Fighting ableism with ableism doesn't work

Fighting ableism with ableism doesn't work. In fact, it's just bad policy. Yet that's precisely the tactic that Disability Scoop, "the premier source for developmental disability news," decided to use in its criticism of the latest episode of Glee, in which the character with Down syndrome brought a gun to school. Here's the relevant part of the Disability Scoop article:

“Acting like every other teenager in doing things like sports and going to college, those are things great to portray for Becky,” said Julie Cevallos, vice president of marketing for the organization [National Down Syndrome Society]. “Taking a gun to school is something very serious and would likely come with a mental health condition. That’s not appropriate for someone with Down syndrome and not a stigma they need.”

Meanwhile, comments from viewers on Twitter criticized the characterization for being “disgraceful” and “seriously lame.”

The first bit of this is simpler to process and explain. It's in the second paragraph quoted, where one of the quotes from a Twitter used reads "seriously lame." Lame means someone who can't walk, whether because of amputation or paralysis, quadriplegia or paraplegia, or certain types of cerebral palsy. Using this word as as an insult or a criticism already denotes that "lame" is understood as a negative attribute or characteristic. This wouldn't be the case if being "lame" were not also implicitly understood to be a negative state of being. Lame can only be an insult so long as being lame is a bad thing, just as using "gay" as an insult only works with the understanding that being gay is a bad thing.

Given that the criticism in question is directed toward the (potentially?) ableist representation of a disabled character, this is particularly ironic and biting.

(I say potentially because I've never seen Glee and didn't see the episode receiving the criticism across the netscape, and so feel unqualified on that basis alone to make much commentary on the actual TV episode in question. I'll agree, though, that based only on what I've read, it was probably an incredibly poor choice at best, given the dangerous and inaccurate stereotype of disabled people, particularly the developmentally disabled after the recent media hullabaloo after Newtown, as [more] [more likely to be] violent.)

The second bit of ableism, encapsulated in the first paragraph of the quote above, is quite a bit more serious, where Julie Cevallos from the National Down Syndrome Society says, "Taking a gun to school is something very serious and would likely come with a mental health condition. That’s not appropriate for someone with Down syndrome." Unpacking this is going to take quite a bit longer to do.

Ms. Cevallos is actively contributing to the oppression of people with psychiatric disabilities. Read that first sentence again -- "Taking a gun to school is something very serious and would likely come with a mental health condition." This statement implies a) that people with psychiatric disabilities are more likely to bring a gun to school, b) that they are more likely to do this with violent intentions, c) that they are more likely to commit a school shooting or other act of violence, and that d) it would be more accurate to portray someone bringing a gun to school as "mentally ill."

These are untrue for a variety of reasons. In certain parts of the country where hunting continues to be a major part of the culture, students with and without disabilities might "bring guns to school" in the sense that they're in their cars or trucks for hunting or sport shooting after school. Further, there is no evidence to suggest that murderers are more likely to have psychiatric disabilities than not. Here's an excerpt from a recent New York Times article (and yes, the sources are linked in the original article -- if you want more, see my earlier post with links to full texts of several peer-reviewed articles on the topic):

Only about 4 percent of violence in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness. This does not mean that mental illness is not a risk factor for violence. It is, but the risk is actually small. Only certain serious psychiatric illnesses are linked to an increased risk of violence. One of the largest studies, the National Institute of Mental Health’s Epidemiologic Catchment Area study, which followed nearly 18,000 subjects, found that the lifetime prevalence of violence among people with serious mental illness — like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — was 16 percent, compared with 7 percent among people without any mental disorder. Anxiety disorders, in contrast, do not seem to increase the risk at all.

Alcohol and drug abuse are far more likely to result in violent behavior than mental illness by itself. In the National Institute of Mental Health’s E.C.A. study, for example, people with no mental disorder who abused alcohol or drugs were nearly seven times as likely as those without substance abuse to commit violent acts.

[...]

But mass killings are very rare events, and because people with mental illness contribute so little to overall violence, these measures would have little impact on everyday firearm-related killings. Consider that between 2001 and 2010, there were nearly 120,000 gun-related homicides, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Few were perpetrated by people with mental illness.

Ms. Cevallos is wrongfully suggesting that while it would be "inappropriate" to portray someone with Down syndrome bringing a gun to school, it would be perfectly "appropriate" to portray someone with a psychiatric disability -- say schizophrenia, bipolar, post-traumatic stress disorder, reactive attachment disorder, or dissociative identity disorder -- doing the same thing. If we did not live in such an ableist culture where stereotypes about disability and violence didn't exist, I would have no problems with portraying someone with any type of disability bringing a gun to school. Unfortunately, because of the cultural context in which I am writing this piece, I must urge against such portrayals of disabled people because they further affirm and reinforce existing negative and inaccurate stereotypes of all types of disabled people.

