The Case of Doris Hadary

I was in the archives last autumn, just as the leaves started to fall. I had gotten curious about American University’s Methodist heritage (Zurn, Buck, and Doolittle 2026), of which I was wholly unaware when I was hired a decade ago. Only recently, with political attacks on higher education, had I heard characterizations of our institution as explicitly Methodist.¹ I set up an appointment to review AU’s archival collections on the subject. Some of the materials were more recent, like University Chaplain Bruce Poynter’s (1998) religious history of the university. Other materials, dating from the 1800’s, crumbled at the edges as I gingerly flipped through them. Somewhere in those folders, I stumbled across a 1970’s press release announcing that the United Methodist Church had given a distinguished teaching award to AU professor Doris Hadary, commemorating Hadary’s science program for local deaf, blind, and “emotionally disturbed” children (Moran 1974).²

I was stunned. While I had co-organized the Disability, Access, and Teaching day-long symposium at AU in 2019 and worked with some AU leaders in that space since, I got the impression that AU had very little disability history to speak of, at least until quite recently. I was also, immediately, nervous. Would Hadary’s program be something of an embarrassment to us now? Was it inspired by deeply curative and ableist logics?

I was scheduled to teach a “Disability Justice” graduate course this spring term. And the idea hit me: What if I invite the students into this project of critically assessing Hadary’s program?

I was scheduled to teach a “Disability Justice” graduate course this spring term. And the idea hit me: What if I invite the students into this project of critically assessing Hadary’s program? What if I asked them to situate that legacy within current and past AU disability history? I scoured archives and databases for materials on Hadary and uploaded the little I found into a Canvas folder as a start. I also bought a hard-to-find copy of her program’s curriculum (Hadary and Cohen 1978) and put it on reserve at the library. Then, I developed the assignment:

Prof. Doris Hadary marks one of the earliest and most significant histories of disability education at American University. In this class project, we are attempting, together, to collect the information and perspectives necessary to critically situate her legacy. For this project, choose a research question relevant to understanding Hadary’s case, its place in disability history in the US and at AU, and/or disability history at AU more generally. Answer the question to the best of your ability (feeling free to note the limitations of your source materials). Your contribution should be 2 single-spaced pages, with full citations of all your sources. When completed, please share it on the Discussion thread on Canvas and read others’ posts.

Students had six weeks to complete the assignment. When I first discussed it, I led students through a brainstorming session in which we generated and sharpened a series of research questions. Students could then choose from that list or run another idea by me. Throughout the intervening weeks, we checked in a couple of times, with students reporting on their research and their changing research questions.

Ultimately, the exercise became a living example not only of how to ask and answer research questions, but also of how to proliferate research questions about the same topic and experience the different ways those questions deepened our shared understanding of the issue at hand.

Each time, I shared a research question and written contribution of my own, to offer models and to generate sustained interest in the project. Ultimately, the exercise became a living example not only of how to ask and answer research questions, but also of how to proliferate research questions about the same topic and experience the different ways those questions deepened our shared understanding of the issue at hand.

The results were even better than I had anticipated. My students did deep work on Hadary’s terminology (e.g., handicapped, emotionally disturbed), curriculum, and reception. They analyzed Hadary’s collaborations with the Horace Mann School and her documentarian daughter Susan Hadary Cohen. They contextualized disability activism and legislation at the time, but they also dug into disability activism at AU across its history (e.g., addressing inaccessible buildings, initiating the Disabled Students Union, etc.). Several evaluated Hadary’s legacy. As a class, we discerned that Hadary was indeed ahead of the curve, working in disability education before the US legislated it with the Individuals with Disability Education Act (1975). As such, her work became a national touchstone. She seemed well-intentioned, aiming to right two wrongs—that of not teaching science to disabled children but also of not teaching teachers how to teach science to disabled children. We also saw room for critique: she did not appear to collaborate with disabled adults and left little voice to disabled students themselves.

The class contributions were so impressive that I reached out to Leslie Nellis, AU’s Head Archivist for Special Collections, and asked, “Would you want to archive these, alongside a copy of Hadary’s curriculum?” Nellis was enthusiastic and, in turn, the students were excited. Now, no one has to spend weeks doing this research again on their own. They can stand on the students’ shoulders!

