This is What the Empty Room Means

Today, the Georgetown University Center for Student Engagement (formerly known as the Center for Student Programs) hosted a Lunch & Learn training session aimed at student organization leadership. The goal of these trainings is to provide student leaders with knowledge and skills to assist them in running a student organization. Topics could range from strategies for bringing in outside speakers to budgeting for programs or partnering with other student groups. Today's training was to be on accessible and inclusive event planning.

About a month ago, CSE asked if I would be willing to present during a training on accessibility in event planning. I said yes, enthusiastically yes. The outline for the event included an introduction from CSE, a presentation from our disability support services office on Georgetown's policies for accommodation requests, and a presentation from me about the importance of accessibility and inclusion, as well as an overview of the great diversity of possible alterations and accommodations that planners might consider when developing an activity or program.

I arrived on campus today to find the CSE person and the disability services person sitting at one table of eight arranged to form a large square. From the other end of the table, I could smell the fresh pizza in three boxes beside three crates of different types of soda. The tables were clean and polished, so white and bright they made a stark contrast with the muted hardwood floor. The room could easily hold over 100 people, and around 30 or 40 at the tables in the arrangement we had.

But there was no one there. Not one student organization sent even a single representative to attend the training. CSE had received no RSVPs in advance (though they weren't required), and there were absolutely no attendees trickling in even as the clock turned past 12:30.

Photo: Me wearing a white button-down dress shirt and khakis, standing alone inside the Herman Meeting Room with several tables and chairs inside the Healy Family Student Center.

The room was vast and I was small. I was alone in an empty room.

Nothing demonstrates more clearly the utter disregard that disabled people face every day at Georgetown than this. That of literally hundreds of student organizations with hundreds (possibly even creeping into the low thousands) of students involved on their boards or other leadership positions, not even one person deemed it worth their while to learn about access and inclusion.

Of course I recognize that there are many legitimate reasons that people can't attend midday trainings. They have work; they have classes; they have prior obligations; something comes up at the last minute; they didn't know about the specific event. But even if you make the generous assumption that 75% of all students involved in leadership with some or another club would have been unable to attend for some such reason, let's say the remaining 25% could have come and either knew about it or could have been told by someone else in their club's leadership about it. And no one came. How plausible is it that an event run by CSE, the administrative office responsible for oversight of all student organizations, is somehow off the radar of every single club on campus? That every single student involved in any leadership position whatsoever is simultaneously unavailable to attend a one-hour training?

It's not deliberate malice or cold contempt. It's casual indifference.

It takes very little to drive home just how little we matter in the grand scheme of things. And this is what the empty room means. The empty room means that our existence continues to be largely unacknowledged. The empty room means that our ability to participate fully in campus life isn't worth anyone's time. The empty room means that when we talk about improving conditions for disabled people, it's little more than lip service. The empty room means that no one cared enough to figure out how to go or send someone else in their stead. The empty room means that we don't matter. The empty room means another reminder of that fact, clawing into our consciences until we can't forget it for even one second, one brief slip of time.

Georgetown never fails to disappoint me. I attend an elite educational institution that has literally no excuse whatsoever to perpetuate inaccessible environments. Yet for all the talk of cura personalis, community in diversity, being men and women for others ... we continually fail to show even the most minimal concern for the wellbeing or meaningful inclusion of a particularly invisible community on the margins of campus life. The empty room means that the road ahead will be tortuous and long, that my work will never be done, that an entire collective of seven thousand-odd students, and thousands more faculty and staff, every one of us, remain complicit in this complicated system of ableism.

The empty room means that our fight is less against willful hate and more against the easy ignorance cloaked in the privilege of never having to live a disabled experience -- the privilege of never being guilted and shamed into going to an event that you lost the spoons for but had requested an interpreter for beforehand -- the privilege of never having to decide days in advance whether you will go to an event or not -- the privilege of never having to wonder whether you'll be able to access the handouts, presentation slides, or speech of the presenter -- the privilege of not worrying whether other attendees' perfumed products will induce an allergic reaction, meltdown, or physical illness -- the privilege of not sitting on edge in case something triggers a seizure -- the privilege of not thinking about whether something will surprise you by triggering a panic, anxiety, or PTSD attack -- the privilege of not having to think about whether you can even get into the fucking building -- the privilege of being able to go to any event you like, anywhere, with little difficulty or inconvenience except perhaps finding parking --

The empty room means that this state of affairs, a state of affairs in which our completely avoidable and unnecessary yet routine exclusion from programming on campus is simply ordinary.



--
Author's edit: Since 2012, I have been working in various ways to advance disability justice at Georgetown. I formed a committee of students advocating for the creation of a Disability Cultural Center. I am the first person ever to serve in GUSA (our student government) doing work on disability within the diversity section, and am currently serving a second consecutive term in that role. I have organized several events on different disability rights topics. I'm collaborating with faculty who are proposing creation of a Disability Studies minor. I am agitating all the time for better physical accessibility and accommodations policies for students with disabilities. I've interviewed dozens of people with connections to the university, past and present, on their experiences while disabled. Back in January 2014, I organized a conversation under hashtag #BDGU (Being Disabled at Georgetown University) in the footsteps of other such conversations on experiences of different racialized groups on elite college campuses.

I'm currently organizing a Lecture & Performance Series on Disability Justice. The first event was September 23, when Kassiane Sibley came to campus to discuss abuse of disabled people by caregivers/family members. The next event is October 21 and 22, with Leroy Moore from Krip Hop Nation and Sins Invalid, performing and speaking on police brutality against disabled people, especially disabled people of color.

So there has been progress, just very incremental and largely invisible to the larger community.

Do Blind People Dream in Color? Transabled/Transblind Commentary

The following article is a commentary on a recent article in the Braille Monitor, "Do Blind People Dream in Color?" The commentary (in bold for sighted folks) is written by Tasha Raella, who has given permission for the below commentary to be printed.

Today, a genderqueer, cisblind friend of mine (let’s call them Kelly) posted the below article from The Braille Monitor to their timeline. I read it, and realized that as a transabled person, I was instantly triggered by it, though I could also see how the article validated Kelly’s perspective. We had a lengthy conversation, in which we openly and honestly shared our views. Our conversation inspired me to write the following commentary. My thoughts are in brackets. Before we proceed, it’s important that I briefly explain some vocabulary.

Transabled or transblind (alternatively, abilityqueer): A term that typically refers to people without disabilities who feel that they need them (e.g. a sighted person who feels like she needs to be blind), but which I also use to refer to myself (a congenitally blind person with limited light perception who identifies as sighted). Transability is not the same as internalized ableism, because my identification with sightedness stems from factors that are unrelated to ableism. I have persistently felt sighted from a very early age, before I was exposed to the detrimental effects of ableism.  My transability is as integral to my identity as   Kelly's non-binary gender identity in a binarist world. when it comes to transness,  identity runs deeper than social conditioning.

 Cisdisabled or cisblind: A blind person who identifies as a blind person. Analogous to cisgender.

Now, on with the commentary.

Article quote:

Do Blind People Dream in Color?

by Erin Jepsen

From the Editor: Sometimes I find myself complaining about the blurring I perceive between opinion and news, about the tendency to elevate the reporter above the events he reports, and about how easily we accept one side of a story without demanding the other side and then some considered discussion of the conflicting points of view. When we carry an investigative piece, the Monitor tries to talk with those who are complaining and those who are the target of the complaints. We certainly do weigh in with our synthesis of what we have been told and have observed, but we also hope to give readers enough information to draw their own conclusions about what has been reported.

What follows is not an investigative piece. It is clearly a strongly held opinion, one that may cause those of us who consider ourselves progressive in the way we think about blindness to question whether we appreciate all that our senses can tell us or whether we simply appreciate having them, poor substitutes though they may be, for the sense of sight.

Raella commentary:

[Here’s the first sign that I identify with the sighted perspective. After reading this paragraph, I felt instantly ashamed for my seeming inability to “appreciate what my senses have to tell me.” I know on some level, I can push myself to get more out of my other senses (to concentrate on what I do perceive, rather than what I don’t), but this takes a great deal of effort and is not automatic, the way it seems to be for some other blind people. This lack of automaticity affects almost every domain of my life. When teaching, for example, it rarely occurs to me to use auditory cues, such as having students say “yes” instead of raising their hands to indicate that they have completed a task. I can learn to use these techniques, but I often need to be reminded of their existence, as if I were someone who had recently lost her sight, rather than someone who has never had it].

