Doctoral students in the School of Education examined primary sources and artifacts in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at Syracuse University Libraries and discovered insightful—and sometimes surprising—information and examples of the ways in which people with intellectual disabilities have been treated in the United States, and particularly in New York State, over the past nearly 180 years.
The students took the course “Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms and Practices” (SPE 644), taught by Julia M. White, associate professor in the School of Education, who was the 2023–24 faculty fellow in the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.
The students presented their findings at a lecture in spring 2024, and their work is available online as a digital exhibit. From Institutionalization to Inclusion: Disability Activism in Syracuse University Libraries Special Collections examines disability as a cultural construction by examining historical developments in special and inclusion education and the development and later closure of institutions and asylums for people with intellectual disabilities. The archives—and the exhibit—show details about how Americans viewed disability in decades past, including information about eugenics (the selective breeding of people) as a basis for institutionalization; letters exchanged between institutions and individuals about specific people and situations; and striking images collected by people advocating for disabled people and disability rights.
Last spring, graduate students gave a public lecture describing their research and concluding their course entitled “Significant Disabilities: Paradigm Shifts and Practices.” (Photo: Martin Walls)
University as avant-garde
White says the primary sources provided students with particularly rich and informative material, in part because of Syracuse University’s long history as a disability advocate and a leading institution in inclusive education and disability rights. Today, the Center on Disability and Inclusion carries on the legacy of the Center on Human Policy, founded in 1971 by Dean Burton Blatt, a pioneering disability rights scholar. Blatt and others at the university were involved in disability rights litigation in the 1970s and developed language around the creation of a special education law. That entire history – and dozens of related original documents and artifacts – is preserved for viewing.
Julia White
“At Syracuse, we have really rethought the way we think about people with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities. The university is known for its commitment to inclusive education and all of that work is evident in the archives,” says White. “There are so many things to examine and so many lessons we can learn from it; it’s a gold mine waiting to be explored.”
A former special education teacher, White now researches national and international special education policy and inclusive education as a human right. But she “has always been interested in how laws and policies can be applied to different people in different circumstances. I noticed that some students were placed in separate or closed classes, while others were placed in special education rooms and were more integrated. There was little difference in their learning profiles other than their race or socioeconomic profile. I wondered why some students who had more severe disabilities were required to meet very few or no academic standards.”
Based on her experiences as a graduate student and teacher, White says, “I had a pretty keen sense of the racial and economic injustice inherent in U.S. society, and always viewed inclusive education as a civil rights issue.” But it was her experiences on a Fulbright teacher exchange program in the Slovak Republic and her later work with the Landmine Survivors Network on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that solidified her view that inclusive education was a broader human rights issue.
Cover of the archive book “State Asylum for Feebleminded Women.” (Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)
“Fantastic” SCRC process
The time she spent examining materials and working with the SCRC staff “was a fantastic process all around,” White says. “Sometimes an artifact had very little to do with what I was interested in—Syracuse University’s role in deinstitutionalization, inclusive education, and disability activism—but there were a lot of ‘aha’ moments that led me down rabbit holes, and that was a lot of fun. Discovering so many amazing contributions from people connected to the university was the best part of this fellowship. And the staff were phenomenal; they had great insights. I came here with little knowledge of archival work and hadn’t done any myself, but they were so friendly and helpful.”
SCRC staff were also available to the graduate students at all times, discussing their reading, helping them categorize materials and offering advice on how to design the exhibit, White says. Jana Rosinski, instruction and education librarian, was involved with the class at almost every meeting. Patrick Williams, humanities librarian and director of digital and open scholarship, helped them create the digital exhibit.
Good news for students
The experience of working with primary sources and finding so much relevant information for their work was very gratifying for the students, say two course participants.
Sierra Eastman (class of 2020, year 25) teaches math to seventh and eighth graders in the Syracuse City School District. Her review of archival materials helped her better understand the perspectives of people with disabilities, Eastman says. “I have students with various disabilities in my classes and wanted to develop an understanding of them that I lacked as a non-disabled person. We tried to put ourselves in their shoes and figure out how we could understand how this (institutionalism) happened, what personal impact it had on them, and what the larger societal reasons were.”
A poster titled “Fight Handicapism” offers a historical perspective on the meaning of the word. (Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)
Kionna Morrison (G’24) is an algebraic reasoning teacher in the Syracuse City School District and is graduating this month as a Project IMPRESS fellow in the Inclusive Special Education program (grades 7-12). She wanted to understand the experiences of people of color, particularly Black children, in institutions for the mentally handicapped. “I was able to see how disability, institutionalization, and racism can be traced back to the pre-Civil War and Reconstruction eras. I gained insight into how certain bodies were consistently institutionalized. Now I want to continue learning about the intersection of race and special education and how people from multiple marginalized communities navigate their experiences with disability,” she says.
White believes that public opinion on disability, particularly intellectual disability, has changed significantly in recent years. “The U.S. still has a long way to go in changing societal perceptions of disability and intellectual disability and breaking down barriers for marginalized groups,” she says. “We need to recognize how far we have come in changing societal attitudes, making places accessible, and providing higher education opportunities for people with disabilities, such as Syracuse University’s InclusiveU program, is a good start to changing mindsets. While we still need to change attitudes, people with intellectual disabilities are routinely denied civil and human rights in the U.S. and around the world, and I hope this project helps shed light on the history of the ongoing struggle for disability rights.”
