New Faculty: Gregory Ablavsky
Left to right: Assistant Professor of Law Gregory Ablavsky, Professor of Law Alan O. Sykes, and Assistant Professor of Law Rabia Belt

From the time she was in elementary school, Rabia Belt imagined that a professor would be the “perfect job.” “Someone paying you to do reading, writing, and teaching seemed like a dream come true,” she says. Now, a few decades later and after earning multiple graduate degrees, Belt is about to enter Stanford Law School’s version of her dream—this autumn as a fellow and then as an assistant professor of law beginning in the 2016-2017 academic year.

Belt’s interest in law began when she was a Harvard undergraduate majoring in social studies. “I know that sounds like something you take in fifth grade, but social studies is actually an exploration of the philosophy of politics,” she explains. “We examined the role of the state in social justice, and since law is the language of the state, my interest naturally turned to the law.”

During the same period, Belt became involved in disability advocacy work. Having loved ones with mental disabilities motivated her to serve as a peer counselor and then as president of a mental health advocacy group. “I was and continue to be fascinated by the hidden-in-plain-sight aspect of mental disabilities,” she says. “Everyone knows someone with a mental disability.”

Despite her interest in law and advocacy, Belt never considered being a practitioner. Instead, hewing to her long-held goal of becoming an academic, she decided to focus her efforts on two synergistic directions: As a teacher, she would educate a new generation of disability rights lawyers who could themselves fight discrimination; as a legal historian, she would attempt to understand and explain why the discrimination happened in the first place.

These dual goals led Belt in 2005 to the University of Michigan, where she went on to receive her JD in 2009 and a PhD (expected 2015) in American Culture. And it was there that she fell in love with the field of voting rights, particularly as it intersected with discrimination against the mentally disabled.

“Currently, election laws in 30 states discriminate against people based on their mental abilities. And in the 19th century, nearly every state did it,” she explains. “We have disenfranchised one of the largest minority groups in the country.”

Some states’ laws are particularly egregious, Belt notes. “In Virginia, for example, if you’ve ever been committed, you can’t vote—not ever. And in New Jersey you can’t vote if you are ‘mentally incompetent.’ But that’s an arbitrary designation and one that is often illegally assigned by election workers and nursing home employees.”

Belt’s PhD dissertation, “Disabling Democracy in America: Disability, Citizenship, Suffrage, and the Law, 1830-1920,” treats these issues in depth. In her fellowship year at SLS, she will be continuing her research while working on turning her dissertation into a book.

She expects challenges along the way. “Researching disability is really, really hard. People with disabilities don’t leave much of a record.” On top of that, she explains, this is a new area in legal scholarship: “There are very few disability legal historians, so I don’t have many role models.”

Belt is eager to begin her next scholarly project, which will focus on laws surrounding marriage and people with mental disabilities, including legislation prohibiting marriage and child custody laws. “There are 37 states that have disability as a factor governing custody,” she says. “And if you are mentally disabled, you can lose your children on that basis alone. That is a huge deterrent to seeking help or to getting out of an abusive relationship.”

She looks forward to exploring these issues as well as to acclimating to the Bay Area. “I’m a loyal East Coaster and a big New Jersey supporter,” she says, “but my sister came west to Stanford and she loved it. I have a very strong feeling that I will, too.”

1 Response to New Faculty: Rabia Belt, Assistant Professor of Law
  1. Ms. Belt’s chosen areas of scholarly research are two of the most vital for people with disabilities and those of us who love them. Bravo Stanford U. for supporting her efforts!

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