I'm a writer (of fiction, I mean -- I'm working on my seventh novel right now). Don't get me wrong; I'm all for creativity and freedom of expression. I see nothing inherently wrong with portraying someone disabled bringing a gun to school; however, the extremely heightened potential for such a portrayal to ignore current cultural realities, as well as the certainty of such a portrayal further contributing to dangerous and harmful stereotypes about disabled people, mean that I cannot condone such representations of disability.

Granted, the offending remarks are contained within quotations of things other people said or wrote, but the author and editors at Disability Scoop would have been perfectly capable of selecting quotations expressing criticism of the episode that didn't also espouse ableism. In fact, I believe that they had a responsibility to either use different quotes (especially in the Twitter case) or to distance themselves from their problematic content (more relevant to Ms. Cevallos's remarks, had they chosen to keep the quote) and make it clear why the distancing would be necessary.

In any case, it's readily apparent to me that criticizing ableism using, well, more of the same, simply isn't the right thing to do. It's not merely hypocritical; it's actually completely counterproductive. It significantly diminishes the strength and force of your arguments, and it does absolutely nothing to actually benefit any disabled people. When some of us fall, all of us fall. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from the Birmingham City Jail, "Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

This Is Why I Am Angry

Trigger Warning: Extreme violence, ableism, dehumanization, heterosexism, homophobia, hate crime,  murder, liberal usage of the f-word and other profanity, and a graphic and detailed description of violence leading to murder.

___________________

This Is Why I Am Angry

To the people who say that I am too angry, too bitter, too harsh, and too unforgiving --

I read three things this week that made me furious enough to want to hurl my laptop across a room and into a conveniently placed wall.

These things infuriate me. 

1.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network published a report (PDF) finding widespread discrimination against disabled people in need of organ transplants. Cases like those of intellectually disabled Mia Rivera (who was eventually granted a kidney transplant) and autistic Paul Corby (whose request for a heart transplant was ultimately denied) provide damning evidence to support an indictment of ableism that kills.

2.
The United Kingdom sponsored a three-year study entitled Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities, that found over 1200 avoidable deaths of mentally disabled people, more "rapid" and "premature" life and death decisions in the cases of mentally disabled people, and issuance of do not resuscitate orders because of a person's disability. The title of this news article is "Doctors put lower value on lives of the disabled, study finds."

In other news, the Earth revolves around the sun and Barack Obama is the President of the United States.

We already know how little our lives matter, if indeed, they matter at all. This is not news to us. 

3.
Steven Simpson is dead and his murderer will be serving a paltry term of three and a half years in prison.

On 23 June 2012, it was Steven Simpson's birthday and he was throwing a party to celebrate with the people who were supposedly his friends.

Eighteen-year-old Steven was autistic and gay, and had a speech impairment and epilepsy. He was bullied horrifically at school. He lived in his own apartment and went to school at Barnsley College.

Twenty-year-old Jordan Sheard knew Steven, but not well. He and two other friends showed up at the door uninvited, but were let inside anyway.

Sheard dared Steven to strip down to his underwear. Steven did. He was doused in tanning oil.

Partygoers chanted, "Light it, light it, see what he does!"

Sheard retrieved a cigarette lighter and set Steven on fire--specifically, he held the lighter against Steven's body and he flicked it on beside Steven's genitals.

According to another partygoer, Sheard had written homophobic messages of "gay boy" on Steven's forehead and "I love dick" on Steven's body while he was drunk, before he was set on fire.

Steven's neighbor, Shaun Banner, came by to check on him. Instead he found himself ripping off the young man's burning clothes, injuring himself in the process, and dousing him in a cold bath while waiting for paramedics to arrive.

Steven died two days later in the hospital from his burns, which covered 60% of his body. His father was with him.

Sheard tried to blame Steven for setting fire to himself.

The prosecutor wanted Sheard to be charged for hate crime. The judge disagreed.

Sheard was charged with manslaughter.

Manslaughter.

An infinitely lesser charge than the charge of murder.

And he was sentenced to three and a half years.

Three and a half fucking years.

For murder.

For cruel, hateful murder in which the victim was targeted specifically because of his disability and his sexuality.  

For murder. 

For fucking murder.

This, this is why I am angry. This is why I am fucking angry.

There is no room for dialogue or polite, civil discussion about murder, and the only justifications you could possible claim for why such "civil discourse" is necessary lie within the nexus of your own privilege, the privilege that means you don't have to worry about someone attacking and murdering you at your own fucking birthday party and then receiving a slap on the wrist.

If you are straight, if you are able-bodied and neurotypical, and one of your supposed "friends" were to murder you so viciously at your own birthday party, you can bet everything you hold precious that the perpetrator would be charged with murder and sentenced accordingly.

But you don't have to worry about that happening to you.

