About Disability Law and Policy
Our Disability Law and Policy Program (DLPP) is one of the most extensive disability-related law school programs in the United States. Director and Professor Katherine Macfarlane is an expert in disability law and civil rights litigation, whose scholarship and advocacy have shaped legal discourse and policy while advancing the rights of people with disabilities.
Broaden your understanding of how disability intersects with various legal areas and prepare for a career in federal and state government offices, private firms, and public interest organizations focused on disability law, education, employment, civil rights, and international human rights
Joint Degree
J.D./Master of Science in Cultural Foundations of Education with an Optional Certificate in Disability Studies
This joint degree program offers students the opportunity to earn a J.D. and M.S. in Education. Disability Studies applies legal, social, cultural, historical, and philosophical perspectives to the study of disability in society, and this joint degree, with its concentration in Disability Studies, was the first such degree in the nation. Joint degree students enroll in selected courses with the School of Education, which is ranked among the best education graduate schools in the country, and its Special Education and Cultural Foundations in Education Programs are consistently ranked within the top 10 nationwide. Graduates are prepared for disability law and policy jobs in federal and state government, community service agencies, advocacy organizations, school districts, and law firms specializing in disability and/or education law. Students are able to complete the J.D. and M.S. in three years.
School of Education Admissions
Clinics, Centers and Institutes
DLPP students work in clinics, take disability-related courses, and work as interns and externs in disability-related placements in cities in the US and throughout the world. DLPP students also take part in scholarship symposia and complete a disability law and policy-focused capstone research project.
Student Groups and Journals
- Disabled Law Students Association
All Student Groups All Student Journals
Disability Law and Policy Faculty Scholarship
DLPP faculty bring expertise in areas such as international human rights, constitutional law, property law, education law, and civil rights litigation to disability law and policy-focused course offerings. DLPP also offers formal and informal support to local and national disability rights causes through amicus briefs, workshops, and trainings. Founding Director Professor Kanter assisted the United Nations in drafting its Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. DLPP students and faculty also partner with the Disability Law Society and other organizations and University departments to bring disability law and policy speakers to campus.
DLPP faculty contribute impactful law review articles that are widely cited by courts, deliver expert testimony to legislative bodies contemplating new laws, and are frequent speakers at symposia and conferences. Their recent scholarship includes the following:
Professor Macfarlane’s article, The Higher Education Accommodation Mistake, 114 Geo. L.J. 219 (2025), argues that in higher ed, fundamental alteration works like a silver bullet. In evaluating the defense’s application, courts defer to universities’ judgments about what exactly is fundamental about their programs. Professor Macfarlane contends that this deference is a mistake, and that Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, which created the deferential standard, was wrongly decided.
Professor Kohn co-authored Using What We Have: How Existing Legal Authorities Can Help Fix America’s Nursing Home Crisis, 65 WM. & MARY L. REV. 127 (2023) with Adrianna Duggan, Justin Cole & Nada Aljassar. The article describes four opportunities to leverage existing statutory schemes to create stronger incentives for nursing homes to provide high-quality care. It also explores how politics, administrative complexity, and ageism have come together to prevent this existing authority from being used to its full potential.
Professor Malloy’s article Network Capabilities in Land Use and Disability Law, 74 Am. U. L. Rev. 461 (2024), focuses on making communities safe and easy to navigate by people with disabilities and those who are seeking to age in place. The piece describes how to do land planning and zoning in a cost-conscious way that empowers a diverse population to readily participate in community life, working at the intersection of land use law and disability law.
Professor True-Frost’s essay Why Travel Inequality Matters, 5 Am. J.L. & Equal. 150 (2025), studies how the constitutional right to travel across state boundaries has emerged as a critical mechanism by which individuals attempt to preserve access to services and liberties they might otherwise lose, and how the experience of attempting to exercise this right can expose the often-invisible architecture of inequality surrounding disability.
DLPP Emeriti Faculty
Workshops and Trainings
DLPP is available to support your department or organization in its efforts to better welcome and include people with disabilities through workshops and trainings. Past DLPP presentations have focused on making academic hiring practices more accessible to candidates with disabilities, strategies for promoting universal design in the classroom, and highlighting challenges facing people with disabilities in the practice of law.
Student and Externship Stories
Degree Outcomes: DLPP Alumni
Our graduates go on to jobs in the areas of disability, education, children’s rights, civil rights, employment, and international human rights law. Graduates of DLPP now work for federal and state government agencies, private law firms, domestic and international non-governmental organizations, public interest law offices, school districts, policy organizations and think tanks. Other graduates have started their own law practices or pursued LL.M. or Ph.D. degrees.
DLPP News and Updates
See the latest commentary from our DLPP leadership on newsworthy topics related to disability law, along with program updates and information.
DLPP Recognition
The program is also recognized internationally for its excellence, having received the Prize for Innovative Practices for its innovative disability-related academic program at the Zero Project Conference, held at the United Nations Offices in Vienna, Austria. The Zero Project is an initiative of the Essl Foundation, whose mission is to create a world without barriers, as envisioned by the United Nations CRPD. Experts across the globe peer-reviewed more than 500 Zero Project-nominated projects, which focused on the topic of inclusive education. Of the nominees, 75 innovative practices and 11 innovative policies from 54 countries were selected. The DLPP was one of only three awarded programs in the United States and the only United States-based university program.