Lawyers Schools and Access A History of Special Education in the United States Part III:I knew Merritt Beattie: An interview with Susan Smith-Blakely

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:07 — 12.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

As part of our continuing exploration regarding the history of special education, we have covered the critical special education court cases that preceded last January’s supreme court case regarding special education Perez V Sturgis. Our journey so far has taken to the earliest case 1893’s Watson V Cambridge to 1919’s Beattie V Antigo Board of Education before reaching last week’s summary of Goldman V Ohio, one of the first notable victories for a special education student. However, before we move into the mobilization of parents in the 1950s and the tide beginning to turn in favor of students with disabilities, it is critical that we return to the Beattie case of 1919. Although we reviewed the aftermath of Merritt Beattie’s life following his exclusion from the Antigo Public School System, we reached out to Susan Smith Blakely, who not only wrote the source informing us of Merritt’s later life, but whose father knew Merritt going all the way back to when the case was brought to trial in 1919. Tonight, we air her story and perspective as a witness to special education history.

We began by asking Smith Blakely about what inspired her to write about special education back in 1979.

One night in the law library and in the midst of a research session, Smith Blakely stumbled upon a familiar name.

Smith Blakely fondly described what happened next AND EXPANDED FURTHER UPON HER FATHER’S FRIENDSHIP WITH MERRITT…

Along with emphasizing the importance of including human interest stories in legal analysis, Smith Blakely summarized the remainder of her article and gave an overview of the laws which changed how students with disabilities could obtain an education appropriate to their needs. These were passed in the 1970s following a series of court cases which the Disabulletin will explore in future installments of the miniseries Lawyers Schools and Access:The History of Special Education in the United States

Here is Ms.Blakely’s 1979 article on Merritt Beattie’s story!

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/65107/OSLJ_V40N3_0603.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y