Article quote: 

Here is a perspective from the mother of a blind child, a mother who has some sight but considers herself blind and thinks there is much to appreciate in being so:

Raella commentary: 

[Again, the disconcerting       shame because of my lack of appreciation for blindness.]

Article quote: 

Have you ever been asked, “Do blind people dream in color?” I’d like to answer that question, but not in the way you might think. I’d like to say that blind people need to dream more in color, not literally, but metaphorically. Let me explain if I may.

Raella commentary:

[Why must we limit our understanding of color to metaphor? I strongly believe that because colors are basically just vibrations, blind people, if they so wish, can understand them literally, as well as metaphorically.]

Article quote:

A chronic condition exists in our world that desperately needs changing. We have chipped away at it, but still it lurks in our culture, in books, in movies, in conversations, and in unnecessarily limited expectations. We’ll call it “sightism” for lack of a better term, and, quickly defined, it’s the belief that being sighted is fundamentally better than being blind.

Raella commentary:

[Do I feel that being sighted is better than being blind? It’s a complicated question. I guess my best answer is in general, I don’t think one state of being is “better” than the other, but because I experience intense dysphoria as a blind person, being sighted would be “better” for me. Which leaves me wondering: am I a blind person who is sightist? Am I contributing to oppression? My friend Kelly is quick to reassure me that I am not an oppressor, because I’m not reaping the benefits of sighted privilege, but am I? After all, my way of thinking about the importance of visual culture is in alignment with the dominant paradigm. I feel privileged and marginalized at the same time]

Article quote:

Historically, the “medical model of blindness,” as it’s called in academia, is partly to blame. The thinking goes like this: Diseases, illness, or accidents cause blindness, so it is obviously to be combated and cured by the medical community and by research. Eye doctors spend years of study and millions of dollars to learn how to restore sight. Blindness is not an ideal part of the human condition, so its reversal is better than its acceptance. Historical literature paints the blind man as a second-class citizen, unable to support a family, unable to function independently, and devoid of power in any sort of social sense. The Bible also has several examples of Christ restoring sight, which carries with it the assumption that the lives of those so touched will be vastly improved.

Raella commentary:

[I definitely don’t agree with the medical model of blindness, and am conflicted over the vast amount of money researchers are spending on finding cures for various eye conditions. On the one hand, I am selfishly grateful. I want a cure (though I prefer to call it a transition to sightedness). On the other hand, I realize that the majority of congenitally blind people (and a lot of adventitiously blind people as well) do not want such a cure. I think this kind of research is acceptable, as long as researchers are very careful not to assume that every blind person wants to benefit from it.]

Article quote: 

In modern culture we, the politically correct enlightened few, assume we’ve evolved beyond this demeaning form of oppression. Here’s how our modern thinking tends to run: Of course a blind man can work! He’ll simply use his iPhone as a sort of replacement sight and go on with his business. Technology today has advanced so far that we’ll soon have self-driving cars and artificial retinas. Stem cells will likely re-grow entire eyes if put into the right petri dish.

Yes, I’m being facetious, but I wonder if you can spot my point? Replacement eyes. New eyeballs that work. Sight, sight, sight. Valuable—you bet. The end all and be all of human existence—I don’t buy it.

Raella commentary:

[Another sign that I’m reading this article as a sighted person: instead of getting annoyed by this proliferation of sight-replacing or sight-restoring technologies, I get excited by it. Clearly, the author feels that this emphasis on sight-restoring technologies will further support society’s marginalization of blindness and its obsession with the visual. But does this have to be the case? Can’t blind people fight for their rights, and demonstrate that their perspective is valuable, while at the same time, technologies are created for the blind people who wish to transition into sightedness, or to live as sighted part of the time? ? Maybe I’m naïve and idealistic, but I don’t think it is an either/or. When created and used responsibly, technology is all about giving people options.]

Article quote: 

I’ve been told that humans use up to 70 percent of their brains to interpret visual images. (Some literature alleges that 90 percent of learning comes through vision.) I was told this during a vision screening in which my own visual condition was cross-examined. My brain apparently processes visual images incorrectly. It brought into focus for me (sorry about the pun) the trouble the sighted world has with the idea that someone could function normally without that 70 percent of visual input and still have a rich sensory environment. I get it. Simple mathematics dictates that a blind person uses only the 30 percent that remains, right? Well, we all know that isn’t true. The brain is more flexible than that, and, while I don’t buy into the delightful myth of superhuman hearing, a la Daredevil, I do know that the brain appropriates visual processing centers in order to interpret shapes read by the fingers as well as aural input. Echolocation is one example.

Raella commentary:

[Though I of course don’t believe that blind people only use 30% of their brains, I can say that as a transabled person, I am keenly aware of the gaps in my sensory perceptions. I of course have no evidence to back this up, but I suspect that the neural restructuring that happens in most blind people’s brains didn’t happen to the same extent for me. I am more interested in color theory than I am in sculpture or music or anything else that is tactile or auditory. I am definitely good at some tasks that sighted people aren’t (listening to synthesized speech at high speeds, for example.) But it seems like the author is making an assumption that all blind people have a rich and complete sensory experience, and I don’t know if that is the case. I wonder if other blind people can relate to my awareness of having a gap in perception.]

Article quote: 

Still, people have a hard time believing that this is adequate. Even the blind community has a pervasive attitude of sightism running through it. Stick with me here. We’ve been told our whole lives that, while blindness is okay, sight is better, right? The sighted parents receive news that their child will be blind for life, and how do they react? They weep. The child hears them weeping and begins to form an image of her own unfortunate circumstances. This carries through to the undereducated (through no fault of her own) blind adult who cannot hold a job because she has never been expected to ride public transit by herself, the man who never learns to get along with his co-workers without demanding special treatment, and the woman who is incapable of working current technology because her school provided her with technology from 1965. In writing this I’m not shaming us, but I’m pointing out some simple facts. We all know these blind people. We are them.

Raella commentary:

[In my case, I had access to the right technology, and the right education. I had several strong blind adult role models. My mother quickly got over her grief and focused on helping me to become the most successful blind person possible. My father researched sight restoration for me, but I think only because I had expressed an interest in it myself. Clearly, education and familial attitudes are not the only factors that influence whether we identify or disidentify with blindness. I think there is a pronounced difference between the examples Jepsen describes, of blind people who were taught to believe that they couldn’t lead successful lives, and transblind people, who, for whatever reason, are wired for sight.]

Article quote: 

I have low vision. I’ve been denied jobs because the potential employer had known an incompetent blind person and assumed I was also incompetent. There is room for change.

Raella commentary:

[Yes, I agree.]

Article quote: 

Family, acquaintances, and strangers weekly tell me things I should believe about myself and my daughter, who is blind. When she confidently runs around at church during music practice, I invariably have someone tell me that she can surely see better than we think she can. (Uhm, prosthetic eye, anyone?) The underlying assumption that confident movement can be achieved only with sight is unquestioned. When I refute it, amazement and the dreaded word “inspiration” often follows. When she had surgery on her eyes, people asked me if she could then see better. They ask me if they might pray that her sight would be improved. I won’t go into my observations about our faith in the medical system as contrasted with our faith in the Divine. While I do believe in Divine healing, I believe more in Divine guidance, and sometimes we really do walk by faith and not sight. Did you hear me? Not sight. As in, that’s okay.

Raella commentary:

[I read this, and part of me is envious of Jepsen’s daughter’s confidence. I have blind friends that are amazing travelers, and to be honest, I think I’m in as much awe of them as sighted people are, though I definitely would never ever use the I word to describe them. Ick. Also, this paragraph is another example of Jepsen’s chastising and somewhat condescending tone. Kelly said that they doesn’t think Jepsen is saying that blindness is better than sight; she’s merely pointing out sighted culture’s extreme tendency to undervalue blind people’s ways of doing things. If Jepsen is taking an extreme position, Kelly says, it’s only because sighted people take an equally extreme position with regards to blindness. But as a deconstructionist, I’m always on the lookout for dichotomies, and I think Jepsen is unintentionally creating one here. In his article Queer as a Verb , Charlie Glickman invites us to view dichotomies as tensions between sameness and difference, rather than opposing forces. I think that’s what Jepsen is trying to do here, but it isn’t really working for me, because I keep scenting blind superiority.]

