All posts by Anna

You Get Proud By Practicing: Laura Hershey, Writer, Poet, Activist, Consultant, has died

I’ve just learned via email and twitter that activist, poet, and amazing woman Laura Hershey has died. I have to admit that I’m deeply hoping that someone pops up says “No, no, you misunderstand, she’s not dead!” because I just cannot currently imagine a world without Laura Hershey in it.

For some, Laura is most famous for her bravery and strength in confronting the Jerry Lewis Telethon, organizing counter-protests and bluntly exposing the hypocrisy of honouring a man who expresses such disdain towards people with disabilities as a “humanitarian”. You can read her amazing article, From Poster Child to Protester at CripCommentary.

The telethon’s hegemony over the image of disability is quite staggering. A 1996 press release issued by MDA states, “According to A.C. Nielsen, last year’s Telethon was watched by some 70 million Americans or 27 million households. The MDA Telethon — considered the granddaddy of all Telethons — ranks in viewership with the World Series and the Academy Awards. ” Those 70 million people are absorbing a message shaped by greed, deception, and bigotry.

The bigotry of Jerry Lewis is worth discussing. I don’t necessarily enjoy attacking another person’s motives, but I hear defenders saying, “Jerry Lewis is trying to help so many people. How dare you criticize his methods?” This means-justifies-the-ends argument has a long and despicable history, which I don’t need to go into here. Even more dangerous is the attitude that people who are “being helped” have no right to say how they want to be helped, or treated, or thought of. This is paternalism at its worst. By being the object of charitable efforts, do we thereby waive our right to respect, and to free speech? If people are really interested in helping me, wouldn’t they want to hear me tell my own story, rather than hearing a distorted version of it from someone who not only doesn’t share my experience, but who doesn’t even seem to want to listen to me? With the stated goal of “helping” his “kids,” Jerry Lewis is helping to keep alive the most pernicious myths about people who have disabilities. He ignores our truth, substituting his own distorted assumptions.

If our protest did nothing else, it allowed some of us the opportunity to say, “No, this is not our reality. If you want to know what our lives are like, listen to us. If you want to know what we need, ask us. If you truly want to help us, let us tell you how. And if you pity and fear us, please own that; then let us work together at changing the world so that disability will not be something to fear, but something to try to understand.”

The response to our protest has been interesting. Many people seem to resent our daring to object to these distortions, half-truths, and stereotypes. I have been called “ungrateful,” “cruel,” and “insensitive” — simply for trying to counter all this with the truth, with my truth. At the very least, I feel that the protest has enabled me and others to begin getting on record our own stories, in contrast to the misleading accounts that come from the telethon.

Laura also made videos to emphasize the work that people with disabilities were doing on their own behalf to emphasize that they were not objects of pity.

Transcript:

The ‘It’s Our Story’ titles roll while tinkly piano music plays. White symbols of sign language and a person in a wheelchair flash against the background, which is suggestive of a US flag, with the continental United States in the blue square instead of the usual 50 stars.

The video opens on Laura Hershey, a powerchair user wearing a nasal cannula and glasses. The title of the video is “Jerry’s Kids”, and I believe she’s referring to the group “Jerry’s Orphans”.

Laura: That’s actually a group that was started in Chicago by Mike Irvin, Chris Matthews, and several other people. And I worked with them a lot organziing these protests nationally. I think what the name says is that Jerry Lewis doesn’t have the right to claim us as his quote “kids”, especially as he’s not interested in our perspective. He completely trashes people who question or challenge the telethon approach. He’s attacked us in the press, calling us ungrateful, claiming that he bought us our wheelchairs which is, you know, completely untrue.

You know, whatever ego trip he gets thinking of himself as our saviour, or our daddy, or whatever it is he thinks, we reject that.

We’re not his kids, we’re adults, and we’re our own people. We don’t belong to him.

Laura was also a poet, whose poetry not only described her experience as a proud cripple, but also as a lesbian, and as the mother of an adopted daughter. The most recent poem of her site is titled “Adopting a Fourteen-Year-Old in the 21st Century”.

I’m sorry, I want to say something profound, something that will make it clear what an influence Laura has had, on myself, on almost everyone I know in disability rights activism, on disability studies. She’s often cited in the things I read in academia, and often cited by the people I know in activist circles. I feel such a deep and personal loss, even though I didn’t know Laura through anything more – or less – than her writing.

My heart and thoughts go out to her family and loved ones.

