a means of persuing justice in the workplace as they negotiate about work conditions based on concrete considerations of human needs.

By defining a disability as what a person cannot do - rather than in terms of a specific medical condition or disease - The ADA has tranformed disability into a non-essential, universal, ever-evolving, socially constructed category. Bodies in Revolt analyzes the ADA's potential to make employers take into account the individuality of their employees, showing how an important branch of feminist theory - an ethic of care - could be studied in a new location: the workplace. Also, if Congress amends the ADA, making it less vulnerable to the conservative federal judiciary's discretion, the definition of a disability could be further universalized, offering women a strategy to feminize the workplace. In many places of employment, pregnancy is already treated like an illness or short-term disability, allowing women to take leave with pay. This leave policy, however, does not alter the workplace culture. - one that recognizes the organic nature of the human mind and body - could include most women (and many men) and offer them a means of persuing justice in the workplace as they negotiate about work conditions based on concrete considerations of human needs.

Fear, rage, courage, discrimination. These are facts of everyday life for many Americans with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has made working, traveling, and communicating easier for many individuals. But has this significant piece of civil rights legislation helped those with disabilities become fully accepted members of society? How does an individual deal with discriminatory situations that the law cannot, does not, or will not cover? What is life like in post-ADA America?

The stories in this collection give readers a chance to visualize and perhaps resolve these questions for themselves. Using the techniques of both fiction and creative non-fiction, the contributors bring to life the everyday problems that people with disabilities face. Rather than analyzing the law, the writers dramatize the complex set of issues underlying the ADA as it is practiced and interpreted around the country: at a small Southern college, in the Library of Congress, on a New York City sidewalk. The stories from these local battlegrounds form a unique portrait of a continuing struggle.

Ruth O'Brien's legal commentary on the Americans with Disabilities Act supplements these narratives. Organized analytically to reflect the ADA's main provisions, her commentary draws out and responds to the legal issues raised in each contributor's narrative. Discussing relevant Supreme Court and federal cases, O'Brien addresses key legal questions such as: What recourse do individuals have when enforcement of the law is ambiguous or virtually nonexistent? What is a disability? How will its changing definition affect individuals' lives-as well as their legal actions-in the future?

Voices from the Edge seeks to challenge the mindset of those who would deny equal protection to the disabled, while providing informative analysis of the intent and application of the ADA for those who wish to learn more about disability rights. Giving voice to many types of discrimination the disabled face while illustrating the personal stakes underlying legal disputes over the ADA, this collection offers unparalleled insight into the lives behind the law.

"Crippled Justice," the first comprehensive intellectual history of disability policy in the workplace from World War II to the present, explains why American employers and judges, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act, have been so resistant to accommodating the disabled in the workplace. Ruth O'Brien traces the origins of this resistance to the postwar disability policies inspired by physicians and psychoanalysts that were based on the notion that disabled people should accommodate society rather than having society accommodate them.
O'Brien shows how the remnants of postwar cultural values bogged down the rights-oriented policy in the 1970s and how they continue to permeate judicial interpretations of provisions under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In effect, O'Brien argues, these decisions have created a lose/lose situation for the very people the act was meant to protect. Covering developments up to the present, "Crippled Justice" is an eye-opening story of government officials and influential experts, and how our legislative and judicial institutions have responded to them.

Feared by conservatives and embraced by liberals when he entered the White House, Barack Obama has since been battered by criticism from both sides. In "Out of Many, One", Ruth O'Brien explains why. We are accustomed to seeing politicians supporting either a minimalist state characterized by unfettered capitalism and individual rights or a relatively strong welfare state and regulatory capitalism. Obama, O'Brien argues, represents the values of a lesser-known third tradition in American political thought that defies the usual left-right categorization. Bearing traces of Baruch Spinoza, John Dewey, and Saul Alinsky, Obama's progressivism embraces the ideas of mutual reliance and collective responsibility and adopts an interconnected view of the individual and the state. So, while Obama might emphasize difference, he rejects identity politics, which can create permanent minorities and diminish individual agency. Analyzing Obama's major legislative victories - financial regulation, health care, and the stimulus package - O'Brien shows how they reflect a stakeholder society that neither regulates in the manner of the New Deal nor deregulates. Instead, Obama focuses on negotiated rule making and allows executive branch agencies to fill in the details when dealing with a deadlocked Congress. Similarly, his commitment to difference and his resistance to universal mandates underlies his reluctance to advocate for human rights as much as many on the Democratic left had hoped. By establishing Obama within the context of a much longer and broader political tradition, this book sheds critical light on both the political and philosophical underpinnings of his presidency and a fundamental shift in American political thought.

"Few of the countless real-life stories of workplace discrimination suffered by men and women every day are ever told publicly. This book boldly and eloquently rights that wrong, going where no plaintiff testimony could ever dare because these stories are often too raw, honest, ambiguous, and nuanced to be told in court or reported in a newspaper." from the Foreword Telling Stories out of Court reaches readers on both an intellectual and an emotional level, helping them to think about, feel, and share the experiences of women who have faced sexism and discrimination at work. It focuses on how the federal courts interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Offering insights that law texts alone cannot, the short stories collected here all but two written for this volume help readers concentrate on the emotional content of the experience with less emphasis on the particulars of the law. Grouped into thematic parts titled "In Their Proper Place," "Unfair Treatment," "Sexual Harassment," and "Hidden Obstacles," the narratives are combined with interpretive commentary and legal analysis that anchor the book by revealing the impact this revolutionary law had on women in the workplace.At the same time, the stories succeed on their own terms as compelling works of fiction, from "LaKeesha's Job Interview," in which a woman's ambition to move from welfare to work faces an ironic obstacle, to "Plato, Again," in which a woman undergoing treatment for cancer finds her career crumble under her, to "Vacation Days," which takes the reader inside the daily routine of a nanny who works at the whim of her employer."

