Wheels of Injustice: How Medical Schools Retained the Power to Discriminate Against Applicants in Wheelchairs in the Era of Disability Rights

Abstract

Abstract In the era of disability rights, medical schools retained the power to discriminate against applicants in wheelchairs. This article explores how medical schools set boundaries for admission into the profession, remained intransigent in their discrimination, and persuaded courts to side with them. Interviews with physicians in wheelchairs, legal documents, medical journal articles, and white papers demonstrate how medical schools established physical standards for entry into the profession specifically in response to applicants with disabilities. In the 1970s, medical schools created exclusionary physical requirements and persuaded the Supreme Court that these “technical standards” preserved patient safety. In the 1980s, schools asserted that students with disabilities would require expensive accommodations and lower educational standards. In the 1990s, medical schools strategically interpreted vague language in the Americans with Disabilities Act to justify continuing to exclude applicants with disabilities. This article complicates triumphalist histories of disability activism and reveals the continuation of exclusion in medical education, which had historically occurred based on race and gender. Interviews with successful applicants in wheelchairs provide powerful testimony against medical school policies and offer a clear path forward. Technical standards should change to value compassion and critical thinking over physical fitness. Physicians in wheelchairs perform most medical tasks and bring unique perspectives to a historically homogenous profession.