You don't.

I do.

I am angry not because I want to be, not because I enjoy it, not because it somehow makes me feel good that I could at any moment be the victim of a half-dozen hate crimes, but because the society in which we live has decreed that these things are simply part of life. That these things are acceptable. That these things, indeed, must be accepted. And I say, fuck that noise.

What does legal progress mean when we can still be murdered and our murderers receive sympathy for "a mistake," for "a prank gone wrong?"

The news coverage of Steven's death and Sheard's sentence has noted that representatives of the National Autistic Society and UK-based LGBTQ rights organizations have condemned what happened as a travesty of justice, have condemned his murder -- and let's make sure that we call this what it was, and it was a fucking murder -- as a hate crime worthy of punishment and prosecution as a hate crime.

But what if Steven were poor? What if he weren't a university student? What if he were a person of color? What if he were trans* in addition to being gay? What if he hadn't been a white man?

I would hope, I would hope that those same condemnations would be happening. But reality tells me otherwise. I know that his case, that his life, that his death, that his murder, would not receive half of the attention that it has from the media were these not also facts.

And even so, even despite the privilege Steven had as a result of being white and male-identified and male-presenting insofar as we can determine, his murderer, the piece of human filth who stole his life in a calculated act of cruelty heaped upon other cruelties, has essentially been exculpated by a legal system that won't recognize what he did as a hate crime, let alone punish him accordingly.

If you aren't outraged, there is something wrong with you.

If you aren't devastated, there is something wrong with you.

I am accused all the time of being too angry and too brash and too harsh.

I am told every day of my life, both explicitly and implicitly, that my life is not meaningful, that my life is not valuable, that I should be grateful for having been allowed to live.

To be dead is better than to be disabled.

"I'd rather die before letting that happen to me."

"If I got paralyzed, I'd kill myself."

In the wake of the Steubenville rape trial, what does it say about our society, about the perverse pervasion of rape culture, that the mainstream media has worked long and hard to mourn the loss of opportunities and a future for the rapists without making any mention of the potentially life-long catastrophic consequences on the woman they fucking raped?

When our murders are rhetoricized as accidents, as pranks gone wrong, our murderers are exculpated for fear of the privileged, non-disabled majority that the offenders won't have another chance, won't have other opportunities if we condemn them so much for these things.

But murder is murder, isn't it?

If you are white, straight, upper-class, Christian, college-educated, neurotypical, and able-bodied, (and particularly if you are a man, male-identified, or male-passing) then you have every reason to trust the justice system. To trust that the police will be there to support you and investigate crimes committed against you. To trust that prosecutors and judges will take your seriously and bring appropriate charges against people who have harmed you.

As you change each of those attributes to some other quality, the likelihood that you can trust this system exponentially decreases.

Why do missing white children receive a plethora of media attention, while missing Black children receive hardly any at all?

Why are mothers who murder their non-disabled children vilified roundly in the media, while those who murder disabled children are romanticized and excused from blame?

This is why I am angry.

This is why you should be, too.

I am not exaggerating or hyperbolizing when I say that our lives are at stake.

For as long as disabled people can be murdered by their doctors, by their family members, by their supposed fucking friends, and these horrific crimes merit at most a slap on the wrist and usually hardly any consequences at all, I will continue to be fucking angry.

Their lives deserve absolutely nothing less.

Another Blow to the Judge Rotenberg Center

This press release was just published today from the office of Councilman Vincent Gentile in response to the December 2012 CMS letters. This may be another blow to the JRC, as a majority of the 240 or so students are from New York. If the JRC were to lose 120 of its residents and $13 million in revenue, that could be enough to make a good-sized dent in their profits. 

--

(image description: seal of the city of New York, with laurel leaves encircling an eagle over a European settler and an American Indian on either side of a shield with the year 1625)

THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

OFFICE OF COUNCIL MEMBER VINCENT J. GENTILE
Contact: 
Justin Brannan
(718) 748-5200

PRESS RELEASE

February 22, 2013

** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE **

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

GENTILE CALLS ON CHANCELLOR TO REMOVE ALL NYC CHILDREN FROM CONTROVERSIAL SCHOOL ONCE AND FOR ALL

CITY HALL – In light of recent developments, Councilman Vincent J. Gentile, a long-time advocate for New York’s most vulnerable, is calling on New York City Department of Education Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott to remove all New York children from the infamous Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts once and for all.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services saying it would no longer allow federal Medicaid money to be used by anyone who lives at a facility that employs electric shock intervention, even if that person is not receiving the treatment themselves. Massachusetts has begun notifying the families of its students that they must either move to a new facility or unenroll from state benefits immediately.

