In April 2014, Sesame Street announced a partnership with Autism Speaks. Autistic indivduals and their allies quickly organized to push Sesame Street to do better, and not listen solely to a group dedicated to perpetuating the worst stereotypes about autism. The results are pretty good. From an LA Times article on the process: Children with…
Pay attention to South Africa and the #FeesMustFall movement, where students are protesting higher education costs and are being met with state violence. I’ve been watching the hashtag (and some related ones). The attempt to raise fees is broadly seen as a movement to exclude poor black students from higher education. Here’s a BBC article,…
One of my regular twitter correspondents reached out to me recently to discuss his plans for a low-sensory-input planetarium show. He already had all the good ideas, but we chatted and confirmed that this would work, and I’m thrilled he’s moved forward with the plan. Here’s the announcement. We’re planning to go! We wanted to…
I’m giving a public lecture tonight, October 20, at Lewis University on disability and diversity in honor of the 25th anniversary of the ADA. I’ll also be a panelist at a workshop on disability and journalism on November 2-3, via Access Living and Poynter.
Kim Nielsen, professor of disability studies at the University of Toledo, has a new blog post up at the Beacon Broadside (note: from Beacon Press, also my publisher) announcing their undergraduate major in disability studies. It’s the first such major in the country. “I’ve never been this excited about my education before,” my student said as we…
My thesis – We cannot arm our way to less gun violence. Unfortunately, in Wisconsin, the GOP legislature will likely try to do just that, by allowing guns on college campuses. Because if you are in thrall to the NRA, there are literally no other ideas to try. Read Chuck Rybak’s moving essay on the…
Next Tuesday I will speaking about disability and diversity at Lewis University. Details here. Open to the public. Last week I went to Toledo to talk about public writing with other academics, then gave a talk on why police kill people with disabilities. Grateful to my hosts and everyone who came. I was also on…
I am very excited to be going to the University of Toledo tomorrow to offer a talk: Why do police kill people with disabilities? Are you in the area? It’s a public lecture this Friday, 10/16. Details: Memorial Field House, Room 1030, 2:00. Description: A third to a half of all people killed by police…
Disability continues to be a largely ignored issue in the presidential primaries except for when it comes to gun violence, when the candidates get things entirely wrong. Here’s 100% of what Sanders or Clinton (the only candidates that actually might get nominated) said about disability last night. SANDERS: Let’s begin, Anderson, by understanding that Bernie…
Laura Michele Diener is an associate professor of history at Marshall. She works on medieval textile history, and I first met her when she gave a terrific presentation on using textile creation in the classroom. Recently, though, I’ve become aware of her public writing on contemporary issues. One of my theories about academics turning to…