Essays on Disability

This is a list of all my published pieces on disability, grouped into the following categories: Violence, Inclusion, and Representation. Some pieces could be placed in multiple categories.

Violence and Criminalization

  1. In Autism Arrest, Only Thing New was Video (CNN, 4/22/17)
  2. Disability Rights on Death Row (Pacific Standard, 4/21/17)
  3. The Supreme Court Sets a New Precedent on the Death Penalty and Disability (March 2017, Pacific Standard)
  4. Disabled Americans: Stop Murdering Us (March 2017, Pacific Standard)
  5. How a Prosecutor used Disability to Claim Sexual Assault was just Bullying (Pacific Standard, 1/10/17)
  6. Facebook Live Attack and Violence against Disabled Americans (CNN, 1/6/17)
  7. Rape Culture and Disability – Nicholas Fifield and Jane Doe (Pacific Standard, 9/8/16)
  8. Remember the Sagamihara 19 (Pacific Standard, 8/19/16)
  9. The Massacre in Japan Was Not an Anomaly (Pacific Standard, 7/26/16)
  10. Charles Kinsey: Shooting a Man Lying Down With His Hands Up (CNN.com, 7/22/16)
  11. Hung by his Belt: Mistreatment of Disabled Child in Georgia (CNN.com, 5/4/16)
  12. How to End the School to Prison Pipeline (Pacific Standard, 3/24/16)
  13. When Teachers Abuse Disabled Children (Pacific Standard, 12/17/2015)
  14. Beyond the Crisis: Philip Coleman, the Chicago PD, and Mental Illness Response (CNN.com, 12/17/2015)
  15. Paul Ryan Blames Mass Shootings on Mental Illness (Al Jazeera America, 12/5/15)
  16. The San Bernardino Massacre (CNN.com, 12/3/15)
  17. The Outrage of Handcuffing Children in Schools (CNN.com, 8/5/15)
  18. The Corrosive Cult of Compliance in Our Schools (Al Jazeera America, 4/22/15)
  19. Sheehan vs SF: A Chance to Reduce Police Killings of People with Disabilities (Al Jazeera America, 3/22/15)
  20. To assess LAPD shooting, look past the moment of gunfire. (CNN.com, 3/2/15)
  21. Kristiana Coignard Did Not Have to Die (CNN.com, 2/2/15)
  22. Police Violence Sparks Disability Rights Movement (Al Jazeera America, 12/22/14)
  23. Eric Garner: The Intersections of Race and Disability (CNN.com 12/4/14)
  24. The Death of London McCabe: Child Murder & Discourse of Disability (CNN.com 11/10/2014)
  25.  Psychiatric Disability & the Police: The search for reasonable accommodations (CNN.com, 8/26/14)
  26. Ferguson and the Cult of Compliance (Al Jazeera America, 8/15/2014)
  27. Police Violence and Disability, with Lawrence Carter-Long (TheAtlantic.com, 5/6/14)
  28. Rape Culture and Disability Intersect in Georgia (CNN.com, 3/11/2014)
  29. Police Accountability and Attacks on the Disabled (History News Network, 9/4/2013)
  30. Ethan Saylor: Disability Rights are Universal Human Rights (CNN.com, 8/29/2013).
  31. When Cops Criminalize the Disabled (TheNation.com, 8/1/2013)

Inclusion and Family

  1. Restaurants Haven’t Lived Up to the Promise of the American Disabilities Act (Eater, 5/31/17)
  2. Uber’s Deregulated Business Violates Disability Rights Law (Newsweek, 5/17/17)
  3. How to Break Ground for Deaf Actors in Hollywood (April 2017, Pacific Standard)
  4. Stop Calling Some Needs ‘Special’ (March 2017, The Establishment)
  5. Academic Jobs Screen out Disabled Candidates (Pacific Standard, 2/14/17)
  6. Don’t Turn my son’s Dancing into Inspiration Porn (The Establishment, 2/8/17)
  7. Down Syndrome and Stories (Pacific Standard, 1/13/17)
  8. My Non-Verbal Son and Hamilton (Washington Post, 10/21/16)
  9. Inclusion isn’t about Intention, but Communication (TES.com, 9/27/16)
  10. Stop Celebrating Random Kindness; Plan Kindness Instead (CNN.com, 9/7/16)
  11. Disability Rights and Reproductive Rights in the Age of Zika (Los Angeles Times, 8/29/16)
  12. No One Should Have to Crowdfund a Wheelchair (Pacific Standard, 7/5/16)
  13. Universal Design: Saying Goodbye to In-Class Tests (Chronicle Vitae, 5/24/16)
  14. ‘Amoris Laetitia’ has a Narrow View of Disability (Crux, 4/12/16)
  15. Narrative Deployments of Disability (Los Angeles Review of Books, 4/6/16)
  16. How Disabled Academics Work (Chronicle Vitae, 3/21/16)
  17. Job Discrimination in Plain Print (Al Jazeera America, 2/10/15)
  18. Disabled People Need Not Apply (Al Jazeera America, 2/5/15)
  19. Brookfield Zoo Gets Inclusion Right (Chicago Special Parent, 1/3/16)
  20. When Traveling with Children, there Are No Special Needs (12/22/15)
  21. Halloween and the Social Model of Disability (Pacific Standard Magazine, 10/27/15)
  22. The Surprisingly Simple Future of Assistive Technology (Al Jazeera America, 8/17/15)
  23. US schools must stop excluding children with disabilities (Al Jazeera America, 6/16/15)
  24. What Kids Learn When Adults Aren’t Inclusive (Washington Post, 6/11/15)
  25. Speaking Out Against Autism Speaks (NYTimes.com, 6/4/15)
  26. Zoo Camp for All (Belt Magazine, 5/12/15)
  27. “Daddy, What’s Down Syndrome?” (Yahoo! Parenting, 3/17/15)
  28. Information, Not Inspiration: How to work against the fear of Down syndrome (CNN.com, 2/18/15)
  29. Airlines Break Too Many Wheelchairs – But We can Fix It (Al Jazeera America, 1/31/15)
  30. Anti-Choice Legislators Try to Force Wedge Between Reproductive, Disability Rights Activists (Reproductive Health Reality Check, 1/16/15)
  31. Harsh Critics in Public Spaces, Judging Only What They See (NYTimes.com, 1/12/15)
  32. For Parents of Children With Down Syndrome, ‘Abortion vs. Hardship’ Is a False Binary (Reproductive Health Reality Check, 11/18/2014)
  33. No Longer “Falling off the Cliff” – College for People with Intellectual Disabilities (Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/11/14)
  34. Review: Disability and Technology in John Scalzi’s Lock In (Huffington Post, 8/29/14)
  35. The problems with telling jokes about Down Syndrome (CNN.com, 8/6/2014)
  36. “Never Alone – Our Story of Down Syndrome Diagnosis” (BLOOM Magazine, 7/21/14).
  37. Jenny McCarthy and Fear-based Parenting (CNN.com, 7/17/2013)
  38. The Public Health Menace of Jenny McCarthy (Atlantic.com, 7/11/2013)
  39. The Angel/Retard Dialectic (CNN.com, 11/16/2012)
  40. Down Syndrome and the Discourse of Abortion (Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune, print edition 10/5/2008)