Article quote: 

The civil rights movement in our country focused our attention on race. It showed us that people with black skin could be employed if they were allowed to be educated. It showed us that black people were not content to sit at the back of the bus or to be treated as second-class citizens. It showed us that the rusty old “colored” drinking fountain next to the refrigerated “white” drinking fountain would no longer do and that shoehorning black adults into menial labor jobs was no longer acceptable. As a country we discovered that people of color were equal in every way to white people. It took time for this idea to sink in. It took a lot of work. But, for a lot of us, it has finally penetrated our skulls, and, equally important, it has made its way into our hearts—both are required for real awareness and understanding that people are equal, no matter their race.

Now let’s talk about disability. I’m tired of sitting at the back of the bus too. I’m tired of people weeping over blindness. I’m tired of literature equating blindness with death, with sin, with darkness and fear, and with ineptitude. I’m tired of being seen as superhuman or subhuman, and, never oh never, just human. I’m tired of viral videos showing a six-year-old boy stepping off a curb for the very first time with his white cane as if that is a good thing. It’s not a good thing. Eighteen-month-old babies step off curbs for the first time, not six-year-old children. I’m tired of reading about 70 percent unemployment rates for blind adults. I’m tired of Braille charities that “bring light to those in darkness.” Well, excuse me, I’m not in darkness. My visual condition happens to have a little too much light as a matter of fact. I’m tired of raising money to fight against my blindness. I don’t raise money to fight against my brown hair, my five-foot-ten height, or my Caucasian skin. If I raised money to fight my daughter’s African skin, I’d be accused of racism, and my accusers would be right. I don’t need to fight against who I am, and, more than that, fighting against the way I perceive the world robs the world of my own perception and of my own voice and message.

Raella commentary:

[I agree. However, whenever I am mistreated because of my blindness, my tendency is to take it personally, rather than to view the sighted person as ableist. It’s not that I think ableism doesn’t exist. It’s more that my identification with sightedness is so tangible, my expectation that I should be read as sighted so pronounced, that I blame myself. Of course, this way of viewing the situation seems illogical and potentially damaging, which drives home to me that my transability is not something over which I have complete control. When I expressed frustration to Kelly that I was not able to identify with Jepsen’s description of ableism, they said reassuringly, “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re sighted.”

In addition, I think the discourse around “curing” blindness needs to change. Phrases like “fighting blindness” and “suffering from blindness,” though they generate pathos and loosen purse strings, should be excised, because they imply that blindness is inferior to sight. We need to find other ways of talking about blindness research that are not oppressive, while still recognizing that some people may want to transition out of blindness. Another friend with a disability, Valéria M. Souza, ., helped me come to the conclusion that the tools to “cure” blindness are not in it of themselves dangerous; it is the way that the medical establishment wields them that is oppressive.]

Article quote: 

The medical model of blindness is fine as far as it goes. The social model steps a bit further and insists that blindness, when incurable, can become a normal condition of existence and should be accepted as such. Well, that’s all nice, but do I merely accept my daughter’s African skin? By no means! I embrace her beauty. I tell my bi-racial son that his brown skin is gorgeous, which it is. I tell them that their beautiful hair is so much fun. I tell my white children the same. I adore my multi-colored family, and my adoration opens the door for those around me to adore them too.

I draw attention to race only to illustrate a parallel between accepting differences in race and accepting differences in sensory ability. Just as rejecting racism ultimately relies on appreciating one another’s differences, rejecting sightism goes far, far beyond simple acceptance. Merely existing in spite of our blindness isn’t good enough. Secretly wishing we could see won’t cut it. There is a point beyond simply living with our blindness--actually enjoying it. There is a point where we realize that we have a unique perception of the world that sighted people don’t have. This perception adds richness to the tapestry of human existence.

Raella commentary:

[Again, Jepsen seems to be conflating her views with that of all blind people. Not everyone is capable (or desires to) embrace their blindness. By not acknowledging this fact, Jepsen is engaging in (or at least supporting) identity-policing. She is implying that if a blind person refuses to embrace blindness, he or she is contributing to sightism. Philosopher Jose Medina writes that proponents of second-wave feminism defined themselves in opposition to men and valorized “women’s ways” of doing things. I wonder if that is what is going on here; is the disability rights movement undergoing an analogous stage?] I see much potential in writers such as Robert McRure and Eli Claire, whose work is at the intersection of disability and queer studies, though to my knowledge, no one has yet postulated that abilityqueerness is separate from ableism and is a valid identity category.]

Article quote: 

My daughter who is blind has a rich perception that is unique to her and is in no way less than that of her sister who is fully sighted. If I go around telling my blind daughter everything I see and describing the world to her so that her poor pitiful dark world will be just a bit fuller, then I am sending her the subtle message that the things she notices are less meaningful than the things I can (sort of) see. People who tell me I am blessed because of the limited sight I have discount the wonderful things I possess as part of my blind self. I want to tell them that the unique way that I have always perceived the world is important, even if it is different from the way they perceive it!

Raella commentary:

[But the question is: does Jepsens’s daughter want to hear about the visual world? If she does, then her mother’s description of what she sees will contribute to the richness of her perception, rather than diminish it. Again, I think it is possible to do both: give the blind child an opportunity to engage with visuality, while encouraging and supporting her nonvisual perceptions. As the child grows older, she will be able to make her own decision regarding her relationship with the visual, but that decision can only be made if she has access to information from visual and nonvisual channels.]

Article quote: 

Remember the scene in Dead Poets Society where the teacher stands on his desk to the consternation of his strait-laced, rule-following prep-school pupils? He is trying to get them to see the world in a new way, a different way. He is trying to broaden them. At the end of the movie, the tearjerker scene involves a student standing on his desk, as if to say, “I learned what you were trying to teach. I get it. I’ve changed.”

Guess what? We blind folks were born standing on our desks--or that illness or accident forced us up there. We see the world in a different way. That’s not a bad thing; it’s a wonderful thing. It’s a broadening thing. The world needs us: not to give them inspiration, not by stepping off curbs, but by being ourselves. By experiencing the world in the way that we experience it, by looking at things from a different angle, we enrich the world.

Raella commentary:

[I’m standing on a desk, too! Except instead of teaching sighted people about how I perceive the world differently, I’m declaring my unbounded curiosity about sight. I’m focusing on my similarities to sighted people, rather than my differences, and I think that is just as important and just as subversive as what Jepsen is doing. I’m queering the boundary between blindness and sightedness, not out of a desire to conform, but out of a desire to live my own truth. The poet Hune Margulies writes, “is the bridge/there to embrace together two shores,/or are the shores/
there/to embrace both ends of the bridge?]

Article quote: 

I read an article which said that architecture designed with a blind user in mind ends up being more functional for the general population. In the same way that embracing the beauty of all colors of the races and all of the variety found in the world’s many cultural traditions makes us stronger, so too does embracing our diverse abilities. These must be seen as valid ways of perceiving or navigating the world so that they can bring a richness of experience, a diversity of thought and problem-solving that cannot happen when vision is considered to be the most important of our five senses. We close doors leading to significant human experience when only mobility using two feet is considered, when only hearing is considered, when only neuro-typical ideas are deemed valid.

Raella commentary:

[I consider my transability to be a form of neuroqueerness.]

Article quote: 

This shift in thinking about blindness has to come from the blind community first. For the sighted world to see us as competent, we need to begin seeing ourselves as possessing a truly valid perceptual experience. We need to question the sightism that goes on around us constantly. We need to sit in at the sightist lunch counters and insist that we belong there. We need to appreciate the blind artists who showcase the beauty of our perception to the unaware sighted world. We need to insist that blind actors play blind roles in Hollywood and discontinue the shameful but Oscar-winning blind-face practice that goes on there. We need to keep on working for equal access to education and transportation. We need to push back gently against teachers of the blind who teach reliance on poor sight over learning essential blindness skills.

Raella commentary:

[Note Jepsen’s use of “wee.” Though I agree with many of the causes Jepsen says we must fight for, my dichotomy alarm is still going off. Jepsen is using words like “blind community” and “sighted world,” which, to me, perpetuates an us-versus-them mentality. Kelly says that blind people are not to blame for this dichotomizing, that sighted people are responsible for creating it. Regardless of who is responsible, I worry that if we continue to use this kind of language, we are feeding the dichotomy rather than disrupting it.]

Article quote: 

I’m not discounting the frightening experience of sight loss. Any change like that is bound to be unsettling; I’ve gone through it myself. I’ve gone through the identity shift that rocked the very core of my existence when the person I thought I was is the person I no longer am. I’ve been there. I have. It’s okay. Stepping up onto that desk is scary at first. After a while, though, you find your balance and look around, acknowledging that what you observe is still reality, but reality from a different point of view.

