Profile

Professor Kanter publishes and lectures extensively on United States, comparative, and international  Disability Law. She is the co-author of the first law casebook on international and comparative disability law and has published numerous articles and book chapters on disability law. In 2010-11, she was named the Distinguished Switzer Fellow by the US Department of Education's National Disability Rehabilitation Research Institute. In 2009-10, she was a Fulbright Scholar. In 2005, she received Syracuse University's most prestigious teaching award, the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Award for Excellence in Teaching. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Education. 

Professor Kanter is founder and co-editor of the SSRN Journal on Disability Law, and co-founder of the Disability Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She is a former Commissioner of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law.  From 2001-06, Professor Kanter was invited to work with the United Nations on the process that lead to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and is currently researching the impact of this Convention in various countries, particularly in the Middle East. She has been invited to work with NGOs and governments in such countries as India, Israel, Turkey, Ghana, Jordan, and Vietnam on developing their domestic disability laws.  

At Syracuse University College of Law, Professor Kanter founded and directs the Disability Law and Policy Program, which houses the nation’s first joint degree program in Law and Disability Studies and which awards a Certificate in Disability Law and Policy to eligible students. She also co-directs the Syracuse University Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies, which is the nation's first multi-disciplinary center dedicated to research, advocacy, academic programming, and public education on issues of inclusion and equality for people with disabilities. Professor Kanter teaches courses on U.S., comparative, and international disability law and policy, education and special education law, legislation and policy, ethics, and professionalism.

Since joining the law faculty in 1988, Professor Kanter has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Director of Clinical Legal Education, and Director of the Externship Program. Since 2005, she has been the Chair of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Disability. Prior to joining the SU law faculty, Professor Kanter taught at Georgetown University Law Center and practiced public interest law at a national disability rights organization in Washington, D.C. where she represented clients before the United States Supreme Court and in Congress.

Encyclopedia of Human Rights (5 Vol.), David Forsythe, ed., Chapters, (Oxford University Press 2009).

Encyclopedia of American Disability History (3 Vol.), Susan Burch, ed.,
Chapters, (Infobase Publishers 2009) .

Learning from Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs, Second Edition,  and Teachers'  manual J.P. Ogilvy, L. Lerman, L. Wortham, Kanter, et. al., (West,  2007) 

CASES AND MATERIALS ON INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND DOMESTIC MENTAL DISABILITY LAW,  M. Perlin, A. Kanter, M.P. Treuhart, K. Gledhill, & E. Szeli,  (Carolina Academic Press, Spring 2006).

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND DOMESTIC MENTAL DISABILITY LAW DOCUMENT SUPPLEMENT,  M. Perlin, A. Kanter, M.P. Treuhart, K. Gledhill, & E. Szeli,  (Carolina Academic Press, Spring 2006).   

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN THE PSYCHIATRIC FACILITIES, ORPHANAGES AND REHABILITATION CENTERS OF TURKEY, (Mental Disability Rights International, September 28, 2005) Primary author of legal analysis section.

The Globalization of Disability Law, chapter in P. Blanck, Ed., DISABILITY RIGHTS, Ashgate Pub. (2005). 

Students with Disabilities Studying Abroad, chapter in RIGHTS  AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES, Mobility International USA (2004).  

Foreign Policy and Disability: Legislative Strategies and Civil Rights Protections to Ensure Inclusion of People with Disabilities, Report commissioned by the National Council on Disability (with E. Rosenthal) (September 9, 2003).

The Right to Community Integration: Protections under United States and International Law, chapter in DISABILITY RIGHTS: INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES, (with E. Rosenthal), M. Breslin, S. Yee A. Meyerson, eds., Transnational Publishers (2002).

Towards Equality: The Americans with Disabilities Act: Accommodation of Differences, chapter in Lee Ann Basser Marks and Melinda Jones, eds., DISABILITY, DIVERS (ABILITY) AND LEGAL CHANGE, Kluwer Publishers (1999).

Legal and Ethical Issues in the Community Care of  Older People, and Protecting Elders Rights, chapters in AT HOME: STRATEGIES FOR SERVING OLDER PEOPLE WITH MENTAL DISABILITIES IN THE COMMUNITY  (1995).