Laura Hershey
Laura’s column for the Christopher & Dana Reed Foundation
Laura’s article at the Huffington Post: Independence and Interdependence: Equally Important Values

You Get Proud by Practicing, by Laura Hershey, an excerpt:

You can add your voice
All night to the voices
Of a hundred and fifty others
In a circle
Around a jailhouse
Where your brothers and sisters are being held
For blocking buses with no lifts,
Or you can be one of the ones
Inside the jailhouse,
Knowing of the circle outside.
You can speak your love
To a friend
Without fear.
You can find someone who will listen to you
Without judging you or doubting you or being
Afraid of you
And let you hear yourself perhaps
For the very first time.
These are all ways
Of getting proud.
None of them
Are easy, but all of them
Are possible. You can do all of these things,
Or just one of them again and again.
You get proud
By practicing.

Accessing Sexual Health Part One: Barriers To Getting There

I gave a bit of a talk recently on what I viewed as the barriers to sexual health and education for people with disabilities, discovering that I have a lot of thoughts about the barriers not only to sexual health but to all levels of health care when one is disabled. These can vary from the difficulties in making appointments to waiting rooms where people who use wheelchairs are told to wait in the hallway.

Sexual health is something that weighs quite heavily on my mind. As we’ve highlighted here (and many other bloggers have highlighted elsewhere), people with disabilities, especially women, are vulnerable to sexual abuse.

Over the next few posts (the other two will be available next week), I wanted to highlight some the barriers I perceive in people with disabilities in getting access to sexual health-related care, and I encourage people of any gender, should they wish, to detail out their own struggles or successes in receiving sexual health care. I would remind commenters, though, that people do search and read comments, and if they wish to give their stories anonymously, that’s perfectly acceptable.

The two things I want to highlight today are getting an appointment, and getting into an appointment.

Over the past couple of months it’s been brought intimately home to me how difficult it can be to get a doctor’s appointment for any reason if you can’t use the phone. I’ve been unable to hear very well due to an ongoing ear infection, and Don has a frozen vocal cord, meaning he cannot speak much above a whisper. Trying to book an appointment to get my ear checked has been an effort in frustration: neither my GP nor the ENT clinic I was referred to have any indication of a way to book an appointment that doesn’t involve using the phone.

When I worked in Health Care I did receive relay calls. For those not familiar, d/Deaf or Hard of Hearing people can use relay calls where they use a TTY phone. They contact the relay center via TTY, and the relay center calls the person you wish to speak to. My understanding is that you then type what you want to say, and the relay operator repeats it to the person who you are talking to. They then type up everything the other person says. (The speaking person says “go ahead” when they want the text-part sent.)

[Interestingly, I only learned how to take Relay Calls when I worked in a call center for a major wireless company in the US. No one when I worked in health care discussed Relay Calls or how to handle them, although in my experience the operators were very kind and forthcoming with that information.]

However, phone issues are not limited in any way to people who may be able to take advantage of Relay Calls. Relay Calls are not appropriate for Don’s needs as someone with a frozen vocal cord, for one example. There are also people with audio processing disorders, people who have phone anxiety issues that make using the phone difficult, if not impossible. There are people whose phone-related issues are temporary rather than permanent and thus they don’t have the equipment available to take advantage of something like Relay Calls. These sorts of barriers to accessing health services, especially sexual health services, can cause people to just give up on the whole enterprise.

One solution to this would be for sexual health clinics and doctors offices to consider making people aware of alternative means of contacting them for appointments, be this via email or fax or even an online appointment booking service. While I have no doubt that these are available currently, I have never seen these services advertised. Certainly when trying to book my ear appointments I would have loved to have done it via email, since I couldn’t hear, which made making the appointment difficult.

Another seemingly simple problem that can be a barrier not only to any health service, but any building at all, is the dreaded Wheelchair Lift.

I mean, let’s pretend that every building you’d want to go to for health services was specifically wheelchair accessible (Note: This is not as true as one might imagine.) In many cases, this will mean a wheelchair lift has been added to one of the stairwells.

As many people who use wheelchairs can tell you, wheelchair access is often “in the back”. This can mean that you need to call ahead to let them know that you’ll be there in five or ten minutes and could someone be troubled to let you in? These doors are not always cleared of snow. The one for one of the buildings that Don’s had to enter doesn’t have a full sidewalk going up to it, so he has to deal with mud when it rains. It rains a lot in Halifax.

However, wheelchair lifts, bless them, do not really help a lot of people with other mobility-related disabilities. You can’t use a wheelchair lift if you use a cane. You can’t use it if you use a walker. Occasionally people in these situations will be allowed to use a chair and sit on it while the lift takes them up the flight of stairs, but this is not always something people are willing to do.

Again, these are physical barriers that prevent people with disabilities from accessing health services. They’re not deliberate, but they have long-term consequences that are easy to forget.