Raella commentary:

[But sometimes, this doesn’t happen for me. Sometimes, I stand up on that desk, and I’m twisted between the me that is blind and the me that drives all her friends around and practices her calligraphy. Though only the former exists on a physical plane, the potentiality of the other me is just as real.]

Article quote: 

Because of the Civil Rights movement, I can adopt and raise black kids to have a wonderful future and embrace them for the color and race they are. I hope that in twenty years my partially sighted and blind children can have as bright a future and be embraced in their families and workplaces for the valuable contributions they make and not merely accepted or accommodated. Like the inimitable Dr. King, I have a dream: just as racism is dying, that sightism and ableism will die the same death, that the medical model will no longer be used as an excuse to discriminate and push us to assume second-class citizenship. I dream that our blind kids will join the ranks of tomorrow’s chemists and doctors and actors and engineers, as well as bricklayers and fast-food workers. I dream that we will never again hear stories of blind parents having children removed by Children’s Protective Services because they are both blind. I dream that inclusive architecture will be standard because the people who directly benefit from that architecture are valuable enough to be worth it. I dream that our children won’t have to spend their energy fighting for equal access to science laboratories but instead can spend their time and energy researching. I have a dream that all Braille teachers not only will read Braille well, but will tell children that learning Braille is as easy as sighted kids learning to read those squiggles and lines they call print. I dream that blind athletes will continue to strive for world records. Not only do I dream for the newsmakers, but I want to see a world in which blind people who want to live quiet, peaceful, non-record-breaking lives without being interrupted by a constant stream of acquaintances calling them inspirational will be free to do so. Let’s dream together, shall we? And then we’ll tell the world of our beautiful, colorful dreams.

Raella commentary:

[Maybe my dreams aren’t so different from Jepsen’s, but here’s what I would add: I dream that blind children will be fully included in art classes, instead of handed a piece of clay and told to work by themselves. I dream that all of us, blind and sighted, will learn that the visual can be accessed through more than just the eyeballs. I dream that while attending Harvard this fall, I will create a system for distinguishing  colors using the fingertips, through a phenomenon called dermo-optical perception. I dream that DOP will become mainstream, and that sighted and blind artists will collaborate and break boundaries. And, above all, I dream that the diverse experiences of all blind people will be celebrated: cisblindness, transblindness, and everything in between.] 

GUSA Exec 2014 Disability Questionnaire: Thomas Lloyd and Jimmy Ramirez

I have condensed the questions, which appeared in long-form in the questionnaire sent to candidates with background information and examples, to highlight each candidate's answer. These are the responses provided by Thomas and Jimmy. You can also read the other responses from Trevor and Omika, Zach and Dan, and Ben and Sam.

Image description: Thomas Lloyd, a young white man with short blond hair, and Jimmy Ramirez, a young Latino man with short dark brown hair and glasses, smiling and laughing at the camera. They are in Lau with many books on shelves visible behind them. The test in the middle at the bottom says in large letters, THOMAS AND JIMMY FOR GUSA. 

Question 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?

A culture that permits Ableism, like most forms of discrimination, is made up of language, micro-aggressions, and formal systems of oppression. Unlike many of the other D7(+) identities though, ableism isn’t as visibly addressed or unwelcome at Georgetown. Students and professors use many ableist phrases in classrooms, without even someone batting an eyelash. Discussions and events about disability are held without any disabled advocates or just disabled people in the planning conversation. This often allows disability to be seen solely in medical terms, rather than as an element of diversity, that our society should make efforts to work to remove unfair burden from. And when a disabled student or faculty or staff member has to endure all of these microagressions or more overt forms of oppression, such as being forced to take an MLOA, or having few resources other than the ARC, they have few means of seeking recourse.

To combat ableism, there are a few things that are necessary: education, visibility, and advocacy. Before getting in to how our platform, and our experiences influence all three, there is one thing that is essential to point out. Jimmy as a homeless advocate, and myself as an LGBTQ advocate, we believe in a principle that you phrase clearly in your work: nothing about us, without us. We acknowledge that good allyship, requires that we allow those who case the most about issues be the ones to take the lead and direct us on where to put our resources. These suggestions then, are always subject to review and revision by the disabled advocates that we would want to recruit to our executive.

On the education end, we would take a third of the GUSA fund’s budget and allocate it to the “What’s a Hoya” fund. The What’s a Hoya program has drawn hundreds of freshmen in to GUSA sponsored talks with faculty and staff on issues of 1) Safety 2) Mentorship 3) Diversity. What we want to do is tie thousands of dollars of funding and that powerful housing incentive to student events that are put on by student leaders and groups on these issues. Any event then on disability, put on by the disabled advocates and or their allies, would not only get a higher profile and funding level, but also would reach a whole new range of students from their first year here at the hilltop.

Also on the education end, we would be happy to use any excess executive discretionary funding, or excess SAO funding, to prepare a media campaign to end the use of certain phrases and words, including those that we may not even think about today (a list based off of your glossary of ableist terms and phrases). Any executive communication would be checked for use of any of these phrases or words to ensure that the executive itself does not commit any micro-aggressions.

Finally on the education end, in our platform, and through our endorsements, we have committed yourself to advocating for certain parts of the Cura Personalis initiative, perhaps incorporating studies on disability in to new or extant courses (obviously sensitive to make sure these classes don’t reinforce systems of oppression) is a way to add this awareness to our extant channels of advocacy.

Visibility is accomplished not just with the language campaign that would take place, but also in whom we would recruit to the executive. As the President of the most diverse Pride Board in years, I have learned how important it is to have an organization be lead by a chorus of different voices, who on occasion help me check and unpack my own privilege, but who also bring fascinating perspectives and ideas to the table that help us make a change that can include everyone. Jimmy also understands this, as the student leader who spear-headed the diversity initiative in the Corp so that they would track demographic information as a company/ We would recruit a similarly diverse exec, and while that means in part to a secretary position on disability, and a disabled representative on the What’s a Hoya Fund/Program, but also to any other position to which a disabled student would apply on the exec for which they have a passion and are qualified, we would make every attempt to ensure that they are supported. Recognizing disabled students AND faculty through our Hoya of the Week, AND Faculty of the Week programs, could also help raise the profile of disabled students at Georgetown.

As for advocacy, well, all of the above is part of advocacy, but we would want to encourage all programs related to disability have an advocacy or administrative component where possible. When Pride brought Mia Mingus comes to mind, where not only did she speak to students, but she also joined administrators for a luncheon, where she could discuss disability rights with them, beginning to give them a better understanding of disability justice. More on advocacy will follow in the later questions.

Question 2

What would you do if elected to ensure that conversations and initiatives on diversity, especially those managed or initiated by the GUSA Executive, meaningfully include disability and disabled members of the campus community?

As RA’s Jimmy and I have had to spend at least an entire day learning about each of the D7 identities. Now, one week does not an advocate make, and we did not limit our ally ship to learning during this one day. That said we do know that having these conversations with the RA staff greatly increased the sensitivity of RAs to ableism, and made them better equipped to deal with it when confronted. At the start of the new exec, I would seek to have all members of the exec undergo similar D7 based team building exercises, especially during the summer term. This would make the executive more sensitive to issues important to the disability rights community, but also set a tone in any writings, advocacy, and conversations going forward.

As for campus initiatives, the approach of the What’s a Hoya fund, and its housing incentive assignment process, would first and foremost believe in the principle of “nothing about us without us.” The idea of turning the What’s a Hoya program over to the student leaders, such as yourself, is to ensure that not only are the conversations about identities being had in a way that truly represents those identities but also allows those advocates to pick the topic of conversation. We are creating the financial and publicity incentives for groups to address disability going forward.

Should the campaigns I listed in #1 be carried out, it would make it more difficult for conversations to include ableist language, or to further oppress disabled people.

Question 3

If elected, what steps will you take to advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown?

WE would work with student leaders to help create a clear set of steps for the university to take to create the DCC. This will require securing funding, space, and staff among other things, but we are enthusiastic to offer any and all help that you or any other student leader would require to accomplish those things. We would push for spaces in new buildings to be included, or for existing spaces that are not used to be set aside for the establishment of the DCC. We would finance more publications similar to the pamphlet you designed to raise awareness about the effort. As per “nothing about us without us” we would want to set up meetings with administrators as soon as possible, before the year ends, including all stakeholders including those outside of the executive in the meetings. 

