Journalist – Historian – Speaker
We are taking our family camping for the first time since our son was an infant. My wife and I love to camp, though we never did it as much as we would have liked before we had kids. Then Nico was born and it quickly just all seemed too hard, too complicated, too exhausting. …
Separate is never equal. My emphasis. Georgia illegally segregates thousands of students with behavioral disorders in schools that often are dirty, in poor repair and, in some cases, once served as blacks-only facilities before court-ordered integration, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Wednesday. In a strongly worded letter to Gov. Nathan Deal and Attorney General Sam …
A Chicago woman was pulled over in Texas for not signalling a lane change correctly. The Texas police escalated it and got violent. Later, she was found dead in a jail cell. I hope we’ll learn more about what happened and that the people responsible for this will be held accountable. So much more to …
From the Huffington Post: Text reads: stared at this writer the whole time with intimidating look on her face. The yard Sergeant was contacted over XXXXX actions were intimidating, caused alarm to officer of an intent to abuse or injure. A child was sent to prison under a sentence that would expunge her record once …
With the 25th Anniversary of the ADA coming up, I’ve been doing some disability history writing, some of which I’ll get to make public in a few weeks. Here’s the latest gem from my research. A 1988 Washington Post editorial on disability identity. Jill Robinson watched the televised images of Gallaudet protesters and thought excitedly, …
I am a white, cis-male, abled, tenured, upper middle class, married, American. I write about disability, gender, parenting, children, poverty, state violence, representation, feminism, and other topics related to inequality and social justice. In almost every context, I represent the privileged side of whatever power dynamic I’m exploring. Over the past few years, therefore, I’ve …
This spring I wrote about Inclusion at Zoo Camp for my son Nico (and many other kids, of course). He goes in a few weeks and we’re all very excited. Here’s a less happy story about summer camp. An Ohio mother is suing a YMCA she says won’t accept her son into its general summer program, …
Really proud about this piece on accessible conferences. It could have been 5000 words longer, with all the stories of inaccessibility that I collected. We know academic conferences matter. When they are affordable and meaningful, they provide opportunities to network, improve our CVs, and allow those of us mired in teaching and bureaucracy to reconnect with our …
I believe today I will have a piece at Chronicle Vitae on accessibility and academic conferences. When we don’t make our events accessible, when we don’t broadcast that we are open to discussions about accessibility, we’re making powerful statements about our values. As an analogy, here’s an outstanding piece about the ways that live music venues …
On July 1, the Washington Post published a major piece on mental illness and police violence. It’s incredibly important; it’s also important that the conversation moves forward and moves OUT of the illness/CIT conversation and into a disability/accommodation conversation. CNN wrote a followup piece. It quotes me. While CIT is working in some communities, some experts …