Representation and Politics

  1. ACLU sues New Hampshire for Disenfranchising Disabled Voters (Pacific Standard, 5/16/17)
  2. What should you do when your favorite celebrity gets autism wrong? (Pacific Standard, 4/19/17)
  3. The Shows Shaking Up Disability Representation on Television (March 2017, Pacific Standard)
  4. How to Debunk Myths About Autism (February 2017, Pacific Standard)
  5. Can Disability Rights Stay Bipartisan? (March 2017, Pacific Standard)
  6. Meet the Radical Disabled Americans Fighting the GOP Health Care Bill (March 2017, Pacific Standard)
  7. How Disabled Americans Are Fighting the GOP Health-Care Bill (March 2017, Pacific Standard)
  8. Betsy DeVos and Special Education (Pacific Standard, 1/18/17)
  9. Use Streep to Get Real on Disability (CNN, 1/9/17)
  10. Disability Heads to the Polls (Pacific Standard, 11/2/16 and October Print)
  11. Trump: The Most Ableist Candidate in Modern US History (Los Angeles Times, 10/17/16)
  12. Speechless is Breaking New Ground on Television (The Atlantic, 9/21/16)
  13. Paralympics: Why Playing Sports While Disabled is a Radical Act (Rolling Stone, 9/13/16)
  14. Dear GOP: Stop mocking people with disabilities (CNN.com, 9/9/16)
  15. Stop Calling Trump Crazy (CNN.com, 8/4/16)
  16. Hillary Clinton’s Plan for Disability Rights Shows She’s a True Progressive (Playboy, 7/26/16)
  17. Why Don’t Political Ads about Disability Have Captions? (The Establishment, 7/8/16)
  18. Dante: An Intersectional Political TV Ad (The Establishment, 7/1/16)
  19. Pope Francis needs to do more than Kiss the Disabled (Crux, 6/14/16)
  20. Grace: An Anti-Trump Ad Full of Disability Stereotypes (TheAtlantic.com, 6/12/16)
  21. Indiana Abortion Law Won’t Help The Disabled (USA Today, 3/26/16)
  22. Olivia Wilde’s PSA on World Down Syndrome Day (The Establishment, 3/21/16)
  23. Disabled Americans Get Political (The Establishment, 3/10/16)
  24. Sexual Ableism (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2/25/16)
  25. Inspiration Porn Objectifies People with Disabilities (The Establishment, 2/25/16)
  26. Mount St. Mary’s Ableist Plan to Push Our Disabled Students (The Establishment, 2/25/16)
  27. A Reporting Project Puts Disabilities on the Political Agenda (The Atlantic, 1/25/16)
  28. Autism: Can other candidates match Hillary Clinton’s plan? (CNN.com, 1/10/16)
  29. Reality TV Takes on Down Syndrome (Al Jazeera America, 12/21/15)
  30. Politicians are Ignoring Americans with Disabilities (Al Jazeera America, 11/10/15)
  31. Fix “Autism Speaks.” (Al Jazeera America, 10/9/15)
  32. What Switched at Birth gets Right and Wrong about Families Like Mine  (Salon.com, 9/8/15)
  33. Down Syndrome, Prenatal Testing, and a Teenage Soap Opera? The Importance of Switched At Birth (The Mary Sue, 9/02/15)
  34. A “Bechdel-Wallace” Test for the Disability Community (Al Jazeera America, 8/30/15)
  35. Stop Politicizing Down Syndrome and Abortion (CNN.com, 8/24/15)
  36. Inspiration Porn Disables the Disabled (Al Jazeera America, 6/3/15)
  37. Daredevil and Scenes of Ordinary Disability (Vice.com, 4/20/15)
  38. RFK Jr. owes a lot of people an apology for his comments on autism (CNN.com, 4/16/15)
  39. Bruce Rauner: Picking on Society’s Most Vulnerable (CNN.com, 3/18/15)
  40. Playing Politics with the Disabled (Al Jazeera America, 11/26/2014)
  41. Down Syndrome – Getting Beyond “Cute” (Al Jazeera America, 10/15/2014)
  42. Kanye West and Questioning Disability (CNN.com, 9/16/2014)
  43. Do we need Trigger Warnings in the Classroom? (CNN.com, 5/20/2014)