“CMS made the right decision – no federal tax dollars should be going to an institution that uses these electric shock techniques on children. It’s time New York State and New York City to do the same – no city or state money should go to support an institution which subjects its students to these cruel and unusual forms of ‘behavior modification’. The Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts where 120 NYC developmentally disabled students currently attend, is in gross violation of the most fundamental standards of humane treatment of people with disabilities”, Councilman Gentile said.  “With CMS pulling its funding, we are one step closer to shutting down Rotenberg once and for all.”

As a New York State Senator, Councilman Gentile introduced legislation to mandate oversight and accountability when developmentally disabled students are sent out-of-state for education and treatment. Then, in late 2009, Councilman Gentile sponsored “Billy’s Law” which requires the Department of Education to provide the City Council with bi-annual reports monitoring all out-of-state residential facilities that house New York State children for specialized educational services – both pieces of legislation passed unanimously.

“It is a sad fact that our City still sends children to this Center, and sadder still that it is our tax-payer dollars that fund about half of the children at this school,” Gentile wrote in a letter to Chancellor Walcott. “I know that with your leadership, we can finally remove our children from this barbaric facility. I am asking that you immediately develop a plan, if one does not already exist, to bring these students home and that you share it with my office and the New York City Council.”

New York City Education officials have paid more than $13 million last year to treat 120 city kids at Judge Rotenberg Educational Center outside Boston, which until now was the only clinic in the country that uses electric shock treatments to discipline students. 

The End of Torture at the Judge Rotenberg Center?

Breaking News! 

On Thursday 14 February 2013 (Valentine's Day!), Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick filed a motion to vacate (render null) the 1987 settlement agreement that has permitted the Judge Rotenberg Center to use aversives, including the notorious electric shock GED devices. This could mean the end of aversives at the JRC.

Read the press release from Senator Brian A. Joyce here!
From the press release:

“The governor has always been an ally when it comes to protecting these severely disabled children from the JRC’s barbaric practices,” said Joyce. “This comes on the heels of the FDA’s meeting with the JRC over their use of GED shock devices that have not even been approved for use but are strapped to disabled children right now administering painful skin shocks for simple misbehaviors. It is time for this order to be vacated and to close this dark chapter in how we allow disabled people to be treated in our state.”

In 1987, a settlement was reached between the JRC and the Commonwealth allowing the continued use of aversives. The court order was supposed to be vacated in 1988, but was extended indefinitely because the JRC was not yet licensed a year after the order’s issuance. At the time, the GED skin shock devices were not yet in use and aversive therapy consisted of water sprays, taste aversives, muscle squeezes, spanks, pinches and restrained time outs. The JRC continually defends its actions based on this court order, and claims that it denies the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) the right to regulate or prohibit the use of the painful skin shocks and other aversives.

Because the JRC has been defending its practices based on the 1987 settlement, the vacatur of that court order might mean that the JRC no longer has access to that defense, which could result in a permanent end to the use of aversives as "therapy." 

You can also read the actual court documents here --

• The motion (PDF)
• The memo in support of the motion (PDF)

These PDF files should be text-accessible; if not, let me know in the comments and I can rectify that.

Questionnaire on Disability for the GUSA Executive

Here at Georgetown, it's election season for the President and Vice President of the Georgetown University Students Association (GUSA), our student government. When the candidates and their running mates were announced last week Thursday, I sent each pair of candidates a six-question survey on disability issues. Here are the six questions (together, uninterrupted) and then each question itemized with its respective responses from four of the five candidate pairs (Spencer and Rob, Jack and Maggie, Shavonnia and Joe, and Nate and Adam) who submitted responses. Their responses are verbatim, including typographical errors.

I will be publishing my own responses and follow-ups to these questions and the candidates' answers within the next couple of days. Stay tuned! 

Lydia
Autistic Hoya

______________________________________________________________________

7 February 2013

To:       Spencer Walsh and Rob Silverstein

Jack Appelbaum and Maggie Cleary

Shavonnia Corbin Johnson and Joseph Vandegriff

Nate Tisa and Adam Ramadan

William Cannon Warren and Andrew Logerfo

Questionnaire on Disability for the GUSA President and Vice Presidential Candidates

1.) Several disabled students, representing a variety of different types of disability groups, have left Georgetown after experiencing extreme hostility from administrators, faculty, staff, and or students.[1] What would you do or change to combat ableism (disability oppression, prejudice against the disabled) and make Georgetown a more welcoming and inclusive campus for disabled students if elected?[2]

2.) Most conversations about diversity at least minimally address race, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, religion, class, and age, and increasingly, are including status (i.e. citizen, resident, undocumented, etc.).[3] Disability is rarely included in these conversations despite its inclusion in a list of protected classes in Georgetown's equal opportunity and anti-discrimination statement.[4] In fact, when disability is discussed at Georgetown, it is usually in a highly medicalized context that pathologizes disability and assumes it is a health issue rather than a social issue and a diversity issue.[5] What would you do if elected to ensure that conversations and initiatives on diversity meaningfully include disability?