My only experience or knowledge of creating a center rather, is the LGBTQ resource center, which we all know was born out of massive protests after a period of great violence. Hopefully, we won’t experience a similar set of hate crimes that could breed that sense of urgency. Instead, we would highlight cases of ableism to the administration to continue to make our case. In the interim, we would want to facilitate the coordination of disability related programming and resources as a DCC ultimately would. This includes taking elements of the no wrong door campaign and incorporating them in to easier to digest media, and marking all disability related What’s a Hoya events in our GUSA weekly email. 

Question 4

What steps will you take, 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?

We would recruit disabled students (both with apparent and invisible disabilities) to the executive board, including in a continuation of the GUSA undersecretary for disability affairs, and with their help choose the appropriate people to serve on the “What’s a Hoya” Board to make sure that the conversation about disability is one that is never left out and never misrepresented.

We have in our budget a $1500 allocation for co-sponsorships and programs related to disability in addition to the larger What’s a Hoya Fund. This is money that could be used to sponsor an initiative to get more students with disabilities to run for leadership positions in different student groups, or to support events that raise the profile of extant student leaders with disabilities. 

Question 5

What steps will you take if elected to investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown and advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing them?

That $1500 allocation can again be used to help conduct this survey of barriers to access at Georgetown, we would hand off any and all lists to those in facilities, planning, and residential education, to ensure that no future building has the same barriers to access that we have already identified, and that we can begin o phase out the barriers that already exist. Even without that allocation, we would work to make sure that all new plans for buildings, and any long term planning involves investment in accessible spaces. 

When planning Mia Mingus, I learned about the difficulty (and price) of securing an ASL interpreter. It should be a priority of the University and of all funding boards to have money set aside for making events open to everyone. I would advocate at the budget summit, or at least in future budget summits, for the establishment of a separate fund be set aside for events to be made more accessible to all students, and reduce the barriers to providing any form of interpretation for any student group.  

Question 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. What would you do if elected to advocate for meaningful inclusion of disabled people in conversations about us on campus?

As I think all of the above answers have demonstrated, we have a commitment to “nothing about us without us” for all types of diversity. Events that GUSA sponsors would be put on by disabled student leaders themselves, and advertised with our complete student listserv. Attendance at these events would sky-rocket given the What’s A Hoya incentive, which is currently drawing hundreds of freshmen in to packed rooms to hear faculty panels on mentorship. We have the finances and the will to recruit and assist any and all disabled students who want a leadership position, so that more of these events will take place. Our language campaign, and team building exercises, will begin to build a sensitivity in to this campus. With all of these steps, we hope to make Georgetown more accessible to all.

GUSA Exec 2014 Disability Questionnaire: Ben Weiss and Sam Greco

I have condensed the questions, which appeared in long-form in the questionnaire sent to candidates with background information and examples, to highlight each candidate's answer. These are the responses provided by Ben and Sam. You can also read responses from Trevor and Omika, Zach and Dan, and Thomas and Jimmy.

Image description: Sam Greco, a young white man with short light brown hair, and Ben Weiss, a young white man with dark brown hair, sitting on the steps in front of Copley Hall's gray stone facade, smiling at the camera. At the bottom is a dark blue banner with white text with the Facebook icon for Ben and Sam for GUSA, the Twitter icon for @VoteBenandSam #achieveyours and the website benandsamforgusa.com, with large text BEN AND SAM. 

Question 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?

Our main priority will be is empowering each individual student so they can achieve their goals. We will use this same approach for every student and every community at Georgetown. We will provide the resources disabled students need so that their Georgetown experience can be the best possible.  It is self-evident that Georgetown does not currently provide the resources that ensure accessibility at Georgetown. Unfortunately, real change will only come through a cultural shift in the collective Georgetown psyche.

The first step to combating the problem of ableism on Georgetown’s campus is to start a dialogue around the issue that ensures that all students recognize the causes of the current, unacceptable campus attitude.  We recognize disability as an issue of diversity, in which much-needed campus dialogue can only come through engaging students of diverse backgrounds. We plan to use the unique nature of GUSA as a bully pulpit to galvanize the university’s attention and dialogue around disability issues, among others. With this in mind, our cabinet will work with Lecture Fund to bring in speakers on ableism to grow this dialogue on campus.

We hope that by supporting a campus-wide accessibility survey that you worked on over the past semester, we will be able to assess the current campus sentiment, and then identify the problem areas that are revealed. This will produce a very productive narrative regarding the current status on campus.  We will engage student leaders from all across campus in these discussions. We plan to be facilitators to these discussion, but envision the greatest stakeholders as the leaders of these discussions.

Furthermore, the No Wrong Door guide should be provided at New Student Orientation so that students are immediately aware of the resources that are available to them. The location of these resources should become second nature to anyone that needs them, and by providing them in this guide, we  can help students feel at home.

We hope you would engage with our administration and help our GUSA guide dialogue and policy around ableism  at Georgetown  This is not a topic limited to a specific group of people.  The discussion needs to involve the entire campus, and it starts with involving our entire cabinet.  In initiatives they are pursuing, accessibility should be in the forefront of their planning so that all Georgetown students can be involved in any student program or initiative.

Question 2

What would you do if elected to ensure that conversations and initiatives on diversity, especially those managed or initiated by the GUSA Executive, meaningfully include disability and disabled members of the campus community?

First, we will create a Secretary for Disability within our cabinet to advocate specifically for disabled members of the campus community. This person’s primary responsibility will be to converse with members of the disabled community and ensure that all involved parties are consulted meaningful and regularly. Based on these conversations, the Secretary will advocate for the initiatives put forward by those with disabilities.

Additionally, we will work to publicize and encourage events through our access to benefits reform and the creation of a personalizable events calendar on HoyaLife.com. Access to benefits reform will allow individual students to reserve rooms, rent equipment from the CSE or SAC, and have access to select benefits that recognized student groups already have. This will allow students to reserve adequate space and hold more successful events that can be supported, at least in part, by Georgetown.

The second policy piece, the customizable calendar of events on HoyaLife.com, will allow any student to pick what topic areas interest them and receive emails regarding events, speakers, and opportunities related to those interests. For disabled students and those wanting to be involved in the conversation, this calendar will allow them to easily learn about events. These students will then be able to effectively educate themselves and contribute to the continual conversation. We will shape our policies heavily on input from the conversations at these events.

For students who cannot access these resources online, we will provide the online resources through GUSA office  at all times


Question 3

If elected, what steps will you take to advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown?

As stated in our platform, we will support ongoing efforts to establish a Disability Cultural Center on Georgetown’s campus. It is essential that the Georgetown community understands the necessity for a Disability Cultural Center on campus. Through their already established relationships with Georgetown administrators as GUSA senators, we will work to initiate new conversations about the importance of funding this center to support all disabled students on campus.

Until it is, they will utilize GUSA resources to advertise cultural opportunities for disabled students at our university and expand the conversation around disability as a form of diversity. They will ensure that the voices of disabled students are heard in their ongoing mission to include every identity in the goals of student government.

As Lydia and this brochure advocating for a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown remind us, it is an identity that has been too often forgotten in the past. We will work to change that.

Question 4

What steps will you take, 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?

The GUSA Executive, under both Clara and Vail and Nate and Adam, worked to increase the diversity of the GUSA Senate and Executive along a variety of axes, including improved representation of women, members of the LGBTQIA* community, and students of color. Yet there is very little representation of disabled people—either with visible or invisible disabilities—across student organizations, leadership initiatives, and GUSA.

We would be pleased to work with you and build off your advocacy for those with disabilities at Georgetown. Therefore, we will work to establish a Disability Cultural Center that would coordinate peer mentor programs, leadership training, guest lectures and symposia for students with disabilities. We hope this Cultural Center who go a long way towards ridding Georgetown of a debilitating culture of ableism that risks robbing Hoyas of individuality and identity. We hope this Cultural Center would help disabled students earn leadership roles on campus and more effectively advocate for the disabled community in general. Just as the Women’s Center seeks to ensure equity for female Hoyas and the LGBTQ resource center seeks to ensure equity for LGBTQIA*-identifying Hoyas, so too would the Disability Cultural Center seek to ensure equity for the disabled community at Georgetown.

Second, we will work to create uniform standards for accessibility at student group events, ensuring that every student has every opportunity to attend every event. This kind of accessibility for any student group event would better aid disabled students in running for leadership positions.