Recommended Reading for Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Hello Wednesday my old friend. Why I can’t remember that it’s Wednesday until late in the day (at least in my time zone), I will never know.

I was going to link an article about a showcase of artwork by Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing artists, and then when I re-read the article realised the only artist the article highlighted was a person who is neither d/Deaf nor hard of hearing, but wanted to show art in support of the project. I find that a really…. interesting…. way of framing a show that’s supposed to be about highlighting the work of artists with disabilities.

Instead, I’ll point your attention towards a presentation that Deaf photographer Stacy Lawrence gave to the Rochester School for the Deaf.

Katie at Muni Diaries: My Disability on Muni

I get on the train in the Sunset/Parkside district and ride it all the way in. My disability is largely invisible unless I’m barefoot or wearing a skirt that exposes my scar-covered right leg. I get dirty looks from older riders when I don’t get up to allow them a seat; I look like a perfectly healthy 22-year-old woman. I sit in the seat, repeat to myself “you’re handicapped and have a right to sit here” and stare at my foot-and-a-half while clutching my cane with white knuckles.

Jail no place for FASD offenders, ministers told

Citizens with FASD make up only 1% of the Canadian population but account for an estimated 40% to 50% of all prisoners. People born with FASD have difficulty learning new behaviours and controlling behavioural impulses.

Theatre Blog: How captions stopped plays being seen and not heard

Captioning is offered on a regular basis by major subsidised and commercial theatres all over the country. You’ll see “CAP” or “STAGETEXT” in the flyers. Stagetext is the name of a charity that made captioning happen big time. Over the past 10 years they have delivered captioned shows, and trained theatres in how to provide captioning in-house. Captioning has meant a big growth in deaf or hard of hearing theatregoers, for whom theatre is accessible like never before. Stagetext also offers deaf and access awareness training to theatre staff, including front of house staff, to help make a theatre visit more enjoyable and less stressful for deaf people. Clear communication and a friendly face work wonders. It’s great to see deaf and hard of hearing people talking passionately about shows with family and friends, and even daring to say what utter rubbish they’ve just seen.

Minister Responsible for Disability has Inaccessible Office Diane Finley, you are driving me up the wall.

Yes she piloted the Registered Disabilities Saving Plan through Parliament. That helps the children of upper-middle class Canadians save for the time when the parents have passed on. Those lucky few children with disabilities, then adults, face the bleak future of struggling to exist in Canada’s disability wasteland. The program is useless for most Canadians with disabilities who are struggling to survive. Where are they going to find disposable income to save for their childrens’ income?

Canadians with disabilities who can no longer work are subject to the worst conditions of poverty of any group. They form the largest number of people in Canada on social assistance.

The only Federal income program that helps them is the Canada Pension Disability which maxes out at $13,000 annually. Most Canadians on disabilities and CPP are receiving less than $10,000 a year. It doesn’t take an economist to understand survival on $10,000 is punishing poverty.

[Don has a RDSP. Don is also the child of upper-middle class parents. It’s also really really firmly designed with parents of children with disabilities in mind, much like the Registered Education Savings Plans. For example, our bank refused to allow Don to manage his RDSP over the phone, through ebanking, or anything else except in person. The bank building is only “wheelchair accessible” in certain areas, which doesn’t include the areas you need enter in order to manage your RDSP in person. Other banks have different policies, of course, but there’s nothing quite like being told an investment is “for you” when you can’t even get into the building to manage it.]

Mariness: Body scanners and pat downs

With the body scanner, however, you have to be able to stand still. Since I can’t do this without at the very least wobbling and swaying, I now have to do the patdown in my wheelchair.

Smackie the Frog:My TSA Experience

This got me to thinking, though. Am I going to always be subjected to the “enhanced pat down” because of my medical device? I don’t even so much object to the backscatter x-ray machines, and I don’t have any problem with them doing the swab on the device. So I did some research and talked to other people with the insulin pumps who have also flown, and they have had to deal with the same thing I did. One lady was even told by a TSA supervisor that if you have a medical device like an insulin pump, you have to go through the “enhanced pat down”. No choice.

American Coalition of Amputees: ACA calls for Improved Screening Procedures for TSA

“I had just been put in the Plexiglas screening booth,” said Peggy. “My 4-year-old son was made to sit across from me, crying because they would not let him touch me. Everyone was looking at us. Then the TSA agent asked for my prosthetic leg. I knew they could wand my leg, but he insisted on taking it from me. And if that wasn’t humiliating enough, he asked for the liner sock that covers my residual limb, saying I had to give it to him. I felt pressured to give him my liner even though it is critical to keep it sanitary. I was embarrassed to have my residual limb exposed in public.”