The Housing Needs of People with Mental Illness, in OUTCASTS ON MAIN STREET - REPORT OF THE FEDERAL TASK FORCE ON HOMELESSNESS AND SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS (May 1992).

CURRENT ISSUES IN MENTAL HEALTH LAW, University of Texas, (1989).

A Brief History of Deinstitutionalization, chapter in PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE LABELED MENTALLY ILL (1987).

Combating NIMBY: Recent Zoning Cases Uphold the Establishment of Group Homes for the Mentally Disabled, chapter in PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE LABELED MENTALLY ILL (1987). 

Recent Articles: 

The Law: What’s Disability Studies Got to Do With It or An Introduction to Disability Legal Studies, Columbia  Journal of Human Rights (forthcoming).

The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and its Implications for the Rights of Elderly People Under International Law, 25 Georgia State U. L. Rev. 873 (2009).

Permanency Planning for Children with Disabilities: Ensuring the Right of Every Child to Live with A Family, 28 Children’s Legal Rights Journal 1 (2008) (Journal of  the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law) (lead article).

The Promise and Challenge of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 34 Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce  287 (2007)

The Right of People with Disabilities to Exercise Their Right to Vote under The Help America Vote Act, 30  Mental and physical disability law reporter 852 (with R. Russo) (2006). 

Ethics in Externships: Confidentiality, Conflicts and Competence, 10 CLINICAL LAW REVIEW 473 (with A. Anderson and C. Slane), (lead article, 2004). (Recognized as one of the top ten downloaded articles from the SSRN Legal Studies Research Journal). 

The Globalization of Disability Rights Law, 30 SYRACUSE  JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW & COMMERCE 243 (2003).

People with Disabilities Need an International Convention. Op Ed in SYRACUSE POST STANDARD, June 25, 2003.

The Presumption Against Extraterritoriality As Applied to Disability Discrimination Laws: Where Does it Leave Students with Disabilities Studying Abroad? 14 STANFORD L. AND POL. REV. 291(2003). 

The Need for Representation of People with Disabilities in Immigration Proceedings), 25 MENTAL  AND PHYSICAL DISABILITY L. RPTR. 511 (with C. Nugent and C. B. Chisam) (2002).

Involuntary Outpatient Commitment in Israel: Treatment or Control? 24 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LAW AND PSYCHIATRY 637 (with M. Ajzenstadt, U. Aviram, M. Kalian) (2001). 

The Right To Asylum for People with Disabilities 73 TEMPLE U. L. REV. 1117 (with K. Dadey) (2000).

Introduction to the Human Rights Symposium on The Concept of Human Rights and Its Application to Africa, 26  SYRACUSE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW & COMMERCE   (Spring 1999).

Involuntary Outpatient Commitment in Israel, MISHPATIM (1998-99) (in Hebrew) (with U. Aviram and M. Ajzenstadt) (1998-99).

Israel's Involuntary Outpatient Commitment Law: Lessons from the American Experience, 29 THE ISRAEL L. REV. 565 (with U. Aviram) (1995).

A Home of One's Own: An Analysis of the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 and Access to Housing for People with Mental Disabilities, 43 AMERICAN U. L. REV. 925 (1994).

Abandoned But Not Forgotten: The Rights of Elderly People in State Psychiatric Institutions, 19 N.Y.U. REV. OF L. AND SOC. CHANGE 273 (1992).

Homeless But Not Helpless: Legal Issues in the Care of Homeless People with Mental Illness, 45 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES 91 (Winter 1989).

Advocating for Freedom: The Community Placement of Elders From State Psychiatric Hospitals, co-authored with Elizabeth Jones, 1989 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW 444 (1989).

Zoning, Real Estate and Related Issues, Presidential Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C., paper published in conference proceedings (February 1988).

Legal Barriers to Access: The Unmet Health Care Needs of Homeless People, paper commissioned by the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (May 1987).

Homeless Mentally Ill People: No Longer Out of Sight and Out of Mind, 3 HUMAN RIGHTS ANN. 331 (1986).

Recent Zoning Cases Uphold the Establishment of Group Homes for the Mentally Retarded, 18 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW 515 (1984).