ABSTRACT
In the United States, the civil rights of people with disabilities are primarily ensured by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. One of the first major court cases concerning the rights of the disabled was Buck v. Bell, 274 US 200, in which the US Supreme Court allowed the state forcibly to sterilize a mentally handicapped woman, Carrie Buck. Despite the Court's decision in Buck, by the end of World War I Americans were beginning seriously to consider the civil rights and liberties of the disabled. Among the first significant laws to benefit the disabled was the Social Security Act of 1935. This piece of legislation authorized assistance to blind and disabled children in the form of matching grants to the states. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was enacted "to promote the rehabilitation, employment, and independent living of people with disabilities."