There have been several news stories about how the changes in the TSA in the US have affected passengers with disabilities. Here is only a sample, I assure you:

Bladder Cancer Survivor Recounts Humiliating TSA Screening See Also: TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine

Teen says TSA Screener opened sterile equipment, put life in danger

TSA makes Cancer Victim Remove Prosthetic Breast

Signal Boost: Text of teleconferences on the Global Disability Rights Library

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thank you to everyone who participated in USICD’s teleconferences on the Global Disability Rights Library (GDRL). We are excited about the enthusiasm for this effort that you brought to the call. Both calls featured lively discussion and generated new ideas and connections that will be invaluable moving forward with the library. For those of you who were unable to join us—we missed you, and we still welcome your involvement in the GDRL project.

Some participants requested text from the conference calls, so we have posted it on the GDDRL page of the USICD website. The online version of the document can be found here: Text of Call

USICD will be hosting more conference calls in the near future, and we will stay in touch in the coming months about ways to remain involved in the development of the GDRL. The strength of the GDRL comes from contributions and content made by you, the experts and practitioners in the field, and we always value your questions and input.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Many Thanks,

Andrea

Andrea Shettle, MSW, MA
Program Manager, Global Disability Rights Library
United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD)
1012 14th Street, NW, Suite 105
Washington, DC 20005
ashettle@usicd.org
http://www.usicd.org
Fax: (202) 347-0351

I participated (well, I listened) in this call and it was very interesting. The work the GDRL wants to do is very exciting.

University Kicks Student With Down Syndrome Out Of Classroom; Other Students Protest And Are Ignored

I cannot imagine being told, 3/4s of the way into my first academic term, that my mere presence in the classroom “resulted in a disruption of curriculum delivery and interfered with the teaching and learning environment for the instructor and other students.” Especially with no prior warning, and especially when all 19 of my fellow classmates insisted that this was untrue.

Meet Eliza Schaaf, a 20 year old university student with Down Syndrome. In September she began taking a ceramics class at Souther Oregon University, with the support of her family. She was signed up as a full student, and registered with her university’s disability office. (Part way through the year she was required to be re-registered as auditing rather than a full student.) According to the blog the Schaaf family has set up:

Out of curiosity went to the SOU Disability Resources Office and made appointment to learn what accommodations are available to student with disabilities. None seemed relevant or needed. Did discuss the personal assistant option.

From what I’ve been able to gather from various news reports, Eliza’s mother, Deb Evans, was her personal assistant in the classroom, having signed a contract. This newspaper report at the Mail Tribune points out that the one-size-fits-all model of providing accessibility accommodations didn’t really work in this situation: personal assistants in the classroom were presumed to be for people with physical disabilities, so Deb was limited to setting up Eliza’s workspace for her. In the timeline of events, the Schaff family acknowledges that Deb was asked to not speak to Eliza or the other students during class time, and describes Deb as leaving the room and letting Eliza get any assistance she needed from another student who also signed a personal assistant contract.

Without any warning whatsoever, Eliza received a registered letter from the university informing her:

“At this time, Southern Oregon University does not offer a program specifically designed to provide specialized learning opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities. We have determined that even with the support of the accommodation(s) available at the post-secondary level, you are currently not otherwise qualified to meet the academic standards necessary to participate in this course.”

And, you know, I get that. I think it’s shitty, but I can understand that. Except for one minor problem:

Eliza didn’t develop Down Syndrome spontaneously half-way through October. She had Down Syndrome when the university agreed to accept her as a student, and when the Disability Accommodations Office agreed they really had no assistance they could offer her, and when the university agreed that her mother could be Eliza’s personal assistant, and when they told Deb Evans that she could sit in another room during the class.

The other problem is this: According to the letter Eliza received from university administration (You can read it here (PDF) transcription.):

Based upon our interactive process and classroom observation, we have conluded that there are no appropriate accommodations that would allow you to engage with the course material at the cognitive level necessary and required of university-level students. Specifically, we have made the following observations during your participation in the course….

Except, according to students actually in the class, no one observed. According to Mollie Mustoe, a student in Eliza’s class and one of the people behind the very vocal outcry about this situation::

She said what bothered her most was that the administration used students in the class as a reason to withdraw Schaaf without consulting those students.

“No one from the administration observed the class, and the administration never had a dialogue with the students about what we felt,” she said.


“She worked almost as independently as me,” Mustoe said. “What she couldn’t do on her own that’s what the personal assistant was for.”