3.) Georgetown was the first university in the United States to hire a full-time imam as Muslim chaplain (Yahya N. Hendi). Georgetown was also the first Catholic university ever to open an LGBTQ Resource Center. We also host the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access and the Women's Center. Yet there is not currently a Disability Cultural Center on campus.[6] Syracuse University was the first university ever to open a Disability Cultural Center, followed by the University of Washington, Seattle. I am leading a committee of students and community members working to gain support for the establishment of a Disability Cultural Center on campus to celebrate disability pride and power, culture and community.[7] If elected, would you advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown?

4.) The outgoing GUSA executive represented a significant shift in encouraging more women to take on leadership roles in student government at Georgetown with the first ever women pair as President and Vice President, and the largest proportion of women in the executive branch ever. What will you do, if elected, to increase visibility and representation of disabled students (both with apparent and invisible disabilities) in leadership roles on campus, whether in GUSA or elsewhere?[8]

5.) Georgetown's campus is incredibly inaccessible for disabled students from a variety of disability groups. As highlighted in a November article from the Hoya,[9] students with physical disabilities and motor impairments continue to experience significant barriers in navigating campus. Less frequently discussed are other barriers to equal access for students with neurological, psychiatric, developmental, intellectual, sensory, or learning disabilities.[10] What would you do if elected to investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown and advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing them?

6.) Conversations about disability that occur in classes, student organization sponsored events, departmental sponsored events, and administration sponsored programming frequently omit the perspectives of disabled people both during the planning process and during the actual event[11], while the few events that do meaningfully incorporate disabled people throughout the process receive far less publicity or attention from the campus community than other diversity-related events and often occur in fairly cloistered settings[12]. What would you do if elected to advocate for meaningful inclusion of disabled people in conversations about us on campus?

I would like to publish responses to these questions to Autistic Hoya[13]. Otherwise, if there is objection, I will publish them via Facebook and other social media. Your time and consideration in providing written answers by February 13^th, 2013 is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Lydia Brown (COLL ’15)

lydia@autistichoya.com

---

[1] Two of these students were interviewed for my article “Disabled Hoyas Suffer From Prejudice, Not Impairment” in the Winter 2013 issue of the Georgetown Independent. One is Blind and Autistic; the other has bipolar and anxiety. Anecdotally, I know of several other incidents involving disabled students who chose to leave the university.

[2] Further evidence of an environment hostile to disabled members of the community is the reticence of many members of the Georgetown community with invisible or non-apparent disabilities to identity as disabled or having a disability—in some cases, the reticence is extreme. One Georgetown staff person told me that she felt it would be absolutely unsafe and uncomfortable to disclose her disabilities to her coworkers. One of the students who left Georgetown whom I interviewed said that Georgetown was an incredibly hostile place to be a disabled student, and that she would not feel safe identifying as disabled. The other student whom I interviewed said that while his blindness is apparent, he refused to disclose that he was also autistic for fear of retaliation and increased harassment.

[3] The “Big 7” identities in diversity discussions are usually given as gender identity, race, (socio-economic) class, sexual orientation, disability, age, and religion.

[4] The four available websites for candidate pairs (www.jackandmaggieforgeorgetown.com, www.nateandadam.com, www.shavonniaandjoe.com, and www.spencerandrob.com) all include position statements about social justice, diversity, or pluralism, but not one includes disability, never mind meaningfully addresses any disability-related issues, such as increased accessibility, disability empowerment, visibility of disabled leaders, hiring of disabled faculty, expanding Disability Studies course offerings and programming, disability cultural activities, etc.

[5] A recent op-ed published in the Voices section of the Georgetown Voice entitled “Psychology Student Psychologically Scarred by Psychos” exemplifies ableist bigotry against disabled people as well as the medical model exclusive approach to framing and discussing disability-related issues.

[6] A Disability Cultural Center does not provide the same types of supports and services as a disability support office (the Academic Resource Center). It is primarily a diversity and cultural center analogous to the others on campus.

[7] The Disability Cultural Center Planning Committee has our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Georgetown-University-Disability-Cultural-Center-Planning-Committee/466471490051398 and may be launching a dedicated website for the initiative during the spring 2013. We are in the process of drafting our formal report and proposal for the administration, student body, and the broader Georgetown community.

[8] As far as I am aware, there is scant representation of disabled people—either with visible or invisible disabilities—across student organizations, leadership initiatives, or GUSA itself, if any at all.

[9] See the article “Progress is Slow on Disability Access” on the Hoya’s website at this URL http://www.thehoya.com/news/progress-is-slow-on-disability-access-1.2945552#.URNdN2ekMis. Note that the article exclusively focuses on access as an issue relevant to physical disability, and does not address access needs related to any number of other types of disabilities.

