The Americans with Disabilities Act is under attack. I co-wrote a piece for the Washington Post about H.R. 620. It’s serious. It has lots of co-sponsors. And it’s got to be stopped. The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 is perhaps the most wide-ranging civil rights act in the world. After decades of political struggle by…
I wrote about my son’s bright green hearing protectors for Pacific Standard. I hesitated to get them at first, badly swayed by the idea that they would more firmly mark him as different and cause isolation. They do the opposite. They open up the world. Including Hamilton. Here’s the takeaway: I’m not alone. I know far…
I wrote a piece for The Nation on people with disabilities killed by police over the last week, writing that the number was four. It was, however, actually at least 9 (the information wasn’t available when I filed). My hope for this piece is to push back at the training and registry narrative that gets so…
For Pacific Standard, I write about the free speech complexities of the upcoming “free speech week.” First, the organizers didn’t even ask the speakers or book the spaces before they started crying oppression. Second, “security concerns” forced the Anthropology department to cancel a long-planned talk. I write: “Thanks to “safety concerns,” the annual distinguished lecture…
Why #DeafInPrison Can’t Call Home.@MarshallProj covers HEARD’s years-long #PhoneJustice battle. https://t.co/1FMnKveSt4 — HEARD (@behearddc) September 19, 2017 Glad to see this from The Marshall Project. Right now, most deaf detainees and prisoners have absolutely no telecommunications access,” said Talila Lewis, volunteer director of the nonprofit Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf communities (HEARD),…
CONTENT NOTE: This post includes many quotes with slurs of all sorts. Please be advised. Incredibly, there seems to be a debate among serious people about whether Milo Yiannopoulos is actually all that bad. It’s easy to forget that most folks aren’t spending that much time paying attention to online issues, so are unaware of…
I spoke with On the Media about Taylor Swift and Medieval Studies and Nazis, in response to my Pacific Standard article. There’s a lot going within medieval studies right now, but I don’t want us to forget this. White supremacist appropriation of medieval content is ongoing. We shoudn’t forget the students at University of Nevada Reno who…
I will be sending the following email to the President of Vassar. Dear President Bradley, I am a medieval historian and a journalist, writing in support of Assistant Professor of English, Dr. Dorothy Kim. Dr. Kim is a brilliant scholar and one of the foremost leaders in ongoing efforts to confront both the shameful legacy…
It started with a tweetstorm in May. Let’s talk about #BodilyAutonomy as a core Democratic party value. A core American value. Is there a better term for it? More catchy? /1 — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 8, 2017 Grumpy at the “let’s stop with identity politics” takes, I offered my thoughts on how we…
A professor of Atmospheric Sciences stepped down (he was 70) at the University of Illinois rather than appropriately address accommodations in his classroom. His emails to the student emerged in the process, including one he BCC’d to the entire class saying disability support (and perhaps Graddy herself – I know nothing about how they identify)…