Mental health law scholar professor Michael Perlin has coined the term “sanism” in the context of mental illness and mental disability to refer to, “an irrational prejudice of the same quality and character of other irrational prejudice that cause (and are reflected in) prevailing social attitudes of racism, sexism, homophobia and ethnic bigotry.” According to professor Perlin, sanism “infects both our jurisprudence and our lawyering practices.
Sanism is largely invisible and largely socially acceptable. It is based largely on stereotype, myth, superstition, and deindividualization, and is sustained and perpetuated by our use of alleged ‘ordinary common sense’ and heuristic reasoning in an unconscious response to events both in everyday life and in the legal process.”
Val Van Brocklin’s recently published commentary, “Rights of Alaskans with mental illness are being violated,” presented passionate opposition to the presence of sanism in a legal system that purports to protect the legal rights of those whom others have labeled mentally ill.
The liberty, dignity and privacy interests at stake for those who face involuntary civil commitment and forced psychotropic medication are fundamental and deserve to be fiercely and zealously safeguarded.
In her commentary, Van Brocklin called upon professed advocates to ensure the rights of psychiatric patients, specifically noting that it is time for Alaskans with mental illness to have advocacy. To this, I would counter to Van Brocklin that perhaps it is time for her to consider putting down her pen and stepping into the trenches. The Public Defender Agency is actively hiring trial attorneys; a passionate and experienced advocate such as herself could prove to be powerful in providing a voice to the voiceless in Alaska’s secret tribunals.
— Lacey Jane Brewster
Assistant Public Defender
Anchorage
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