[10] For example, classrooms that only have fluorescent lighting may be inaccessible to people with sensory processing difficulties. Fire alarm systems that use high-frequency flashing lights are extremely dangerous and potentially fatal for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Students with severe sensory issues regarding food or the environment may be unable to eat in Leo’s, but the process for obtaining a rare medical exception from the mandated meal plans during the first two years is not transparent or even conveyed to most first and second year students.

[11] For example, in November 2012, Dr. Thomas Insel (Director of the National Institutes on Mental Health) delivered a talk on autism in Gonda Theatre. No autistic members of the Georgetown community were included in discussions prior to inviting Dr. Insel despite the fact that his views and priorities on autism research do not represent those of autistic policy advocates and activists. In another example, in February 2012, when the Psi Chi Psychology Honors Society hosted a panel originally titled “Multiple Perspectives on the Autism Epidemic” that included five non-autistic speakers until I approached the event organizers and demanded autistic representation.

[12] For example, events hosted by Diversability, the student disability awareness forum, are generally far less well attended than events hosted by other diversity-related organizations. In another example, in fall 2012, the Academic Resource Center co-hosted an event with the DC Metropolitan Business Leadership Network on employment for people with disabilities. Based on the roster of attendees sent around afterward, less than five students with disabilities were in attendance, and perhaps as few as two were Georgetown students. 

[13] www.autistichoya.com or Autistic Hoya is my website/blog, where I typically write on disability politics and policy, the disability civil rights movement, critical disability theory, neurodiversity, the autism rights movement, Autistic culture and identity, and intersectionality.

______________________________________________________________________

1.) Several disabled students, representing a variety of different types of disability groups, have left Georgetown after experiencing extreme hostility from administrators, faculty, staff, and or students. What would you do or change to combat ableism (disability oppression, prejudice against the disabled) and make Georgetown a more welcoming and inclusive campus for disabled students if elected?

Spencer and Rob: The goal of a University is to provide an opportunity for people from a variety of backgrounds to come together and learn — not just about the world but also about each other. Harassment and hostility directed against anyone at Georgetown is unacceptable and Spencer and Rob will work tirelessly to promote a Hilltop that is unified in our diversity. This is one of the reasons why we decided to run on the theme of one Georgetown.  We believe that diversity must encompass people with disabilities and we will make including liaisons to disabled students a key point of emphasis in building our administration. More broadly, we support a comprehensive audit — including GUSA and the University administration — of Georgetown’s accessibility for disabled students and how to overcome institutional prejudice against the disabled.  Moreover, we think that Georgetown should particularly look into how buildings can be adapted to better take into account the needs of those with disabilities.  

Jack and Maggie: It is absolutely unacceptable for any administrator, professor, student or other member of the Georgetown community to make disabled members feel marginalized or unwelcome in any way. Our platform hinges on ensuring GUSA can provide solutions for any problems that students face on campus, and we would approach those of disabled students no differently. We would actively engage the students most knowledgeable about the challenges disabled students face in order to identify concrete solutions to actively change the campus culture towards disability and provide new resources and benefits for disabled students. By recognizing the importance of pluralism in our platform, we will be able to welcome members of the disability community into discussions they have not been a part of previously.  Disabled students will see an ally and a resource in the student association, something they hope they will utilize to address the challenges they face on campus.

Shavonnia and Joe: One concrete thing we can do right of the bat is making Georgetown more accessible for the physically disabled. In our budget we have already allocated funds to make Georgetown more handicap accessible.  We would also like for our secretary of diversity to put a strong emphasis on disability as well as making sure to emphasis it in Pluralism in Action. How Pluralism in Action is currently structured we address racial, religious and sexual differences, but addressing the presence of disabilities on campus is neglected.  We believe having a campus wide dialogue about these issues will greatly increase understanding and foster a more receptive atmosphere.

Nate and Adam: We will reach out to professionals in the field such as Christina Nicolaidis and Dora Raymaker (Co-Directors of the Academic autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education) amongst others. This will start the conversation on campus and raise awareness of the issue. Even though we recognize that just raising awareness isn't the solution, it is a very important first step towards achieving our final goal of making Georgetown a more welcoming and inclusive campus for disabled people, at least from an administrative end.


2.) Most conversations about diversity at least minimally address race, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, religion, class, and age, and increasingly, are including status (i.e. citizen, resident, undocumented, etc.). Disability is rarely included in these conversations despite its inclusion in a list of protected classes in Georgetown's equal opportunity and anti-discrimination statement. In fact, when disability is discussed at Georgetown, it is usually in a highly medicalized context that pathologizes disability and assumes it is a health issue rather than a social issue and a diversity issue. What would you do if elected to ensure that conversations and initiatives on diversity meaningfully include disability?

