Linda Steele is a Professor at UTS Law Faculty. She is a socio-legal researcher working at the intersections of disability, law and social justice. She was previously a solicitor with the Intellectual Disability Rights Service.

 

Linda is an Adjunct Associate Professor at University of South Australia. She has previously held visiting scholar roles at Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Faculty of Law at Queen’s University Belfast and Osgoode Hall Law School at York University (Canada). In 2024 she was the recipient of the inaugural Hudson-Primer Fellowship Award from Northwestern Pritzker Law School Center for Disability and Racial Justice. In August 2025 Linda commenced a 3 year term on the board of the Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales.

 

Overview of research

 

Professor Steele's research has two goals:

 

(1). To challenge and change legal and public narratives to acknowledge violence, institutionalisation and segregation of disabled people as ableist, harmful and unjust.

(2). To deepen understanding of the utility and limits of using legal methods (such as litigation, redress schemes, truth commissions and law reform) to redress and repair the injustices of violence, institutionalisation and segregation of disabled people.

 

Linda progresses these goals in a range of contexts including residential institutions and other disability segregated accommodation, restrictive practices, sterilisation and menstrual suppression, criminal justice diversion programs, prison and forensic mental health incarceration, and segregated ('sheltered') employment.

 

Linda deeply values working with disabled people and Disabled People’s Organisations across many of her research projects. Many of her recent research publications are available in accessible Easy Read summaries at https://www.truthjusticerepair.org/easy-read.

 

Linda is currently leading a program of research 'Truth Justice Repair' in relation to violence, institutionalisation and segregation of disabled people. Linda is particularly interested in truth-telling, reparations, sites of conscience, and reparative pedagogies. More information is available at https://www.truthjusticerepair.org/.

 

Linda's earlier research focused on the role of law in carceral control and violence against disabled people. This earlier research used the concept of ‘disability-specific lawful violence’ to understand as legally sanctioned violence incarceration and coercive interventions experienced by disabled people, such as through civil mental health law, guardianship law and court diversion law.

 

Linda is the author of Disability, Criminal Justice and Law (2020 Routledge) and co-editor of Sites of Conscience: Place, Memory and the Project of Deinstitutionalization (2024 UBC Press), The Legacies of Institutionalisation: Disability, Law and Policy in the 'Deinstitutionalised' Community (2020 Hart Publishing), and Normalcy and Disability: Intersections Among Norms, Law, and Culture (2018 Routledge).

 

Research

 

Professor Steele is exploring disability, redress and repair in diverse contexts.

 

• Current research projects

 

Disability, truth and repair: Linda is writing a monograph on reparative approaches to disability historical injustice through the case study of disability institutionalisation. This work builds on a recently published article proposing a disability, truth and repair framework which is available to read at https://academic.oup.com/hrlr/article/25/2/ngaf012/8113340.

 

Reparative urban planning and heritage: Linda collaborates with Professor Phillippa Carnemolla (UTS Design, Architecture and Building) and disability advocacy organisations on research connecting the past, present and future of sites of former disability institutions. 

• In early work they collaborated with Council for Intellectual Disability, People with Disability Australia and Emeritus Professor Leanne Dowse (UNSW) on exploring what people with intellectual disability want the public to learn and remember about disability institutions and an article reporting on this work is available at https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/intljofdissocjus.3.3.0049. Linda and Phillippa continue to this work in collaboration with Council for Intellectual Disability, Hunter Circles and Advocacy for People with Disability Inc on reparative approaches to urban planning and heritage management of sites of former disability institutions.
• They have also collaborated with Council for Intellectual Disability on research supporting its advocacy campaign opposing the tourist rezoning of Peat Island in New South Wales (previously the site of a state-run disability institution for 99 years) and this submission and Easy Read summary are available at https://cid.org.au/our-campaigns/peat-island/.
• Linda and Phillippa recently completed a project with Council for Intellectual Disability on learning about and remembering the role of self-advocates in deinstitutionalisation. Easy Read and video resources produces as part of that project are available at https://cid.org.au/resource/remembering-disability-institutions/.
• Linda and Phillippa are collaborating with Speak Out Advocacy and Willow Court Heritage Site Inc on research related to a disability-inclusive and reparative heritage approach to the former Willow Court institution site in New Norfolk Tasmania. The site was recently recognised as a site of conscience by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

Here is a short video on Linda and Phillippa's research: 

https://youtu.be/C8HDf2tXuK0?si=5S7A1zyHvDznYT7L

 

Civil justice for injury in disability and aged care systems: Linda is collaborating with Professor Kylie Burns (Griffith Law School) on a scoping study to with civil justice lawyers aiming to identify key themes and issues on access to civil justice to inform the design of a larger-scale national study on the perspectives and experiences of injured disabled and older people and their families, civil justice lawyers and advocates on accessing civil justice systems.

