AIDS Law: The Impact of AIDS on American Schools and Prisons

Abstract

In 1987, courts were addressing AIDS-related issues primarily in three areas: schools, prisons, and bathhouses. This Article, one of the earliest to examine how AIDS would impact social institutions, examines the development of "AIDS Law" in two seemingly disparate contexts: schools and prisons. These entities, like the people who compose and direct them, often reacted initially with panic -- excluding and quarantining -- those living with AIDS. (HIV had been identified a few years earlier, but the ability to test for virus antibodies was relatively new at the time. Therefore, the Article focus on people living with AIDS, rather than HIV.)

Wise judicial decisions in New Jersey and New York rejected the exclusion of children living with AIDS rather early on, laying a foundation for smarter policies to be developed throughout the country. Reticence to intrude on safety and security concerns in prisons led courts largely to defer to decision-makers in this context, even when such policies were inconsistent with existing medical knowledge.

It is fascinating to look back on these early cases, and the ways in which they laid the groundwork for HIV/AIDS-related judicial decisions, statutory law, and public policy in the ensuing decades.

Keywords: AIDS, school, prisons, law

JEL Classification: I18, I24, I28