The situation seems to be done and dusted. Despite a petition from all 19 of Eliza’s classmates, the people this decision was allegedly made in support of, despite the Student Senate at Southern Oregon University voting to support Eliza, despite 40 students signing a separate petition in support of Eliza, despite a protest, media attention, and multiple letters from around the world in support of Eliza, the university has decided to reaffirm their decision to force-quit Eliza from the classroom. She won’t even be allowed to come in for the final class. She will be allowed to get a critique from her university professor, though; the person who, it seems, is the one who has made all the complaints about her.

There are more than likely people reading this right now going “But a kid with Down Syndrome doesn’t belong in a university classroom.” Frankly, I’m not going to debate that with you. I’m not on the admissions team of a university. Unless you’re from SOU, you’re also not on the admissions team that has anything to do with the decision to accept Eliza. But Eliza was accepted by the university as a student. Any other student would be allowed to complete the course, even if they were disruptive, even if they were failing, even if they only attended three courses out of 12.

Frankly, this is shitty behaviour, and I am outraged both on behalf of Eliza, who deserved far better treatment than this, and on behalf of the students in her class who were used as an excuse and a shield by the university who then promptly ignored everything the students said in response.

Further Reading:
Disability Scoop: University Decision To Withdraw Student With Down Syndrome Sparks Outcry
Mail Tribune: SOU students protest rejection of woman with Down syndrome
The Arc: “I am not a disability”: Eliza’s Story
Mail Tribune: SOU dean reaffirms decision to drop art student with Down syndrome

Eliza’s University Experience

What is Ableism? Five Things About Ableism You Should Know

Ableism is discrimination against people with disabilities, including the expression of hate for people with disabilities, denial of accessibility, rejection of disabled applicants for housing and jobs, institutionalised discrimination in the form of benefits systems designed to keep people with disabilities in poverty, etc.

1. Ableism has a dictionary definition.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the world ableism back to 1981; likely the word was in use amongst activists before then.

[< ABLE adj. + -ISM suffix, after RACISM n., SEXISM n.2, etc. Compare ABLEIST adj., and also earlier ABLED adj. 2, ABLED n.] orig. U.S. Discrimination in favour of able-bodied people; prejudice against or disregard of the needs of disabled people. 1981 Off our Backs May 39/1 ‘Ableism’that is, the systemic oppression of a group of people because of what they can or can not do with their bodies or mindsis the result of..ignorance. 1993 R. HUGHES Culture of Complaint iii. 162 But certainly clause (3) made it clear that he was against racism, sexism, ableism, lookism and any of the other offences against social etiquette whose proscription by PC was already causing such mirth and laughter among the neo-conservatives. 1994 Canad. Woman Stud. Fall 92/2 Just as there is racism in the feminist movement, there is also ‘ablism’. Able-bodied women have not fully accepted women with disabilities. 2006 C. OYLER & B. HAMRE in C. Oyler Learning to teach Inclusively viii. 145 Although racism and sexism..are recognized as serious challenges to fairness, equity, and democracy,..ableism is often not even acknowledged.

It defines ableist as “Characterized by or exhibiting ableism.”

I mention the dictionary definition because people often claim that ableism is a made-up word that internet activists created just to annoy them, as opposed to a word with history that people with disabilities ihave been using to define their experiences for at least 30 years.

2. Ableism can be deliberate.

A. The Canadian Government went to court so they could continue to make their web content inaccessible to screen readers.

B. Clint Eastwood argued vehemently that 10 years was far too short a period of time to expect that businesses would follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and painted himself as a little guy fighting back against the “sleazy lawyers” preying on “the disabled”, rather than as someone who had been breaking the law for 10 years and was now choosing to fight for his right in court to continue to do so. John Stossel argued earlier this year that the ADA might require businesses to be accessible, and this was unacceptable 20 years after the ADA had been passed. [Content warning: John Stossel]

C. Where’s the Benefit has spent the last few months detailing out how cuts in spending will affect people with disabilities. It’s hard to pick just a few examples. How about the Member of Parliament who declared that anyone who was on Twitter too much wasn’t really disabled. Or what Disability Living Allowance (DLA) actually does being misrepresented by both the government and the press?

D. Dave Hingsburger: Service Interupted:

‘Purposeful exclusion,’ I said, ‘there is no way anyone could design this, approve this and build this, without knowing that people with disabilities will never be able to use it. That makes it purposeful. The fact that only certain people can now use it make it exclusion.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said but I interrupted.

‘This is bigotry in concrete, this is prejudice made of steel and glass, this is how builders and designers and hotel managers spit in the face of those with disabilities. They knew, they didn’t care, they did it anyways.’