Finally, one of the best things that GUSA could do would be to advocate for disability reforms at Georgetown. Indeed, GUSA is unique as its institution in that it acts as the main voice of Georgetown students. We will break down GUSA’s own barriers for participation in GUSA events and elections.

We want to further empower disabled students at Georgetown by taking an active role in their representation. Our Disability Cultural Center would not only help galvanize the community around one institution, but will hopefully better focus the voices of many into one unified voice more effective in its relationship with the University administration. We look forward to hearing more from the disabled community at Georgetown in the Executive and in the last hours of this campaign.

Question 5

What steps will you take if elected to investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown and advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing them?

The issues here need to be framed in conversation with the university administration in the context of the urgency these problems prompt. A fundamental function of the administration should be to address such hurdles with definitive action and inclusion of students in the discussion. Clearly this has been lacking.

To be clear, we do not see the GUSA Executive as the solver of every problem and the arbiter of higher justice. Our view of the office in question is one of promotion and advocacy on behalf of the students. We have a number of initiatives we would like to start, but at heart, the function of GUSA is to react to wrongs suffered by the students and act as a powerful force opening dialogue with the university on how to solve these problems.

Our proposal on how to handle the issue of accessibility barriers and urge the creation of meaningful and lasting policies from the administration is to use the weight of GUSA as an elected voice of the students to open up these conversations and convey to the administration the sense of urgency with which these must be addressed. While the university may see the quality of lighting in the classroom as an issue they can push to the back of their agenda, we are here to stress the importance of addressing the quality of lighting, communicating to the university that this is an issue with serious health risks to certain students.

Our job is to be open. Any Executive ticket who cannot acknowledge the limits to their own knowledge does not deserve to appear on the ballot. As GUSA President and Vice President, we will work to be accessible, so you can come to us and tell us that the events occurring at the university are not providing disability accommodations.  In building a more open and inclusive Georgetown, we view our role as hearing everything students have to say and then fighting for them and the changes they wish to see.

When you ask us how we will investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown, what we hear is that you and others have seen pressing issues on the Hilltop. We want to listen to what you have to say, and then solicit responses from other students who have seen similar issues. We will draw from the students for issues to pursue. Our slogan is Working for You for a reason: we intend to be your voice, with whatever weight our office may bring.

When you ask us how we will advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing these barriers, we hear that you want us to stand up for you and others who for a multitude of reasons cannot stand up for themselves. Our pledge to the Georgetown community is to hear rather than simply listen, and to work with the administration. That is why we have begun to build a team involving people like GUSA Senator Abbey McNaughton, who has worked on accessibility and plans to continue working. When we pull in as many voices as possible, we can identify the pressing issues while forming a coalition of those willing to work with the administration to affect real change.


Question 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. What would you do if elected to advocate for meaningful inclusion of disabled people in conversations about us on campus?

We believe that the heart of the issue is publicity. The Georgetown community is inherently a vibrant, active, and intellectually curious one. We want to learn. We want to understand. We want to be included in conversations so that we can better understand every issue and advocate for different student groups. Many pluralism-related events and groups receive organizational aid from GUSA and the university, but there is clearly a lack in support of disability education and awareness events.

We intend to rectify that. GUSA, and in particular the President and Vice President, should act as an arm for outreach, working for the inclusion of disabled persons in conversations and events on campus. We want to work with the administration and other student groups to centralize the events process through HoyaLife.com so all students can publicize their events and learn about other upcoming events. This will have two effects:

First, we will be able to generate publicity for these very conversations that are lacking in support. There are many at this university who are willing and yearning to be involved in such discussions, and increased publicity will strengthen these conversations while allowing for the greater participation and education our community.

The other benefit of centralizing events will create a succinct collection of upcoming programs for all students. This way, an event that focuses on disability access and advocacy can include all students in the conversation. We don’t pretend to have some higher knowledge of which programs must be bolstered and which can prosper on their own. We want to include all involved parties in the conversation so that we can determine who should participate in an event, and eventually, what policies will best serve disabled students at Georgetown.

We will work to create a proactive GUSA. Could we promise to include you and your events in a weekly email, buried under a heap of other student events? Sure, but that barely scratches the surface of what we are capable of and what a GUSA executive should be doing. We want every voice included in the policymaking process. If you feel the best course of action is to send out an all school email detailing an upcoming event, we can work to make that happen. If there is an administration-sponsored event occurring regarding disabilities that does not include disabled students and you want us to fight to change that, we’ll work to accomplish that. We want GUSA to be an organization that works for the students; we will always work for you.

GUSA Exec 2014 Disability Questionnaire: Zach Singer and Dan Silkman

I have condensed the questions, which appeared in long-form in the questionnaire sent to candidates with background information and examples, to highlight each candidate's answer. These are the responses provided by Zach and Dan. You can also read responses from Trevor and Omika, Ben and Sam, and Thomas and Jimmy.

Image description: Dan Silkman, a young white man with short brown hair, and Zach Singer, a young white man with short blondish brown hair, smiling at the camera and sitting in front of the gray stone fountain in Dahlgren Quad with the red brick facade of Healy Hall behind them.

ADDENDUM: I received the following email from Megan Murday on behalf of Zach and Dan with a request for a correction.

Hi Lydia,

I am sorry for the imprecision in our initial response to question 1 of your survey.

We never intended to imply that Zach was personally involved in the early stages of No Wrong Door but rather that he was a strong supporter of the project and was ultimately responsible for all projects conducted under the current GUSA executive from the time he became chief of staff last March.

If you are amenable, please feel free to correct the answer as follows:

"Ableism, like all other forms of discrimination and oppression, has no place at Georgetown. We will work closely with interested students to ensure that GUSA is doing everything it can to empower disabled students.

To do so, we will build on the work Zach has already done as a leader of the GUSA executive in listening to interested disabled students and support their activism to student groups and Georgetown administrators.

The formation of a Disability Cultural Center — something we endorse in our platform and explain further in question three — is a critical element in combating ableism and making the Hilltop more welcoming and inclusive. We will prioritize this issue and use our executive to finally secure the university’s commitment to this proposal.

GUSA’s successful No Wrong Door program, the creation of which Zach strongly supported as chief of staff, has already made important strides in making Georgetown more welcoming and inclusive. It is important that Georgetown continue to engage students to understand available resources.

We will use our bully pulpit to expand the program and encourage other student groups and offices that interface with students to take steps to ensure increased inclusiveness in student life."

Again, we regret that the initial version of this seemed to take credit that properly belongs to you or Alyssa Peterson.

Best,
Megan

Question 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?

Ableism, like all other forms of discrimination and oppression, has no place at Georgetown. We will work closely with interested students to ensure that GUSA is doing everything it can to empower disabled students.

To do so, we will build on the work Zach has already done as a leader of the GUSA executive in listening to interested disabled students and support their activism to student groups and Georgetown administrators.

The formation of a Disability Cultural Center — something we endorse in our platform and explain further in question three — is a critical element in combating ableism and making the Hilltop more welcoming and inclusive. We will prioritize this issue and use our executive to finally secure the university’s commitment to this proposal.

GUSA’s successful No Wrong Door program, the creation of which Zach oversaw as chief of staff, has already made important strides in making Georgetown more welcoming and inclusive. It is important that Georgetown continue to engage students to understand available resources.

We will use our bully pulpit to expand the program and encourage other student groups and offices that interface with students to take steps to ensure increased inclusiveness in student life.

Question 2

What would you do if elected to ensure that conversations and initiatives on diversity, especially those managed or initiated by the GUSA Executive, meaningfully include disability and disabled members of the campus community?

The creation of a GUSA undersecretary for disability affairs was an important element of the staff and cabinet that Zach spearheaded as GUSA chief of staff. However, there is more work to do and we have already begun engaging disabled students to hear their concerns and ideas for making Georgetown a better place for them — and for all of us.

We are also committed to increasing conversations for students – both through What’s A Hoya? and a new, GUSA-backed program to fund more informal conversations on pluralism-related issues — around important topics, including the experiences of disabled students and how to improve them.

Question 3

If elected, what steps will you take to advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown?

We strongly support the creation of a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown. Unfortunately, GUSA cannot create a Disability Cultural Center alone. Instead, it will require the support of the administration and a detailed plan for how to roll out such a center, staff and house its operations and build its outreach and relevance to campus life.

