Tag Archives: disability justice

Accessibility and Inclusion, Disability, Thoughts

What is the future of accessibility?

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I have been asked to present a talk about accessibility for the upcoming USC Future of Computing symposium, which is is framed as a vision of the next 25 years. I am struggling mightily with this task, at this moment in time.

The talk I started with

On the one hand, I see the future of the field in the wonderful work that is being led by the current generation of amazing accessibility researchers, many of them disabled and activist in addition to being scientists. The WordCloud below highlights some of the prominent topics found in their recent (2023 and 2024) publications, which include “intersectionality”, “gai”, “representation”, “fabrication”, “diy”, “justice”, and “community” among others.

Wordcloud showing prominently bvi, intersectionality, gai, accessibility, fabrication, dhh, experiences, robots, design, representation, diy, neurodivergent, and about 70 other words
Wordcloud of paper titles [and my coding of the same] from 2023 and 2024 by prominent accessibility authors.

I had a paragraph here that named all of the amazing folks whose work I drew from in creating that word cloud. And then I thought better of it because I have read about the attacks that academics now face for something as benign as improving student learning by starting with those most marginalized. Even without names, though, I can talk about the trend toward justice-centered, intersectional work that is increasingly changing who is represented in our research. I can emphasize the importance of DIY and self determination and highlight the expertise and advances driven by the lived experience of researchers who advance technology they themselves use. And I can praise the passion and advocacy that so many folks bring to their work, whatever disability communities they work with. This community is helping to redefine what accessibility research means, who it serves, and how it serves us while also advancing our ability to utilize the newest technologies, from generative AI to robotics to consumer-grade fabrication. The future they are inventing will not only benefit people with disabilities, it will create a more compassionate, flexible, and accommodating world for all of us.

The talk I need to give

How can I talk only about the glowing future above, when I am watching the dismantling of the rights our community has fought so hard for, at least in the United States? I feel obliged to talk about the future we face if this dismantling succeeds. Because we know what that world looks like — we have only to look to the past.

On February 10, 2025, the US Department of Education canceled research contracts with Spotsylvania County Public Schools as well as school districts across the Commonwealth and nation. We received notification at 10:19 p.m. on February 10, 2025, to immediately cancel anything supported by the Charting My Path for Future Success Project funding. The SCPS Charting My Path for Future Success Project provided instruction and support for our high school students with disabilities to help prepare for the transition from high school. The cancellation of this program impacts 91 SCPS students and five full-time instructors who were funded by the

These risks don’t just come from one place. Some are driven by states, some by the federal government, all are fed by individual prejudice, ignorance, and the pressure to prioritize progress over access. However, there is one thing that policy, prejudice, and pressure cannot control, and that is whether or not we stand strong as one united community fighting these changes. By making Texas v. Becerra about trans rights, the state attorneys general are trying to force people to choose who counts as disabled, and fight only for some disabled people. By bombarding us with horrors from the terrified immigrants deported to Panama to the forceful and multifaceted state by state and federal attacks on trans rights, government seeks not only to divide but also to overwhelm us.

But these attacks cannot stop us from fighting, and many many people are already doing so. The disability community is lucky to have many organizations with civil rights expertise like the American Association of Persons with Disabilities, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, New Disabled South already active and informed and informing us about actions against things like Texas v. Becerra. Action also looks like organizing meetings among your community, making all of your classes as accessible as possible to all students even if they have no accommodations, going to bat for a disabled student within your university, or simply letting someone know you are there for them. In the words of my friend, colleague and role model:

Amy J. Ko @amyko.phd Build something. A group, a community, a resistance, a support, a plan, a vision. Anything, for any problem. And if you don't have the energy, rest up, so you can join later. If you can't rest, pace yourself. We need you well, to stay in the fight. Peace will come later, because we'll fight for it.
  1. M. Kent. Disability and elearning: Opportunities and barriers. Disability Studies Quarterly, 35(1), 2015. ↩︎
  2. This stigma plays out both when generative AI is used to screen resumes and with human employers (Ameri, M., Schur, L., Adya, M., Bentley, F. S., McKay, P., & Kruse, D. (2018). The disability employment puzzle: A field experiment on employer hiring behavior. ILR Review, 71(2), 329-364). ↩︎
Accessibility and Inclusion, Thoughts

Accessibility has always needed to be part of DEIA, and we shouldn’t change that now

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Disability and other identities are intrinsically linked together, and the disability community has long called for DEI to include disability. Anyone can become disabled at any time, and identity can impact access to, and likelihood of, various diagnoses. Unfortunately, disability is often used as a bogeyman, or a way of gatekeeping access. For example, some states have regulations that “create barriers to gender affirming care for autistic people and people with mental health disabilities” (Autism Self Advocacy Network, 3/22/23). Conversely, there are efforts to limit accessibility to only include some disabled people. For example, a key argument of an ongoing court cases attacking section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Texas v. Becerra) is that gender dysphoria cannot be validly included under the definition of disability (Mother Jones, 10/15/24). And although the disability community has always included people of color, trans and LGBTQ people, it has not always fully welcomed them.