This project comes at an auspicious moment when, thanks in large part to the work of Toby Aho, the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies is launching a disability studies minor this fall. That minor indicates a new depth of commitment to learning disability history, theory, and activism. As I listened to my students discuss AU’s disability history from the 1940’s to the present, I realized that these stories do not just belong in the archives. They need to be at the front and center of our narrative, especially for students enrolling in the new minor, or involved in DSU, or interfacing with ASAC.

Disabled students, staff, and faculty deserve access to their own stories and a sense of belonging to this institution over the long-haul.

I am now working with several students to build web content for a page dedicated to disability history at AU. Disabled students, staff, and faculty deserve access to their own stories and a sense of belonging to this institution over the long-haul. Those stories include, for example, the Student Association Committee on Handicap Affairs established in 1969—as early as any disabled student group in the country. They include a moment in 1988 when students built a ramp to the Kay Spiritual Life Center, visibilizing the exclusion of disabled students from campus life. And they include a long line of disabled student groups, which come in and out of existence over the decades, carrying the frustration of having to advocate all over again, largely without institutional support. But these stories also include explicitly ableist legacies at AU. In the 1930’s, for example, the leader of my own Department of Philosophy and Religion published a book entitled Problem Children, in which he argued that disabled children are miscreants in the making and pose perhaps the most significant threat to our democracy (Bentley 1936). Preserving AU’s disability history will necessarily invite critical self-reflection and celebration by turns.

Who knew that stumbling on an old press release would lead me here—to a class assignment, a research project, an archival deposit, and webpage content? Here, teaching, research, and experiential learning intermingle—but they intermingle perhaps precisely where they most matter: in service to self-understanding and community building. It is not for naught that AU has aspired, since its inception, to prepare young people for service to the world (General Board of Higher Education, UMC, 2024). In the midst of contemporary debate over what higher education is for, I hope we at AU continue to center dynamic experiences of turning learning and knowledge creation into service. That is our past; let it also be our future.

_________________________
¹ Shout-out here to our current University Chaplain, Rev. Eric Doolittle.
² “Emotionally disturbed” was a catch-all term being used at the time for behavioral differences, psychiatric disorders, and neurodivergences.

Author Profile

Perry Zurn is Provost Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University. He works primarily in the areas of political philosophy, critical theory, and LGBTQ studies. He focuses especially on the politics of inquiry and voice, material histories of resistance, and poetic ecologies.

References

John Edward Bentley. 1936. Problem Children: An Introduction to the Study of Handicapped Children in the Light of Their Physiological, Psychological, and Social Status. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

“Disability, Access, and Teaching: A One-Day Symposium.” 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190717230314/https://www.american.edu/cas/crgc/disability/.

General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. 2024. “What it means to be related to a United Methodist Church with education in its DNA,” 16. https://www.gbhem.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/WhatItMeansToBeRelated_6-11-24a.pdf.

Doris Hadary and Susan Hadary Cohen. 1978. Laboratory Science and Art for Blind, Deaf, and Emotionally Disturbed Children: A Mainstreaming Approach. Baltimore: University Park Press.

Cindy Moran. 1974. “AU Professor Receives Distinguished Teacher Award,” (January 16, 1974), AU News Bureau, Press Release, “Methodist Church and Higher Edu: Distinguished Teaching Award 1974” folder, Box 1, AU and Methodist Church Collection, Archives and Special Collections, American University, Washington DC.

Rev. Bruce Poynter. 1998. “University and Church,” “Bruce Poynter’s Writings” folder, Box 3, AU and Methodist Church Collection, Archives and Special Collections, American University, Washington DC.

Perry Zurn, Nicholas Buck, and Rev. Eric Doolittle. 2026. “AU’s Methodist History and Values” Report (March 3, 2026). Submitted to Archives and Special Collections, American University, Washington DC.

Further Reading

Michael Rembis, Catherine J. Kudlick, and Kim Nielsen, eds. 2018. Oxford Handbook of Disability History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Margaret Price. 2024. Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accommodation in Academic Life. Durham: Duke University Press.

Disability, Health, and Bodies Certificate, American University, https://www.american.edu/cas/crgc/dhb-certificate.cfm