While many students were enjoying their summer breaks in the month of July, Megan Ruzicka, FCRH ’27 was working alongside Jacob Smith, an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University, to conduct a study on the intersectionality between politics, veterans and physical disabilities.
On Sept. 24, Ruzicka and Smith presented their research to a small audience in Keating Hall Room 124.
The study was inspired by Republican senate candidate Samuel Brown, who campaigned for the 2024 election cycle. Brown is a veteran who served in Afghanistan and sustained life-threatening injuries after an explosion burned him alive. The incident also caused him to develop a physical disability.
To begin their presentation, Ruzicka and Smith referenced not only Brown but also existing literature on their topic. For voter perception, they found that “Threatening faces, despite no negative context, were found to be successful in predicting election losers,” as per research done by Kyle Mattes and others in 2010.
In terms of social constructs, studies by Meredith Kleykamp, Crosby Hipes and Alair MacLean in 2018 show that voters tend to publicly show support for veterans, but not vote the same way.
Ruzicka and Smith used these existing studies and Brown’s case to form their own hypotheses: “Electoral support for veterans seeking office will vary based upon whether messages about them place more emphasis on their veteran status or disability status and related attractiveness.”
To go alongside this theory, they also mentioned that voters will be less likely to support candidates if they are given images of veterans with physical disabilities, and that they will support these candidates more if given stories of their bravery and sacrifice.
Their second hypothesis theorized that, “Voters will rate candidates differently based upon whether messages place more emphasis on their veteran status or disability status and related physical attractiveness.” Additional information suggests that voters who see images of a veteran with a physical disability will rate them less highly across a series of proposed traits, and when they are presented with information about the veteran’s bravery and sacrifice, voters will rate them more highly alongside the same traits.
For their third and final hypothesis, Ruzicka and Smith proposed that, “Even when they support the election of the veterans into office, conservative participants will be less likely to support issues surrounding veterans when asked indirectly compared to liberal participants.”
Ruzicka and Smith conducted their study on July 21, 2025. There were around 2,320 respondents for each hypothesis.
They used four conditions to analyze hypotheses one and two, and two questions to analyze hypothesis three. The four conditions included variations in the description of the candidates, with two of the conditions also having pictures of the candidates. The questions were the same.
Ruzicka and Smith reported significant results for their second and third hypotheses, but not their first. Their results showed that participants consistently rated Brown lower in terms of the traits “attractive” and “strong,” and that conservatives were less likely than liberals to support candidates who support increases in funding for veteran healthcare.
During the question portion of their presentation, Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality and Ignatian Studies, as well as acting Dean of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, Francis X. McAloon, S.J., asked Ruzicka and Smith about the correlation between appearance and presumption of strength and if there was a distinction among different kinds of disabilities.
Smith provided historical context for his answer. “It definitely potentially could. At least, very historically, there likely would have been other cases … of discrimination,” said Smith. “Bob Dole, when he was in the Senate and running for president, who had damaged one of his arms, tried to hide that in campaigns.” Regarding the differences between disabilities, Smith noted that this could be a potential next step in research.
“Despite the injury to his arm, [Dole] put a pen in [his arm] to make it appear as if it was normal. So I think it also comes down to our voters being able to easily identify the disability to discriminate against it,” Ruzicka continued.
Ida Bastiaens, a professor and chair of the political science department at Fordham, asked if Ruzicka and Smith had taken political parties into consideration during their study, considering the polarization occurring in the United States. Smith noted that they had included political parties in their research to make it as realistic as possible, but they didn’t include them in their analysis.
Smith shared that there are ways to generalize their research to the population outside of political party affiliation, possibly in a follow-up study. “I do think, though, a good analysis we should do is to the independents here,” Smith said.
Specific numbers and visual representations of Ruzicka and Smith’s data are represented in their presentation.