E. Politicians across Canada, who make 30 second advertisements that are carefully scripted to make the best impact, don’t use the subtitling option when they upload those same 30-second scripted videos to YouTube. But I guess some politicians are okay with their videos looking like this (image description below):

Photobucket

Image description: Michael Ignatieff (older white dude in a sensible blue shirt and tie, his hair a bit windblown) with the caption “Don’t let anybody into Medicare”.

Actual quote: “Don’t let anybody intimidate you”.

3. Ableism has an academic definition.

Here’s a good example:

Ableism is a form of discrimination or prejudice against individuals with physical, mental, or developmental disabilities that is characterized by the belief that these individuals need to be fixed or cannot function as full members of society (Castañeda & Peters, 2000). As a result of these assumptions, individuals with disabilities are commonly viewed as being abnormal rather than as members of a distinct minority community (Olkin & Pledger, 2003; Reid & Knight, 2006). Because disability status has been viewed as a defect rather than a dimension of difference, disability has not been widely recognized as a multicultural concern by the general public as well as by counselor educators and practitioners.

Laura Smith, Pamela F. Foley, and Michael P. Chaney, “Addressing Classism, Ableism, and Heterosexism in Counselor Education”, Journal of Counseling & Development, Summer 2008, Volume 86, pp 303-309.

You can also get a degree in Disability Studies. There is a Disability History Association. There are several academic list-serves dedicated to discussion disability. You can go to disability-studies focused conferences. You can go to Deaf-studies focused conferences. You can get a degree in Deaf Studies. You can read a wide variety of academic books that discuss the history of ableism.

Or you could read people talking about their lives on their blogs. There are a lot of blogs where people talk about experiencing ableism.

4. Ableism can be accidental. This doesn’t make it okay.

A. I don’t think Google woke up one morning and decided to make some of their products completely inaccessible to certain users. I know they managed to pull it off anyway.

B. I don’t the mainstream media woke up one morning en masse and decided to ignore protests in support of the Community Choice Act. I know they managed to do it anyway. More than once.

C. I don’t think Canada’s Minister responsible for Disability-related issues deliberately sought out a wheelchair-inaccessible space for her constituency office. I do think continuing to have it 7 months after this was pointed out to her in Parliament is deliberate, though.

5. Ableism kills.

Record of the Dead: October 2010
Record of the Dead: September 2010
Betty Anne Gagnon and Murder Most Foul
Quick Hit: Parents of Disabled Children
Tracy Latimer is dead because her father is a murderer

Signal Boost: Web Survey on Sexual Harassment and Abuse of Students in Special Education

Via Finding My Way: Journey of an Uppity Intellecutal Activist Crip
Web Survey on Sexual Harassment and Abuse of Students in Special Education

My name is Mary Lou Bensy, and I am a Doctoral Student and researcher at Hofstra University, located in New York. As part of my Doctoral Dissertation, this ground-breaking research and survey is being conducted to help us learn more about the sexual harassment and abuse of special education students in schools. We need this vital information to help protect this victimized population. The survey is designed primarily to gather information on individuals with disabilities who have ever been sexually abused in school.

Parents, guardians, advocates and caregivers of students with disabilities are asked to respond on behalf of ONE victimized student per survey. If an individual chooses to respond on behalf of more than one student, he/she can feel free to take the survey more than once. Adult survivors are asked to complete the survey for themselves.

Note: Gender binary, US-centric so likely best for US residents to answer, TRIGGER WARNING for the questions, survey ends with link to sexual abuse resources, highlights that you can skip questions you don’t want to answer. The disabilities you can select flagged up to me as problematic groupings (“emotional disturbance”?) but this may be that I come from a different educational background.

As always, I cannot answer questions about this survey.

Recommended Reading for November 17, 2010

Your friendly neighbourhood Anna is out of town at the moment. Please enjoy this recommended reading post from the future.

Lindsay at Autist’s Corner: Doubly Deviant: On Being Queer and Autistic

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This is a very long, rambly autobiographical post about being bisexual and being autistic: it compares my experiences coming to terms with both of these facts (always knowing about the autism, vs. having to figure out the sexual orientation; and also, doubting the possibility that I could *have* a sexual orientation because I thought autistic people didn’t date or have sex, or even want to do either of those things) with those of Amanda Forest Vivian, who is a lesbian, and autistic, and has written about those things at some length at her own blog. I also discuss the ways being autistic has complicated being gay for me — besides my initial difficulty realizing that what I felt about girls was, in fact, sexual desire, there was also a profound isolation from the larger Gay Community, which I never felt like I could (or would want to) join.