"Few of the countless real-life stories of workplace discrimination suffered by men and women every day are ever told publicly. This book boldly and eloquently rights that wrong, going where no plaintiff testimony could ever dare because these stories are often too raw, honest, ambiguous, and nuanced to be told in court or reported in a newspaper." from the Foreword Telling Stories out of Court reaches readers on both an intellectual and an emotional level, helping them to think about, feel, and share the experiences of women who have faced sexism and discrimination at work. It focuses on how the federal courts interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Offering insights that law texts alone cannot, the short stories collected here all but two written for this volume help readers concentrate on the emotional content of the experience with less emphasis on the particulars of the law. Grouped into thematic parts titled "In Their Proper Place," "Unfair Treatment," "Sexual Harassment," and "Hidden Obstacles," the narratives are combined with interpretive commentary and legal analysis that anchor the book by revealing the impact this revolutionary law had on women in the workplace.At the same time, the stories succeed on their own terms as compelling works of fiction, from "LaKeesha's Job Interview," in which a woman's ambition to move from welfare to work faces an ironic obstacle, to "Plato, Again," in which a woman undergoing treatment for cancer finds her career crumble under her, to "Vacation Days," which takes the reader inside the daily routine of a nanny who works at the whim of her employer."

Feared by conservatives and embraced by liberals when he entered the White House, Barack Obama has since been battered by criticism from both sides. In "Out of Many, One", Ruth O'Brien explains why. We are accustomed to seeing politicians supporting either a minimalist state characterized by unfettered capitalism and individual rights or a relatively strong welfare state and regulatory capitalism. Obama, O'Brien argues, represents the values of a lesser-known third tradition in American political thought that defies the usual left-right categorization. Bearing traces of Baruch Spinoza, John Dewey, and Saul Alinsky, Obama's progressivism embraces the ideas of mutual reliance and collective responsibility and adopts an interconnected view of the individual and the state. So, while Obama might emphasize difference, he rejects identity politics, which can create permanent minorities and diminish individual agency. Analyzing Obama's major legislative victories - financial regulation, health care, and the stimulus package - O'Brien shows how they reflect a stakeholder society that neither regulates in the manner of the New Deal nor deregulates. Instead, Obama focuses on negotiated rule making and allows executive branch agencies to fill in the details when dealing with a deadlocked Congress. Similarly, his commitment to difference and his resistance to universal mandates underlies his reluctance to advocate for human rights as much as many on the Democratic left had hoped. By establishing Obama within the context of a much longer and broader political tradition, this book sheds critical light on both the political and philosophical underpinnings of his presidency and a fundamental shift in American political thought.

Political conservatives have long believed that the best government is a small government. But if this were true, noted economist Jeff Madrick argues, the nation would not be experiencing stagnant wages, rising health care costs, increasing unemployment, and concentrations of wealth for a narrow elite. In this perceptive and eye-opening book, Madrick proves that an engaged government--a big government of high taxes and wise regulations--is necessary for the social and economic answers that Americans desperately need in changing times. He shows that the big governments of past eras fostered greatness and prosperity, while weak, laissez-faire governments marked periods of corruption and exploitation. "The Case for Big Government" considers whether the government can adjust its current policies and set the country right.

Madrick explains why politics and economics should go hand in hand; why America benefits when the government actively nourishes economic growth; and why America must reject free market orthodoxy and adopt ambitious government-centered programs. He looks critically at today's politicians--at Republicans seeking to revive nineteenth-century principles, and at Democrats who are abandoning the pioneering efforts of the Great Society. Madrick paints a devastating portrait of the nation's declining social opportunities and how the economy has failed its workers. He looks critically at today's politicians and demonstrates that the government must correct itself to address these serious issues.

A practical call to arms, "The Case for Big Government" asks for innovation, experimentation, and a willingness to fail. The book sets aside ideology and proposes bold steps to ensure the nation's vitality.

Reinterpreting the roots of twentieth-century American labor law and politics, Ruth O'Brien argues that it was not New Deal Democrats but rather Republicans of an earlier era who developed the fundamental principles underlying modern labor policy. By examining a series of judicial rulings from the first three decades of the century, she demonstrates that the emphasis on establishing the procedural rights of workers that is usually associated with the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 actually emerged over a decade earlier, in the Republican-formulated labor legislation of the 1920s. O'Brien's findings underscore a paradox within the foundation of labor policy and the development of liberalism in the United States. The leaders of the liberal state created a strict regulatory framework for organized labor only after realizing that the mainstream labor movement's capacity for collective power threatened to undermine individualism and classlessness in American society. In other words, O'Brien argues, the individualism that accounts for the overall weakness of the liberal state also produced America's statist labor policy. |A reinterpretation of the roots of 20th-century American labor law and politics. O'Brien uses early 20th judicial rulings to show that it was not New Deal Republicans who developed the principles behind modern labor policy.