I don't know if two articles qualify as a "PR blitz" yet, but this is the 2nd article I've seen in 2 weeks interviewing disability cops in higher ed about "what disabled students need", which is actually about what abled-led institutions choose to require.
It is likely not just a coincidence that these articles are coming out in June...not just because of freshmen students preparing for Fall, but because the 34th Anniversary of ADA is coming on July 26.
Abled-led news media fails us all by not talking to disabled advocates & activists about #ableism in Higher Ed. @disability
Disabled Members’ Council of the National Union of Journalists calls for #InclusivePressAccess to the general election campaign
“Journalists with lived experience of disability play a vital role in analysing and communicating manifesto pledges and countering the dehumanising rhetoric about disabled people that has become all too common recently.”
Such BS...how can you do research that doesn't question whether the way accessibility is currently being offered is the problem?
This reads more like "Given that we don't want to follow legal bare minimums, how can we put the onus on disabled people & blame them when they 'fall short' as intended?"
Just a reminder that organized religions are full of such good people that they successfully lobbied to get themselves exempted from the Americans with Disabilities Act. So as hard as it is getting secular ableist workplaces to obey the law, religions got themselves an exemption.
A mistake many people make is thinking that ADA can only be met through offices of rationing & policing. No. That is how the ableists running UC choose to deny accessibility as the default and make ppl have to beg & eventually sue for accessibility.
Pushing for more funding for these offices is still granting their premise that doing things this way is being accessible to the public that funds UC. It isn't. #Ableism#Disability#UCAccessNow@academicchatter
I hate when media does inspiration porn stories in general, but particularly when:
They let a newly disabled person with tons of internalized ableism become "the voice of disabled people"
and
When that "success story" clearly came from access to therapeutic supports the average person doesn't have, yet now everyone who doesn't meet their standard of recovery "must not be trying hard enough". #Ableism@disability
🧵 What is this? After pushing UC for 4 years now to quit designing buildings where inaccessibility is the default, a main entrance to a building is wheelchair accessible?
Ah, there's the UC Davis we know. Unnecessary steps because you weren't specifically PAID to do your duty under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act nor to actually make a public university accessible to the public.
🧵 Even before I formed @ucaccessnow, I persisted through campus channels trying to get them to acknowledge that cycle racks ALSO have to be accessible, not car parking spaces. After months of brick walls with UC and my union, I got a meeting with the head of UC Davis TAPS, who
This is why I & @ucaccessnow want all cycle racks to be accessible designs, accessibly sited. Here we have a twofer - for-profit micromobility that was given carte blanche on campus & in town without offering accessible vehicles nor a just plan for dealing with bad actors...like the people who parked at the new rationed "oversized cycle parking only" racks.
On the same trip, saw SPIN cycles dumped in the middle of the mixed-use path, parked at the end spots which are the only spots on these inaccessible #DavisCA racks where trikes, quads, and bakfiets can fit, and parked blocking egress from disabled auto spaces.
Don't ration accessibility; it's nearly guaranteed selfish people & corporations will take it. Build everything as accessible as possible.
I just replied to the same email they sent the survey link to me with. The one thing I wanted to give them as feedback in response to their questions about why I hadn't kept my membership.
"What has kept me from renewing with all plant science professional orgs has been the lack of accessibility & inclusion for disabled people. The ageism towards older students is also not helpful or welcoming."
Compare the speed with which businesses & institutions are adopting AI (despite its inaccuracy and lack of ethical provenance) to the footdragging that makes businesses & institutions inaccessible even 34 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law.
I don't want to hear a fucking word about accessibility being an "undue hardship" ever again.
University of California is holding its annual survey of undergraduates. It surveys on several subjects, including "campus climate for diversity and inclusiveness". This is especially important for disabled undergrads to weigh in on, IMO. If there are freeform comment fields, make sure to fill them with anything you want them to know that they're NOT asking you about.
This excerpt from a DEI survey shows the attitude: In their view, it's not up to the university or the department to do the work to be as accessible as they can be by default (highest common denominator accessibility). It's up to the disabled person to take on the labor of fighting for our rights and they'll "accommodate" us if we take it up the chain (they don't).
Even the word "accommodation" betrays that they like inaccessibility to be the norm, from which they may occasionally deviate if you do the work, fill out the forms, and beg.
#Ableism is telling disabled people they want too much convenience and should toughen up (and go through loads of $ and bureaucracy to get even bare minimum ADA "accommodations")...
....while centering the hardships of presumably abled parents and caretakers for disabled people when writing a caption like this.
I took a ride later today than usual. At least part of it was in the dark. I wish I'd known we were this close to the Coffee Center on campus opening. I'd love to have brought some UC Access Now labels to helpfully point out the ways this new building's infrastructure is still inaccessible. #UCAccessNow#Ableism@disability
UC's attitude towards disabled people is clear in things like this.
This July will mark 34 years since ADA became law. UC doesn't do bare minimum compliance (not full accessibility & inclusion, just legal compliance) until they decide they need to do seismic upgrades. Then "ADA compliance" is piggybacked on that.
It's the very last thing listed. Whoop-de-doo, ADA "compliant" restrooms.
At least 3 things missing from UC's Global Accessibility Awareness Day event:
The idea that there's any accessibility issues beyond the type digital technology tools could potentially help with
and
Actual diversely disabled UC community leading the event.
Statement up front as to what accessible options are available for this event.
Keeping the emphasis on digital tools allows abled people to continue their hegemony by simply training to be "experts" on accessibility, keeping jobs & control in abled hands. It allows UC to keep refusing to hire human captioners, human notetakers, as well as keep NOT addressing making things as accessible as possible as the default at UC.
Every time there's a new UC Davis event or initiative rushing to shove AI into everything, we remember that this July will mark 34 years since ADA became law and UC Davis still doesn't meet it.
The contrast in how quickly they adopt AI vs how quickly they adopt accessibility & inclusion is instructive.
Note the event is in person only in a maskless crowd during an ongoing pandemic, advertised without any listing of accessibility available even for the in-person bits.
We let @CalMatters know at that time, along with other media. They did not deem it worthy of coverage because they want to treat things as a human interest story rather than as systemic oppression & systemic failure.
This could have been dealt with years earlier if media had listened to us when we said this was a systemic problem, not just a problem for one or two disabled students. It shouldn't take a disabled student being in student government to get coverage of these issues. @academicchatter@disability
"California’s disabled students left behind during emergencies: ‘They just weren’t ready for someone like me’"
This is the 4th yr that this university has known they have at least one disabled student in Plant Sciences & has not made an attempt to reach out to consult during the organization of the event so it can be planned to be more accessible.
After all the planning is over, without saying anything about whether any accessibility was already planned into the event, disabled people are asked what "accommodations" they need.