To unpack this, it helps to understand what “counts” as disability. Disability is defined quite broadly in relevant federal laws (Section 504 and the ADA), as anything that “substantially limits a person’s ability to perform major life activities,” has a “record of such impairment“, or is “regarded as having such an impairment.1” However, ableism, bias and politics may influence access to this status. For example, many organizations require diagnosis to provide accommodations, and this process can exclude people more likely to encounter medical ableism2, lower income groups,3 or those who lack access to information about their disability rights4. An alternative (which I use in my work) is to trust disabled people to know whether and how they are disabled. This includes trans people, who may have gender dysphoria that is disabling.

Now there is a federal campaign against Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA)5 . This includes accessibility: The White House has stopped including sign language interpretation in press briefings and videos (National Association of the Deaf, 1/31/25) and taken away interpretation services from federal employees (The Daily Moth). It also includes DEI. An Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memo issued 2/5/25 argued against not only affirmative action, but also any “training or professional development.” The memo includes, for example, ERGs that promote “employee retention agendas.” The National Science Foundation (NSF) wrote to PIs that “All NSF grantees must [cease] all non-compliant activities… that [use] DEIA principles and frameworks.”

All NSF grantees must comply with these Executive Orders, and any other relevant Executive Orders issued, by ceasing all non-compliant grant and award activities. Executive Orders are posted at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/. In particular, this may include, but is not limited to conferences, trainings, workshops, considerations for staffing and participant selection, and any other grant activity that uses or promotes the use of DEIA principles and frameworks or violates Federal anti-discrimination laws. Please...

Yet this campaign is also trying to divide us. On the one hand, the campaign is aggressive to the point of being nonsensical. One recent example is the recent document purge at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which includes documents that simply use words such as “diverse” no matter the context. A case in point is the recently deleted “OSHA Best Practices for Protecting EMS Responders During Treatment and Transport of Victims of Hazardous Substance Releases,”6 which mentions the “diverse conditions under which EMS responders could work.” This rollback in the name of DEIA is not only unrelated to DEIA, it puts workers at further risk of becoming disabled.

On the other hand, that same Feb 5th OPM memo retains some disability related protections, stating “agencies should not terminate or prohibit accessibility or disability-related accommodations, assistance, or other programs that are required by [law].” While this final statement is reassuring regarding basic access rights, it is also critical to recognize that, in the words of Audrey Lorde, “We do not live single issue lives.” This is behind a key principle of disability justice (Sins Invalid), which demands that “no body or mind can be left behind” and is committed to cross-disability and cross-movement solidarity.

I have had to navigate programs in which I was the only woman, and only disabled person that I knew, for much of my early career. I want to emphasize how valuable and essential such programs are. Had I not been invited to attend the very first symposium on women and computing in the 90s, which featured many amazing women in STEM as speakers, I would not be a researcher today — my mentors in college assumed that I would go to med school, without ever asking me. Yet the US government is removing any evidence of such role models from its halls and websites.7 It was with the help of disabled mentors as a new faculty member that I began to evolve and grow my disability identity. In my sign language learning, I have only been exposed to signs that describe my queer identity in queer-led spaces.

Despite recent events, it continues to be illegal both to violate laws that provide for disability accommodation, and to discriminate based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”8 To my mind, obeying the law means actively working not to discriminate, including learning about and trying to rectify unfair advantages where I observe them. The narrow definition of accessibility in the recent OPM memo only protects one thing (accommodations) for one group (disabled people). We must not comply “in advance,” but instead continue working together toward a fair and just world for all affected communities.

Photo credit: Disabled And Here

  1. This later statement also means that if a person is effectively using assistive technology for accommodation, they still qualify as disabled even if they can now perform relevant activities (since they have a “record” of impairment). ↩︎
  2. Janz, Heidi L. “Ableism: the undiagnosed malady afflicting medicine.” CMAJ 191.17 (2019): E478-E479.
    APA ↩︎
  3. N. J. Evans, E. M. Broido, K. R. Brown, and A. K. Wilke. Disability in Higher Education: A social justice approach. John Wiley & Sons, 2017. ↩︎
  4. J. Banks. Barriers and supports to postsecondary transition: Case studies of African American students with disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 35(1):28–39, 2014. ↩︎
  5. AAPD has written a great explainer of the campaign and how it impacts disabled people. https://www.aapd.com/explaining-deia-recent-actions/ ↩︎
  6. Best Practices for Protecting EMS Responders during Treatment and Transport of Victims of Hazardous Substance Releases, Occupational Safety and Health Administration U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA 3370-11, 2009, available via the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20241128074409/https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3370-protecting-EMS-respondersSM.pdf). ↩︎
  7. The Women in STEM blog is working to rectify this: https://womeninstemus.blogspot.com/2025/02/us-women-in-stem-manifesto.html ↩︎
  8. Civil Rights Act (1964) https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/civil-rights-act ↩︎