Have we linked to High Functioning yet?

A list of different ways people use the word “high-functioning” about people with developmental disabilities; an attempt to figure out what it actually is supposed to mean.

Interested humans–people with disabilities, staff, family members, allies, and people who are more than one of those things–are invited to share different ways they have heard the term “high-functioning” be used.

Amanda Forest Vivian at I’m Somewhere Else: 12. Bird Brains

The classic example of impaired “social skills” in people with “Asperger’s” is a person who constantly talks about their favorite subject, and doesn’t notice other people’s boredom or discomfort. I will explore this by presenting two people who like to talk differently.

Shiva at Biodiverse Resistance: Call for Papers – * Critical Autism Seminar Day * Tuesday, 18th January 2011 (UK)

Keynote speaker: Anne McGuire* (Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada). Anne’s doctoral research analyses the social significance and productive effects of cultural representations of autism produced and circulated by individuals and collectives engaged in autism advocacy in the contemporary West.

Our aim is for this conference to be as inclusive as possible. We welcome activists, undergraduate and postgraduate students, practitioners and academics to join us.

Melissa Mitchell at Service Dogs: A Way of Life: Book Review: MAKING THE MOVE TO MANAGING YOUR OWN PERSONAL ASSISTANCE SERVICES (PAS): A Toolkit for Youth With Disabilities Transitioning to Adulthood

(includes PDF link to download of book)

This in-depth 69 page guide covers this ins and outs of personal assistants for youth with disabilities utilizing the stories of youth with disabilities to illustrate topics related to utilizing, hiring, and selecting personal assistants. Pages 10-12 talk about Service Dogs and an option for meeting personal care and assistant needs. The section is clear, honest and bringsup many good points people who are new to dogs often don’t realize.

US: National Federation of the Blind: Penn State Discriminates Against Blind Students and Faculty

Baltimore, Maryland (November 12, 2010): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of blind people, announced today that it has filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, requesting an investigation of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) for violating the civil rights of blind students and faculty. The NFB filed the complaint because a variety of computer- and technology-based services and Web sites at Penn State are inaccessible to blind students and faculty. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public state universities to offer equal access to their programs and services.

This is being discussed as well at the Chronicle of Higher Education: Penn State Accused of Discriminating Against Blind Students. Please be aware that the comments are… Well, they’re internet comments in a place that isn’t exactly disability-friendly, although there are many people pointing out that blind students would like to be able to get classroom material as well.

Anyway, I have just realised that I am actually writing this from the past – I always get confused when I travel if I’ve gone forward or backward in time.

Upcoming Events for the Week of November 15 to November 22

Events from the United States, Canada, and New Zealand.

US: San Francisco, California, November 15:

The Disability Issues Caucus of the National Communication Association will have a memorial for Paul Longmore at 7 p.m. Monday, November 15. It will be in the Franciscan A room of the Hilton San Francisco, at 333 O’Farrell Street. All are invited to attend.

Paul’s submission to the conference, his paper titled “what we have been prepared to see”: Charity Professionals and the Framing of Disease and Disability, was selected by anonymous review to receive the 2010 Top Paper award in the Disability Issues Caucus. His paper will be presented at the memorial and participants will have the opportunity to share their memories of Paul and his work.

For more information, please email Jim Cherney at jlcherney@wayne.edu

Canada: Langley, British Columbia, November 20:

Civil Rights Now! in Langley Nov 20

What is wrong in BC for people with disabilities and what can be done to make it right? Zosia Ettenberg and the Langley Pos-Abilities Society Present Civil Rights Now!

Saturday November 20
1:30 to 3:30 pm
Langley Senior Centre
20605—51B Ave, Langley

Civil Rights Now! Is a not for profit, non-partisan, all volunteer society that thinks the way the government of BC delivers services to people with disabilities strips them of their freedom and dignity. What do people with disabilities and their families need?

  • Law that gives the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter practical force and effect in their daily lives.
  • Law that gives every person with a disability truly-portable, sufficient-funded, consumer-driven Individualized funding.
  • The ability to enforce the law by government funding of test cases involving civil rights of people with disabilities.
  • Civil Rights Now! is organizing a campaign to persuade the provincial Liberals and NDP to make a commitment that if they win the next election they will put these three ideas into action.

    RSVP pos-abilities@telus.net 604.961.0117

    Everyone is welcome!