Spencer and Rob: Diversity does include disability and a sense of social justice must include opening doors for students, which as The Hoya article you reference points out, is both a literal and metaphorical issue at Georgetown. In roundtables on diversity issues, we would seek to include a disabled perspective, making whatever accommodations are necessary to attract their input. We would also work with leaders like Lydia Brown to assess our progress in outreach and to better inform our perspective on this issue. We would be open to having a disability roundtable to discuss accessibility and access issues, as well as the social elements of disability, with disabled and other concerned students in the first month of our term.


Jack and Maggie: The GUSA executive can make strides to change the campus culture pertaining to students with disabilities in a more inclusive way by highlighting pluralism.  First and foremost, our administration would be focused on developing an executive branch that is fully representative of the Georgetown community.  Additionally, by highlighting pluralism instead of diversity, we can more adequately address the needs of disabled members of the Georgetown community. Traditional conceptions of diversity often neglect those who are disabled. By highlighting pluralism, we will demonstrate that Georgetown is diverse in many ways, but that it is vital that all members of the Georgetown community appreciate and respect that diversity. The pluralism summit we propose will include disabled members of the community. We also plan to actively coordinate student input on future building on campus. With a campus already inaccessible for those suffering from physical disabilities, we will ensure all new building is adequate. Furthermore, we plan to reform the bias incident reporting system to ensure the interface is more user-friendly, the university is responding appropriately with education, and the campus is alerted of bias-related incidents, all which should and will include students with disabilities.

Shavonnia and Joe: In our platform we have stated that we want to create awareness of the vast amount of diversity that we have on campus. Furthermore, we would be more than willing to help promote events created by all minority groups, which includes disability groups. We would love to allow for these students flier exclusively from the GUSA office and add their events to our weekly emails.

Nate and Adam: Not long ago members from the LGBTQ community were regarded as psychologically ill, and issues addressing them were highly medicalized. Having gone through this, it is impermissible for members of the LGBTQ community to allow fellow human beings to suffer from this sort of discrimination. This is a social issue that needs to be addressed; we will work towards including disability in all of our conversations and initiatives regarding diversity.

3.) Georgetown was the first university in the United States to hire a full-time imam as Muslim chaplain (Yahya N. Hendi). Georgetown was also the first Catholic university ever to open an LGBTQ Resource Center. We also host the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access and the Women's Center. Yet there is not currently a Disability Cultural Center on campus. Syracuse University was the first university ever to open a Disability Cultural Center, followed by the University of Washington, Seattle. I am leading a committee of students and community members working to gain support for the establishment of a Disability Cultural Center on campus to celebrate disability pride and power, culture and community. If elected, would you advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown?

Spencer and Rob: We believe that a Disability Cultural Center could complement the work of the Academic Resource Center and support its creation in some form. We believe that such a Center could have a joint mission of advocating for disabled students and providing a space for social events and engagement within the disabled community. Such a project will require a serious investment of University time, employees, facilities and financial resources, so we will begin the conversation immediately.

Jack and Maggie: We perceive GUSA’s role to be helping students achieve solutions to any problems they face on campus and empowering them to take action on their own by connecting them with the other students passionate about their cause and administrators who can be helpful. As a result, we would actively work with the committee of students and community members by providing GUSA support and resources to a Disability Cultural Center. We would hope that this office would be able to support programming, work with the Academic Resource Center, address challenges that physically disabled students face getting around campus, and work with Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) to better support students that face mental health challenges.

Shavonnia and Joe: Absolutely. We have actually questioned why there was not a disability center already at Georgetown. We would definitely advocate for the creation of a disability center and even search for space for this center. We are aware that there are some vacant offices on Leavey 4 and we would take is as a personal tasks to aid in the creation of this center. We want GUSA to represent the student population. Without a doubt, there are students with disabilities on this campus and at this present time they are being underrepresented or not represented at all.

Nate and Adam: Most definitely! Just as we are advocating on behalf of other diversity initiatives like the Center for Multicultural Equity (CMEA) and the Diversity Action Council (DAC), we plan to increase institutional and financial support for the Disability Cultural Center, especially for something so closely linked with our Jesuit Values as the promotion of a more inclusive Georgetown.

4.) The outgoing GUSA executive represented a significant shift in encouraging more women to take on leadership roles in student government at Georgetown with the first ever women pair as President and Vice President, and the largest proportion of women in the executive branch ever. What will you do, if elected, to increase visibility and representation of disabled students (both with apparent and invisible disabilities) in leadership roles on campus, whether in GUSA or elsewhere?

Spencer and Rob: Both of us are strong supporters of increasing diversity in all of its forms, including among disabled people, whether there disabilities are apparent or invisible. We will appoint a disability liaison, preferably a disabled student, to coordinate our outreach and our initiatives to improve accessibility and experience for disabled Hoyas. We will also encourage programming similar to the “Elect Her” conference, which focused on electing women to student government, that would specifically focus on disabled students.  It’s time that Georgetown finally provided a center within the university for those with disabilities. 