Working directly with disabled students, we will write out a complete plan, including detailed monetary figures and a clear, comprehensive element of how the center will work. Then, utilizing our experience — the most of any ticket — in working with administrators, we will make our case directly to the decision makers, relying every step of the way on the input, advice and help of disabled students at Georgetown.

Question 4

What steps will you take, 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?

We will renew the role of GUSA undersecretary for disability affairs that Zach helped create in the current executive. Through our Leadership Fund and robust mentorship programs, we hope to be able to recruit interested disabled students for positions with the GUSA executive and senate.

Additionally, we will use our bully pulpit as student leaders to encourage student groups to ensure there are no obstacles that present disabled students from taking on important leadership roles.

Question 5

What steps will you take if elected to investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown and advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing them?

We are enthusiastic about pending proposals for a survey on accessibility and a map of campus for inaccessible locations. Both of these steps will provide commendably useful information to guide future advocacy endeavors.

With the results of these surveys, we will publicize the most critical issues, take the concerns of disabled students directly to the administration and remain persistent in encouraging Georgetown’s leadership to rectify these challenges.

Question 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. What would you do if elected to advocate for meaningful inclusion of disabled people in conversations about us on campus?

Although GUSA cannot dictate the practices of student organizations at Georgetown, we can all agree that inclusion of disabled people is critical in all conversations, not just those that address disability issues.

Therefore, we will strongly advise student groups that disability-related programming include disabled students in all phases of production. We will also ensure that any diversity-related programming through What’s A Hoya? or the informal conversation series will be designed by interested disabled students.

We understand that being a good ally is about collaboration and follows the principle of “nothing about us without us.” That will govern our tenure as executive.

GUSA Exec 2014 Disability Questionnaire: Trevor Tezel and Omika Jikaria

I have condensed the questions, which appeared in long-form in the questionnaire sent to candidates with background information and examples, to highlight each candidate's answer. These are the responses provided by Trevor and Omika. You can also read responses from Zach and Dan, Ben and Sam, and Thomas and Jimmy.

Image description: Trevor Tezel, a young white man with short brown hair, and Omika Jikaria, a young South Asian woman with medium-length dark brown hair, smiling at the camera in front of one of the buildings in Dahlgren quad with stairs and white banisters. The bottom right has the Trevor/Omika connect to Georgetown logo, which is teal and gray with the facade of Healy Hall.

Question 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?

We must create a culture where disability is viewed as an aspect of diversity rather than as a trait that only requires accommodation. This needs to be our foremost goal as a campus and it will require a number of reforms. First off, GUSA and other organizations need to empower disabled students and listen to their perspectives on the issue.

The language of this question itself clearly articulates that disability issues are not properly understood on the Georgetown campus, and in order to combat this, it is crucial that we involve students who are already fighting for the rights of disabled students in all discussions about disability issues. This includes both disabled students and anti-ableism allies. Interested disabled students need to be appointed to decision making roles, which will provide them access to university administrators and resources.

In addition, we need to change the culture through education, which includes promoting disability cultural programming. Our primary goal is to promote the hiring of a “disability as diversity” staffer to operate this programming in a similar style as the LGBTQ Resource Center. We hope to also raise awareness through GUSA programming. Similarly, we need to explore ways to facilitate collaboration between disabled students and non-disabled students. By bringing more people, regardless of disability status, into the discussion, we expand the possibility that issues of disability will become less “taboo” on campus.

Additionally, certain procedural changes need to be made in order to ensure that disabled students have access to all aspects of Georgetown life. Some of these changes include, but are not limited to, greater funding to cover the costs of disability accommodations at student events and a memorandum of understanding to ensure that disabled students will be given the opportunity to  meet with the architects of any new construction project to discuss the needs of students with disabilities. We also support the creation of an accessibility guide for clubs, similar to No Wrong Door, so they can make their programming more accessible. We imagine GUSA as an institution that can disseminate promising practices to club leaders. By making these types of changes, disabled students are more empowered to access spaces and activities.

Omika and I are also very focused on combating sexual assault and other forms of violence such as intimate partner violence. We understand that disabled individuals are disproportionately victimized and may experience barriers when attempting to access services. As a result, we and any interested disabled students will sit down with Health Education Services, CAPS, and the Women’s Center at the start of our term to examine how they promote accessibility for disabled survivors. If their policies and procedures are inadequate, we and any interested disabled students will work with them to design better procedures.

Finally, we would strongly advocate for the expansion of the “No Wrong Door” program, particularly during NSO. It’s crucial that disabled students immediately feel comfortable at Georgetown and this expansion would assist this process. Similarly, the inclusion of the “No Wrong Door” program would give all students greater exposure to disability issues and reinforce the idea that Georgetown’s mission statement embraces and welcomes students of all backgrounds.

Question 2

What would you do if elected to ensure that conversations and initiatives on diversity, especially those managed or initiated by the GUSA Executive, meaningfully include disability and disabled members of the campus community?

As stated in the previous question, we believe that one of the most things that needs to be done in order to ensure that discussions on diversity are both productive and effective is simply get the right people in the room. We don’t purport to be experts on what initiatives would best serve disabled students, so it would be a top priority for us to have representation of disabled students in both our cabinet and staff. Specifically, we would appoint both a Pluralism representative and an under-secretary for disability. Ideally, these representatives will be individuals who are already engaged in the fight for greater resources for disabled students. At the start of our term, we would ask the under-secretary for diversity to reach out to their network and ask disabled students if they are interested in attending GUSA meetings with administrators or if they are interested in joining GUSA more generally. In addition, we would support the efforts of any disabled student to reform aspects of campus life at Georgetown outside of GUSA. This support could include resources from the GUSA fund, publicity, and other support.

Additionally, one of the biggest proposals in our platform, as well as our Executive budget, is an administrator-student committee to assess the state of disability advocacy and culture and physical accessibility of Georgetown. This committee would be crucial to ensuring that issues of disability are continually discussed and that new initiatives are always being considered. The committee would be composed of disabled students, able students, GUSA members, non-GUSA members, and administrators both from Student Affairs and other on-campus offices. Ideally, we would be able to have disabled administration and faculty members as well as representatives from IDEAA. In sum, the goal is to bring together the best possible group to engage with and address disability issues. We understand that forming a committee isn’t a solution but we regard it as an excellent way to bring the voices of disabled students, faculty, and administrators to the forefront in crafting policies.

We will also support your current efforts to create an accessibility survey to gauge experiences of disabled students.

Question 3

If elected, what steps will you take to advocate on behalf of a plan to create and sustain a Disability Cultural Center at Georgetown?

Our philosophy is that GUSA is a policy and advocacy body. If we were elected, we would use administrative relationships in order to set up the necessary meetings required to get an important initiative like this up and running. GUSA’s greatest strength comes from the respect that we get from the administration. Both of us have strong relationships with a variety of administrators, particularly in Student Affairs and the Women’s Center. These specific relationships would be crucial both to continuing the discussions about creating this type of center and to actually getting the center started. Creating a Disability Cultural Center is a major initiative that will require both much time, commitment, and financial support. Especially because of the financial aspect, this is an initiative that MUST involve administrators. We have no doubt that we would be able to successfully work with the administration in order to further the creation of this center. Our first push will be for a disability staffer housed in the CMEA that specializes in education efforts; we believe the addition of this staffer will be an intermediate step before the Cultural Center.

However, with that said, the creation of such a center must include a wide range of discussions. In order to ensure that this center is as effective as possible, it is crucial that an initiative like this be led by people who understand disability issues.

When exploring how to best start this center, we would want to both talk with disabled Georgetown students and with students at other schools that already have Disability Cultural Centers. We would draft a proposal using best practices from these meetings. Getting the insight of these groups would be potentially the most important aspect of the founding of the center. In the meantime, we would, as previously mentioned, push for the hiring of a staffer housed in the CMEA.

Additionally, this is not an initiative that could be rushed. While we would prioritize beginning the planning for this center, we could not promise that it would be completed by a particular date. Quality matters, and this is not something that we would want to be completed without enough thought. In short, the creation of this center would be led by students who best know the issue, but it would receive the full support of GUSA, both in resources, relationships, and personal commitment.

Question 4

What steps will you take, 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?

Within GUSA, as previously stated, we will appoint both a Pluralism representative and an under-secretary for disability. Similarly, we would hope to appoint students with disabilities to other GUSA leadership positions. Additionally, as stated before, we would advocate for “an administrator-student committee to assess the state of disability advocacy and culture and physical accessibility of Georgetown.” Our goal is to include as many voices as possible, and creating these roles ensures that disability issues are always kept at the forefront of GUSA discussions.

