Alabama is the birthplace of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”).1 In the decades leading up to the passage of the VRA, the State of Alabama and local officials enforced a series of racially discriminatory laws and policies, including literacy tests, good moral character tests, and voucher (identification) requirements, with the intent and effect of locking Black Alabamians out of the political process

When advocates achieve victories for equal rights at the Supreme Court, moments of lively celebration and joyful optimism flow. For those who have long sought such rights recognition, the formal legal acknowledgement of their inherent dignity and right to claim equal social status can be profound: inspirational newspaper editorials are written, powerful and stirring speeches are made, the future looks bright. Yet, as time goes on, these constitutional victories can fail to translate into the sort of significant, on-the-ground social change that would meaningfully raise the status of marginalized groups within the existing polity. The story becomes not one of massive social progression, but instead one of mostly preservation-through-transformation. Enormous legal shifts toward equality occur, but they repeatedly fail to fully dislodge existing hierarchies or create fundamentally equitable legal and social institutions. Instead, in spite of these legal and constitutional developments, old status quos and traditional hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and class persist.

We locate the right to education in general international human rights law, addressing how the right to education in its disability-specific context has been considered an expression and continuation of the general right to education as enshrined in international human rights treaties. To do so, we set out to examine the fundamental ingredients of the right to education under the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and further developments. In addition, we discuss fundamental aspects of the right to education as a social right, focusing on learners with disabilities. First, we examine whether education is a public good and analyze its dimensions within and beyond economic theory. Second, we discuss education as part of the common good in moral and political philosophy. We consider that both the concepts mentioned above — implicitly or explicitly— are the critical sources for the foundations of the right to education as a social right. Third, we explore the scope of the right to education as a social human right in the 21st century. Finally, we discuss in what form education is a human right for learners with disabilities (right to education or right to inclusive education) and the implications of these two different conceptualizations.

At first glance, it follows from a logical point of view that allowing anyone in the street to possess lethal weapons only results in more homicides, assassinations, and general chaos even when initial purchasers meet the arm licensing conditions. In a society where it is not only acceptable, but also constitutional to carry weapons from a pistol to building an assault rifle,1 it becomes extremely difficult to control gun violence.

Think about Andrea Yates’ case. In 2001, Andrea Yates, suffering from postpartum depression, believed that she was possessed by Satan and was causing her children irreparable and eternal damage. Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub, killing them. Yates was initially deemed “sane” at her first trial and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after forty years. However, on appeal, Yates’ conviction was reversed. On retrial, Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) and was committed to a mental health hospital, where she has remained ever since.1 If she had pleaded NGRI through a plea bargain earlier, Andrea Yates would have received mental health treatment sooner, rather than incarceration. A NGRI plea bargain would have saved the government time and money and averted her and her family from years of trauma.

The state action doctrine grew out of a series of Supreme Court cases between 1875 and 1883—the collapse of reconstruction—challenging congresses power under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment to fight racial oppression in the South. Most famously, The Civil Rights Cases used the formal state action-private action divide to invalidate the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had outlawed racial discrimination in public accommodations and public transportation. The Court then built 150 years of state action jurisprudence on the shaky foundation of this formalist public-private divide. But despite being widely ridiculed for its incoherence, the doctrine persists.