Emily Tironi

Throughout my childhood education, I took my own short, wheelchair accessible bus to the school a town over from mine. My town’s school was less than a mile from my house, but they had refused to accommodate me. My mother fought tooth and nail, got a lawyer, and the local school ended up footing the bill to send me to the next town over. By the time I graduated, I knew I had my parents to thank for getting me an equal education and supports to live, but I did not comprehend all of the work of the generations of disabled people before me that had created this pathway. I think it was this experience that made me want to understand the societal aspects of disability and major in Disability Studies in college.

In college, I took a class in Disability History, and learned that the laws that protected people with disabilities were not just given; they were fought for by disabled activists. It made me realize the role disability history had played in my life. My education, medical care, and community supports were all a direct result of years of hard-fought activism.

When I started my Fellowship at RespectAbility, I pitched the idea of doing a social media series on disability history, because it is such an under-taught topic that is essential to understanding how to address the issues the disability community still faces today. I was so grateful to share Tom Olin’s and Anthony Tusler’s photographs in the series to help bring these important events to life. While at community college, I took the public bus for the first time, photographing the experience for my photography class. It was not until creating this project that I realized how ADAPT’s actions and Tom Olin documenting them allowed such a moment to occur. [continue reading…]

I didn’t know what to expect when I met Bobby Silverstein. I had met many great disability icons, but Bobby was sort of a mystery to me, a name that I always knew, but knew very little about. It was thus with some trepidation that I invited him to share an introduction reflecting around 30^th anniversary of the ADA on what the law meant to him, as an advocate, a lawyer, and a Jew. Bobby opened his remarks saying “to me, the ADA is a codification of the commandment to do justice and pursue acts of loving kindness.” He continued, “to do justice, one must understand history and the nature of injustice experienced by people with disabilities.” He followed with a haunting and powerful primer on the injustices faced by people with disabilities in Western civilization. [continue reading…]

The holidays can be busy and stressful for many people. The hustle and bustle of decorating, shopping, or for some, being alone or missing a loved one, can be overwhelming. Some push through to the point of not taking care of themselves, while others may withdraw. Everyone copes differently, and there are numerous strategies one could use to help their mental health this holiday season. Here are a few possibilities:

Remember what really matters to you: You could do this by making a list of what you enjoy, including traditions, creating new memories, or spending time with those that matter to you. [continue reading…]

by Matan Koch and Lauren Appelbaum

Leah Daniels-Butler and Steven Tingus speaking at RespectAbility’s Capitol Hill Summit in Washington, D.C., in July 2017

RespectAbility honors the life of former Board of Advisors member Steven James Tingus, who passed last week at age 59, shortly after the premiere of his new film “Triggered” at the acclaimed Indie Night Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theatre. Tingus was hailed for his role and as a voice for social equality. He graced the stage thanking his co-producer and co-star Marcus Nel-Jamal Hamm for “walking the walk and talking the talk.”

A former Presidential appointee in charge of disability, aging, and health care research and policy, Tingus often called for making the business case for disability inclusion and served a term on RespectAbility’s Board of Advisors from 2016 – 2019. During his tenure, he participated in a series of PSA’s produced by RespectAbility to ensure philanthropists are inclusive of people with disabilities. [continue reading…]

Alys Murray

RespectAbility Entertainment Lab alumna Alys Murray had two Christmas films – A New Orleans Noel and My Southern Family Christmas – premiere last week.

Murray, who started out as a novelist, says that screenwriting is less lonely than writing novels because it is more collaborative. “There is a lot less crying” involved in screenwriting because she does not have to be alone with her thoughts, and she has others to “bounce ideas off of.” [continue reading…]

Lois Curtis had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and developmental disabilities as a young woman, and by her late 20s she had spent more than half her life in state institutions. Isolated and angry, she chain-smoked to pass the time and prayed to God at night, asking to be rescued from the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta.

Ms. Curtis’s prayer for freedom made its way to the Supreme Court. In Olmstead v. L.C. (1999) – Ms. Curtis was the “L.C.”— the Court decided “unjustified isolation” of a person with a disability is a form of discrimination under Title II of the ADA. The justices delivered a landmark ruling that gave people with disabilities the right to receive care and support services in their own homes and communities, not just in state institutions. This offered a legal framework for people with disabilities to secure the right to live, work, and study in their own communities, galvanizing the disability community by legally empowering the independent living movement. [continue reading…]

Having a disability in government has typically meant concealing, masking, or otherwise hiding any difference of mind or body on the campaign trail and in office. Franklin Delano Roosevelt remained paralyzed from the waist down after a bout of polio. Roosevelt used a wheelchair and leg braces for mobility, which he tried to conceal in public.

While government roles have been filled by people with disabilities before and after Roosevelt, people running for public office have rarely felt comfortable revealing their disability status. Thankfully, there are signs that this is starting to change. Only days prior to the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, John Fetterman had a stroke. Fetterman proceeded to win the Senate seat despite the public nature of his disability. He embraced the use of accommodations and used closed-captioning technology, which translates audio into text on a screen in real time. Additionally, the Chairman of RespectAbility’s Board of Directors and Los Angeles City Council District 4-elect, Ollie Cantos VII, described himself as “blind since birth” on his campaign website. [continue reading…]

The Americans with Disabilities Act protects voting rights for people with disabilities, but 32 years after its passage, voters with disabilities still experienced barriers to participating in the polls. In this election cycle, some particularly significant issues included a lack of poll worker training on using ADA-compliant voting equipment and poll workers not properly addressing challenges that prevent people with disabilities from voting. [continue reading…]

On November 28, the Congressional Research Service published a paper entitled “Federal Hiring of Persons with Disabilities.” The findings of the paper are neither surprising nor controversial, and state, in part:

“Despite efforts to increase recruitment and hiring of persons with disabilities, retention of employees with disabilities is significantly lower than that of employees without disabilities. According to OPM, employees with disabilities leave the federal government at about three times the rate of those without disabilities. OPM outlines a number of strategies to improve retention of employees with disabilities, such as providing workplace flexibilities and reasonable accommodations.”

In short, the Federal Government can successfully hire people with disabilities, but is lagging in retention, especially because of challenges in the process of flexible work and reasonable accommodation. [continue reading…]