From Good Will to Civil Rights: Transforming Federal Disability Policy

This book is a detailed legislative history surrounding the passage of Section 504 of the Rehabiliation Act of 1973, and its implementing regulations. Scotch raises an interesting point that Section 504, which mandated an end to discrimination on the basis of disabilities, was passed without comment, by outsiders largely unfamiliar with the main disability/rehabilitation discourse. Because implementation was given to civil rights lawyers rather than rehabilitation social workers, the law became an instrument for creating social wide change, albeit on a more symbolic than pragmatic level.

As a guide to current affairs, this book is somewhat outdated, given the passage of the ADA in 1990. But it is still a fascinating look at a very important symbolic law.