 

The role of families in conceptualising and pursuing redress associated with institutionalisation of disabled people: Linda is collaborating with Professor Allison C Carey (Shippensburg University, USA) on a scoping study aiming to identify key dynamics in the role of families in redress in Australia and the United States of America.

 

Redressing labour exploitation in disability segregated employment: Funded by Anti-Slavery Australia, Linda is researching Australian Disability Enterprises ('sheltered' workshops) as labour exploitation. The first stage of this research explored how the political and legal re-framing of ADEs as modern slavery opens new possibilities for comprehending and redressing labour-based violence and exploitation of disabled people. The second stage of this research (with Reece Blackett) explores different possible judicial and non-judicial approaches to redressing labour exploitation in ADEs and in relation to 20th century forced labour in disability institutions.

 

• Recently completed research projects

 

A reparative approach to redressing human rights violations in aged care: Linda was CI on the project ‘Redressing Neglect and Abuse of People Living with Dementia in Residential Aged Care’ (2021-2022). This project was funded by a Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration – Dementia Australia Research Foundation Pilot Grant awarded by Dementia Australia Research Foundation. International dementia activist Kate Swaffer was an associate investigator on the project, and Dementia Alliance International and People with Disability Australia were project partners. The project explored how we redress systemic and structural harms experienced by people living with dementia in residential aged care. The project produced a set of 'Dementia Reparations Principles' to support future advocacy and policy development on redress, including specialised redress responses and reform of existing complaints/regulatory and judicial processes.

 

Redress and repair of disability reproductive violence: Linda collaborated with Women with Disabilities Australia on a project exploring redress for reproductive violence against women and girls with disability (2023-2024). The project identified key dimensions of a future advocacy and research framework for redressing reproductive violence against women with disability through exploring design and practice of initiatives for individual and collective redress for reproductive violence worldwide.

 

Disability institutions as sites of conscience: Linda co-edited with Dr Elisabeth Punzi (Gothenburg University, Sweden) Sites of Conscience: Place, Memory and the Project of Deinstitutionalization (UBC Press, 2025).

 

Sites of conscience: Linda collaborated with Lily Hibberd and Bonney Djuric from the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Association to explore the role in redressing child institutional abuse of the site of conscience at the site of the former Parramatta Girls Home (‘Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Memory Project’). Linda co-edited with Associate Professor Justine Lloyd (Sociology, Macquarie University) a special issue of Space & Culture titled ‘Place, Memory and Justice: Critical Perspectives on Sites of Conscience’.

 

Disability and menstrual justice: Drawing on her research on sterilisation of disabled women and girls, Linda collaborated with Professor Beth Goldblatt (UTS Law) on research on menstruation, law and justice. In 2020 they were awarded the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ) Annual Publication Award for a published scholarly journal article for their article ‘Bloody Unfair: Inequality Related to Menstruation – Considering the Role of Discrimination Law’ (2019) 41(3) Sydney Law Review. In 2023, Linda and Beth worked with Professor Margaret Johnson (University of Baltimore, USA) on leading the development of 'Menstrual Justice: A Human Rights Vision for Australia'.

 

Contributions to the Disability Royal Commission

 

Professor Steele contributed to research related to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability:

 

Research commissioned by the Disability Royal Commission: Linda collaborated with Associate Professors Claire Spivakovsky and Dinesh Wadiwel on two research projects for the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability - one on inclusive and accessible complaint mechanisms (2022) and one on restrictive practices (2023).

 

Research with Women with Disabilities Australia: During 2021 and 2022, Linda collaborated with Women with Disabilities Australia on four submissions to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability: restrictive practices, sexual and reproductive rights, guardianship law, and quality & safeguarding. In 2021, Linda appeared at a Royal Commission hearing on sexual and reproductive rights alongside Carolyn Frohmader, former CEO of WWDA.

 

• Research leadership

 

Professor Steele is a co-convenor of the UTS Law Faculty's Law Health Justice Research Group (2025-) and previously co-convened the faculty's Feminist Legal Research Group (2017-2024). 

 

She is a member of the leadership team of the UTS Disability Research Network.

 

Linda convenes the Disability, Law and Society Network of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. This network brings together disability law researchers across academia, advocacy, activism and policy settings. Please contact Linda if you would like to join.

 

Teaching

 

Professor Steele teaches civil court procedure law and mental health and disability law. She is on the author team of the 5th edition of the textbook Civil Procedure and Dispute Resolution in New South Wales (Thomson Reuters, 2025).

 

In 2021 Linda was the inaugural recipient of the Australian Legal Education Award (ALEA) for Excellence in Teaching (Engagement) for ‘transforming students’ understanding of disability and mental health law and empowering them to become agents of disability justice through engaging with communities’. In 2020 she was awarded the UTS Teaching and Learning Citation for ‘empowering law students to be agents of disability justice’.

 

HDR Supervision

 

Professor Steele is the proud supervisor of talented disability law research students: Tom Bailo, Elvira Pertega, and Kate Swaffer. She welcomes sociolegal and interdisciplinary opportunities for PhD research supervision.