Jack and Maggie: We envision an executive branch representative of the entire student body, disabled students included. Beyond that, much like Clara and Vail did with other communities on campus, we will encourage disabled students to get involved in other initiatives, like running for the GUSA Senate, serving on various advisory boards or committees, and taking an active role in student engagement on campus.

Shavonnia and Joe: No student should be dismissed or not considered for a leadership role because of a disability. To increase students with disabilities in leadership positions we will actively seek out and recruit students from all minority groups, including the disabled, to join our executive.

Nate and Adam: We will engage the disabled community when selecting cabinet positions and when making decisions regarding diversity initiatives, thus increasing the visibility and representation of disabled students on campus.

5.) Georgetown's campus is incredibly inaccessible for disabled students from a variety of disability groups. As highlighted in a November article from the Hoya, students with physical disabilities and motor impairments continue to experience significant barriers in navigating campus. Less frequently discussed are other barriers to equal access for students with neurological, psychiatric, developmental, intellectual, sensory, or learning disabilities. What would you do if elected to investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown and advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing them?

Spencer and Rob: We would demand the University expand and fully fund the Academic Resource Center, while ensuring that their interactions with students with neurological, psychiatric, developmental, intellectual, sensory, or learning disabilities is sensitive and appropriate. We will work with leaders on campus and disabled students to leverage their voices and raise awareness, forcing the administration to come to the table. We also believe that a nascent Disability Cultural Center or project would be able to work closely with the ARC in shaping its approach to tackling all accessibility barriers at Georgetown.

Jack and Maggie: There are a number of steps our executive would take to advocate for meaningful progress in barriers to access on campus. First, we plan to add a cabinet position for housing and facilities. This student could work with disabled students on campus to address challenges that exist around campus, such as inoperable handicap buttons on doors and staircases that do not have adequate alternatives. Additionally, we would hope to leverage the work students are already doing in developing a Disability Cultural Center and the structure established with the student committee in order to generate student feedback and empower passionate students to address the most pressing problems.

Shavonnia and Joe: To address the physically handicap there are various procedures we would take. We have allocated money in our budget to implement ramps in places like the main door of Reiss and inside of Copley, where it is not easily accessible for wheelchairs.  We would be interested in starting up a working group to look into accessibility issues and work to put pressure on the administration to ensure equality for all students.

Nate and Adam: Regarding people with physical disabilities and motor impairment we will introduce and advocate for inclusive housing options and handicap-accessible housing. For students with neurological, psychiatric, developmental, intellectual, sensory, or learning disabilities we will further develop the Safe Spaces Initiative. We were one of the primary movers on this program, which was introduced to the GUSA Senate and Executive in March 2012.

6.) Conversations about disability that occur in classes, student organization sponsored events, departmental sponsored events, and administration sponsored programming frequently omit the perspectives of disabled people both during the planning process and during the actual event, while the few events that do meaningfully incorporate disabled people throughout the process receive far less publicity or attention from the campus community than other diversity-related events and often occur in fairly cloistered settings. What would you do if elected to advocate for meaningful inclusion of disabled people in conversations about us on campus?

Spencer and Rob: Just as you cannot have a serious discussion about issues important to women in a room comprised totally of men, discussions of disability must include disabled people. In the planning process, events must consider how to make accommodations to cover the full range of neurological, psychiatric, developmental, intellectual, sensory, and learning disabilities as well as a location in a space accessible to physically disabled people. Beyond that, efforts must be made to include disabled students on the agenda and events that originate among disabled students deserve to be extensively advertise. As GUSA executives, all of our events will follow this framework and our executive will reach out to disabled students to ensure that their voices are heard.

Jack and Maggie: Accessibility for campus events is vital to making them open and welcoming to all members of the Georgetown community. From Jack’s experience on SAC reviewing student organization events, he knows the importance of making them accessible and recognizing the challenges that different members of the community face. As GUSA executive, we will actively work to incorporate disabled members of the community in discussions about programming and traditional events. This will hopefully be a process that can be centralized in the Disability Cultural Center. As our platform displays, we will make sure GUSA is prepared to address any  problem or challenge students face on campus and empower them to find solutions on their own with the support of the student association.

Shavonnia and Joe: As stated previously we would love to include the disabled community in our efforts to help promote diversity groups to the rest of campus. We would also work to link the disabled community with the campus discussion by working with administrators to figure out when these events are going to happen and ensure the inclusion of the disabled at the events. 

Nate and Adam: We will engage the disabled community when making decisions regarding diversity initiatives and advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center. This way, the perspectives of disabled people will be taken into account when planning these programs, and will give the community more access to the administration.