Disability Anti-Discrimination Law: A Tool for Compliance or Path Towards Social Justice?

Drawing on vignette interviews, this article analyses the legal consciousness of disability anti-discrimination law of staff working with disability/accessibility resources in higher education in Sweden and the United States. In both countries, participants considered the law as the basis of their work, but differences were noticed regarding their views of the purpose of laws banning disability discrimination and their potential to change society. Swedish participants underlined the rule of law but were sceptical about the anti-discrimination law's potential to address social injustice more broadly. American participants pointed to the need to go beyond legal compliance and follow the spirit of the law. The article interprets these findings as differences in collective legal consciousness regarding disability anti-discrimination laws that are rooted in people's understanding of disability and in the process through which anti-discrimination laws were adopted in Sweden and the United States.