Canada: Toronto, Ontario, November 26

Students with disabilities who are interested in pursuing a career in rehabilitation research are invited to attend Toronto Rehab’s 6th Annual Research Day, a unique and fun way to learn more about research at Toronto Rehab.
Toronto Rehab’s 6th Annual Research Day

When: Friday, November 26, 2010, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Where: Sheraton Centre – Dominion Ballroom, 123 Queen Street West, Toronto

This year’s event will feature morning Minute Madness sessions where researchers are challenged to present their work in just one minute, a keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Philippa Clarke on “Optimizing Independence in Later Life: The Role of the Urban Built Environment”, as well as a poster session and interactive displays. Another highlight will be the awarding of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute Scholarship in Rehabilitation-related Research for Graduate Students with Disabilities, funded by TD Bank Financial Group.

This exciting event is a great way for students with disabilities to find out more about rehab research which encompasses a broad range of fields, and to meet scientists, students and award recipients.

Who can attend: All are welcome. Please join us!
Lunch will be provided. Registration is free. Space is limited so RSVP now.
Register online at this website. Registration will remain open until November 19, 2010. The Sheraton Centre is wheelchair accessible. (Attendees are asked to let us know about your accessibility requirements in advance – we will do our best to accommodate you. Please see the registration form.)

Check the Research Day webpage for more information. Questions? Contact Toronto Rehab’s Conference Services at conferences@torontorehab.on.ca or 416-597-3422 Ext. 3866.

New Zealand (all), November 3 to December 17
Via the Rolling Rains Report:

Have Your Say On International Disabilities Report

The Minister for Disability Issues, Hon Tariana Turia, is inviting public comment on a draft government report on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Government is required to report to the United Nations on how the Convention is being implemented in New Zealand.

“This is the first time New Zealand has reported to the United Nations about the Convention. I am very keen for disabled people and their families to have the opportunity to have input into this report” said Minister Turia.

From 3 November 2010 through to 17 December 2010 the Government is seeking public input into this report through face-to-face meetings, online discussion and written submission.

Sadly, I can’t answer questions about any of these events.

USICD Hosting Skype Conference Call on Global Disability Rights Library for International Audience

(via email)

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

On Tuesday November 16 and Thursday November 18, 2010, USICD will host a pair of Skype teleconference calls for the International Disability Community introducing an opportunity to get involved in disseminating disability rights information globally. The calls will both cover the same content but are timed differently to accommodate time zone differences. Unlike past teleconferences on this topic, these are offered via Skype because we value our international colleagues and want to enable them to communicate with us more easily and cheaply.

You know that the disability rights movement is made stronger when disability rights leaders, policy makers, and allies have access to the knowledge they need to learn how to transform their society. But too many advocates in developing countries are excluded from the information age. In some countries, less than 5 percent of the population has Internet access.

The Global Disability Rights Library (GDRL) project is working to close the information gap for people with disabilities and their supporters who cannot access the Internet. After the GDRL is built and disseminated, it will put transformative knowledge into the hands of change makers in a position to improve the lives of people with disabilities in developing countries. But no single organization can do full justice to the wealth and diversity of disability knowledge available in the field. We need to call upon the expertise of a broad cross section of organizations like yours to help deliver as much quality library content as possible to as many recipients as we can reach.

During this call we will:

  • Briefly describe the partnership between USICD and the University of Iowa’s WiderNet project that is making the GDRL project possible
  • Explain the innovative technology that will enable us to deliver knowledge to disability rights advocates in developing countries without using the Internet
  • Invite your involvement in sharing knowledge and resources that will strengthen the ability of advocates worldwide to promote the human rights of people with disabilities in their countries
    • Learn more about the GDRL at the following web links:

      Global Disability Rights Library

      More on the Global Disability Rights Library

      Please join us on either Tuesday, November 16 at 9:00 am EST (2:00pm GMT) OR Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:00am EST (4:00pm GMT), for a teleconference call to learn more about the Global Disability Rights Library and how you can join us in building it.

      The call will be free for Skype users. To participate, please email Ellis Ballard, USICD’s Research and Programs Associate, at eballard@usicd.org with your Skype username. We will contact you via Skype to share contact details and ensure your participation in the call.

      If you do not have Skype but have an internet connection, you can download the program at Skype and start a free account.

      Streaming CART transcription will be available for anyone who would like it. Sign onto the CART page at the time of the call and you will be able to follow real-time text transcription.

      If you have any questions, feel free to email Ellis Ballard at eballard AT usicd DOT org.

      David Morrissey and I look forward to talking with you about the GDRL on either November 16th or 18th!

      Sincerely,

      Andrea

      Andrea Shettle, MSW, MA
      Program Manager, Global Disability Rights Library
      United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD)
      1012 14th Street, NW, Suite 105
      Washington, DC 20005
      ashettle@usicd.org
      http://www.usicd.org