Outside of GUSA, we would hope to provide resources for disabled students who want to run for leadership positions, if needed. We will also, in the fall, ask the under-secretary for disability to locate disabled individuals with possible interest in running for the GUSA Senate and we will promote their candidacy informally as we did with female-presenting Senators this year.

In terms of visibility, social media is one of GUSA’s greatest tools. We would use social media to promote disability initiatives in order to ensure that students have greater awareness of the different initiatives being undertaken. Similarly, we plan on continuing the “Hoya of the Week” program. We would love to highlight disabled students serving in leadership roles alongside able students.

Question 5

What steps will you take if elected to investigate the full range of accessibility barriers at Georgetown and advocate for meaningful progress from the administration in addressing them?

As stated previously, our platform clearly states that we hope to establish an “administrator-student committee to assess the state of disability advocacy and culture and physical accessibility of Georgetown.” This would be our starting point for addressing disability issues, and through this committee, we hope to be able to conduct a full review of the accessibility barriers that exist at Georgetown and then work to create substantive improvements on campus. We also support current efforts to institute a disability accessibility survey and we are happy to assist with your idea to photograph and highlight inaccessible areas on campus.

However, we believe improving conditions on-campus is a process. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to make Georgetown fully accessible, and we know that this is not a process that can be accomplished overnight. Given this, our plan for addressing these issues is a long-term plan. We would want to start off with those projects that have already had some forward movement; for instance, we would continue the advocacy efforts to ensure that the Northeast Triangle is fully accessible to disabled students. We also want to sit down with departments such as Heath Ed/Women’s Center to see how they are promoting service accessibility for disabled students. This work goes far beyond the ARC. An ideal situation would be one where major campus departments are asked to identify and rectify potential bureaucratic hurdles and other barriers to disabled students.

Clubs present a major accessibility issue, and as mentioned previously, GUSA should create a guide on promoting accessibility in programming so that clubs understand what constitutes an accessible space. This, like the No Wrong Door Initiative, is a good step because we do not have to wait on administrative bureaucracy to promote accessibility.


Question 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. What would you do if elected to advocate for meaningful inclusion of disabled people in conversations about us on campus?

This is a difficult issue because GUSA can’t necessarily control the actions of other organizations on campus. However, we can lead by example in that all disability-related programming created by GUSA and meaningful meetings GUSA has with administrators will include disabled people from the onset. If a disabled student is unable to attend the meeting or event, the students that can will loop in the disabled students in email communications and contact them about any talking points they have. Students that can attend will also provide meeting notes/summaries. This makes a lot of sense from a policy perspective because disabled students are the most knowledgeable about disability issues and as such should be empowered to lead on these issues.

We can also work with the Senate, which administers the GUSA Fund, to ensure that any disability-related programming that applies for funds MUST include disabled students in formulating said programming or at least offer a real opportunity for disabled students to join in organizing discussions. The Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee would serve as the final arbiter in these instances.

In terms of promoting awareness, GUSA’s social media efforts can be leveraged to promote disability events as well as GUSA’s name in attracting event cosponsors. What’s A Hoya also provides a valuable opportunity with high attendance to educate individuals on disability as well as highlight disability culture and history.

Violence in Language: Circling Back to Linguistic Ableism

Trigger warning/content: Use or quotes of ableist slurs and language. (No profanity/swears in this post.)

The single most frequently-viewed page on this website is the glossary of ableist phrases. As with anything frequently shared and visited on the internet, reactions generally fall into one of two camps: happy and supportive, or else, highly critically or viscerally offended. Eventually, I prefaced that page with its own brief essay explaining some of the reasons for its existence. (It still receives a lot of criticism. Some of these criticisms are valid, and I continually revise the page to reflect my own process of learning and unlearning. Others span the gamut of accusations about my intentions or the page's reasons for existence.)

For example, a few months ago, someone pointed out that the list of alternative phrases assumed class and education privilege. The commenter said that a lot of the words seemed like SAT words. In response, I attempted to revise and expand the list of suggested alternatives to account for varying tones, moods, and access to education or linguistic privilege. More recently, another person criticized the list of alternatives for including profanity because swears are fairly common triggers. (At the same time, a lot of other people find swears to be the most easily accessible language. I have now added a trigger warning before a new, separate list of alternatives just for the swears, located at the bottom after everything else. I'm not going to outright delete them, though, because there's also a lot of baggage for many people who have been continually told that they should not use swears, abused for their language, or oppressed by a lot of classism and ableism in demonizing the use of swear words.)

One of the most common (inaccurate and mischaracterizing) criticisms, however, both from inside and outside the disability community, is the accusation that the list is a tool for policing language or censoring words.

So what's the purpose of the list? Why compile it at all? Because linguistic ableism is part of the total system of ableism, and it is critical to understand how it works, how it is deployed, and how we can unlearn our social conditioning that linguistic ableism is normal and just how things are or should be.

As important as it is to recognize and uncover the violence of linguistic ableism (how ableism is specifically embedded into our language), it is also critical to understand why this is important. (And this is where those who jump the gun and leap to accusations of pedantic, holier-than-thou, smug language-policing or censorship have not yet come to understand why this page, and those like it, need to exist.)

Linguistic ableism:

a) is part of an entire system of ableism, and doesn't exist simply by itself,

b) signifies how deeply ableist our societies and cultures by how common and accepted ableism is in language,

c) reinforces and perpetuates ableist social norms that normalize violence and abuse against disabled people,

d) actively creates less safe spaces by re-traumatizing disabled people, and

e) uses ableism to perpetuate other forms of oppression.

Language is not the be all end all. This isn't about policing language or censoring words, but about critically examining how language is part of total ableist hegemony. This is about being accountable when we learn about linguistic ableism, but it is also about being compassionate to ourselves and recognizing that to varying extents, we have all participated in ablesupremacy and ablenormativity. This is about understanding the connections between linguistic ableism and other forms of ableism, such as medical ableism, scientific ableism, legal ableism, and cultural ableism.

Language reflects and influences society and culture. That's why students of any foreign language often study the cultures where that language is dominant. (And that's not to dimiss the many valid criticisms of the ethnocentrism and colonialism in much area and language studies programs.) Language isn't important for silly semantic reasons, but because it cannot be separated from the culture in which it is deployed. Feminist theory, queer theory, and race theory have all analyzed how sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, binarism, and racism are embedded in language. This is the same process.

Using the language of disability (either directly or through metaphor) as a way to insult other people, dismiss other people, express your vehement loathing for them/their viewpoints, or invalidate their viewpoints is actually extremely ableist (and often sanist, neurotypicalist, audist, or vidist).

For example, I am talking about using the language of mental illness ("crazy," "insane," "psycho," or "wacko," for example), cognitive disability ("retarded," "slow," or "moron," for example), or physical disability ("crippled" or "completely blind/deaf," for example). In another example, I am also talking about using disability as metaphor.

Using the language of disability to denigrate or insult in our conversations and organizing presumes that

a.) people who hold undesirable or harmful viewpoints must hold them because they are mentally ill/have psych disabilities/are mentally disabled/are disabled in some way,

b.) having mental illness/psych disability/mental disability/any disability is actually so undesirable and horrible that you can insult someone that way (the same underlying reason why socially embedded linguistic heterosexism lets people use "gay" as an insult),

c.) it's acceptable to use ableism against one disability group while decrying ableism against another disability group (creating horizontal or intra-disability oppression) or another form of oppression against another marginalized group (creating horizontal oppression), and

d.) and that no one who is disabled in any way might actually share your opinion or be on your side,

thus actually actively excluding and marginalizing this part of our community, and making our spaces less safe and less inclusive.

For alternatives, try being more precise in your language. Maybe you meant to say one of the following (much longer list on the glossary):
- These people have completely ridiculous ideas.
- That person's viewpoint is extremely harmful.
- That idea is extremist.
- Those people have disturbing and concerning opinions.
- That comment was super problematic.
- I can't even engage with that person anymore.
- That person is a total [profanity/swear].

If you find yourself using this ableist language, please take a minute to re-examine how your perspective has been informed by ableism. This isn't an accusation or an insinuation that you are automatically an Evil Person. We have all participated in ableist structures, and are all continually learning and unlearning. But if you are truly committed to building more just and inclusive communities, then it is critical to unlearn how we have been conditioned into accepting ableism in all parts of our lives and societies, including in our language.