UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Creating the Disabled Citizen: How Massachusetts Disenfranchised People under Guardianship

Identification

Public canonical key

openalex:w1963086062

Authors

Kay Fletcher Schriner · Lisa A. Ochs

Reported year

2001

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.931121+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.931121+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Documentary abstract — original language

Studies of the disability category in American public policy have focused on its use in economic, social, and civil rights policy.This study continues that tradition by reporting on the development of disability-based disenfranchisement in Massachusetts.The authors examine the establishment of the guardianship exclusion in Massachusetts suffrage law, originally adopted in 1821.The authors argue that it was first conceived largely as an economic exclusion intended to disenfranchise those who were not competent to manage their financial affairs, an exclusion that was conceptually consistent with the propertyowning and taxpaying qualifications of earlier periods.In 1853, when the guardianship exclusion was again discussed in a constitutional convention, the same provision came to be understood as an exclusion based on the moral and intellectual incompetence of individuals who were called "idiots" and "insane" persons.An analysis of the events surrounding this transformation in justification of the disenfranchising provisions suggests a complex interrelationship between disability, dependency, and deviancy in the development of American political thought about the qualifications for participation in electoral politics.The implications of this history for contemporary disability policy, particularly the protection of voting rights for people with cognitive and emotional impairments, are also discussed.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W1963086062

HANDLE

1811/70442

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2 · Record 3

• Document · http://hdl.handle.net/1811/70442
• Handle · https://hdl.handle.net/1811/70442
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W1963086062

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w2008101126 · CITES
• openalex:w2052019232 · CITES
• openalex:w2065757632 · CITES
• openalex:w2108642855 · CITES
• openalex:w2325404630 · CITES
• openalex:w2327683186 · CITES
• openalex:w2563298502 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.