As a disabled woman, I have often felt excluded in social justice settings. My disability sparked a passion for human rights, and I want to fight for the rights of all people. As long as disabled people are consistently left out of the equation, though, that is where I allocate my attention and effort. Disabled people are at a systemic disadvantage across the globe. Issues including poverty, low wages, homelessness, discrimination, abuse, and healthcare. Additionally, lack of access to mobility aids and medical equipment continue to go unaddressed in the context of disability and human rights. In this article, I focus on three main forms of human rights violations disabled persons face: financial distress, being rendered powerless, and abuse.
POVERTY AND DISABILITY
A book entitled Disability and Poverty estimates that 60% of disabled people in the US and Britain alone live below the poverty level. Despite the passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), disabled Americans still face high rates of unemployment and homelessness. Many policies and nonprofits that aim to alleviate poverty and homelessness fail to address systemic ableism as one of the root causes. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the most prominent pro-bono civil rights firms in the US, only picked up disability rights as a civil rights (or, more broadly, human rights) issue in recent years. The earliest disability-related case listed on the ACLU’s website was taken on in 2013.
WHEN LAW AND POLICY FAILS TO PROTECT DISABLED PEOPLE
Disability rights activist Judy Heumann wrote about her experience with the ACLU when she was fighting to get her teaching license. Despite passing her exams, graduating college, and running a tutoring center for students of all ages, Heumann was denied her teaching license because her wheelchair was viewed as a “fire hazard”. Bright-eyed Heumann was optimistic that the ACLU would take up her case, as it was the 1960s and the civil rights movement was in full swing. The organisation did not take her case, though. It seemed the issue she faced was that her case was classified as simply "medical" in nature and not discrimination. It is difficult to understand that any organisation dedicated to advancing human rights would not see the blatant ableism Heumann faced as discrimination. In her memoir, Being Heumann, Heumann recalls being asked how she went to the bathroom by the doctor who performed her medical exam as part of the process of her licensure. The doctor fixated on Heumann’s inability to walk, even asking her to bring her crutches for the second appointment despite Heumann’s repeatedly telling the doctor she could not walk. And when Heumann showed up to the next appointment without her crutches, she was labeled “insubordinate” and could not get her teaching license.
Heumann was not able to get her teaching license because she could not walk. The doctor performing the exam and the Board of Education that reviewed the results seemingly discriminated against an applicant based on a physical disability, yet when Heumann called the ACLU for legal support, the organisation told her that she could not get her license because of a “medical issue,” which was not a form of discriminate they would represent. While no one aside from the doctor and Heumann can know the full story of why an apparently-qualified woman was denied a teaching license, the evidence certainly points to ableist discrimination as the culprit.
A doctor tasked with certifying that Heumann was fit to be a teacher asked voyeuristic questions and demanded to see a quadriplegic woman walk. This is blatant discrimination, because Heumann’s ability (or lack thereof) to walk had no bearing on her ability to teach. According to this article, the ACLU cited that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not include disabilities, so they could not help Heumann. It is understandable that the ACLU, which largely uses legal recourse to combat discrimination, can only work within the parameters of the law. However, that is no consolation to people with disabilities who suffered from discriminated before laws like the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504) protected them from discrimination. Luckily, the ACLU has since changed its stance on ableism as a form of discrimination, but this is just one example of human rights organisations failing disabled people.
Like Heumann, I too have faced ableism in my search for a job. After graduating college, I figured I would find a job easily—I had two internships during college, was involved in the Student Government Association, and started my own club. I did precisely what the career counselors at my university advised. However, after applying to many jobs in different fields and completing at least five interviews, I have not gotten any offers. My able-bodied peers who have nearly-identical résumés and applied to similar jobs have all landed positions. I cannot prove that my disability alone has prevented me from getting a job, but the process of elimination paints a pretty clear picture.
Whenever I tell non-disabled people about my plight in searching for a job, they tell me I should file a lawsuit. But it is not that simple. According to the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), job applicants are not required to self-identify as having a disability. This provision of Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act is meant to prevent employers from discriminating against job-seekers based on disability. However, in practice, this only prevents discrimination against people with invisible disability. As someone with cerebral palsy, I struggle with balance, so I use a crutch to ambulate. I also stutter, which is apparent whether the interview is in-person, via phone, or virtual. This kind of discrimination is difficult to prove; unless an employer asks a question about my disability, makes a comment, or directly tells me that I was not hired because of my disability, most courts will tell me I do not have a case.
The US is not unique in its delayed response to human rights violations of disabled people. Some scholars argue that the push for human rights may exacerbate the inequalities that disabled people face. In an article published in Third World Quarterly, Helen Meekosha and Karen Soldatic speak on the often contradictory nature of human rights in the context of disability. Meekosha and Soldatic discuss Australia’s ambiguous actions towards the rights of disabled people and income security. Despite ratifying the United Nation (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), an international treaty meant to streamline and ensure the rights of disabled people worldwide, Australia continued to place more regulations on their Disability Support Pension, which in turn forced disabled people who no longer qualified for the pension to turn to low-paid work. Meekosha and Soldatic argue that the concept of mutual obligation can snowball into catch-22 situations for disabled people where the disabled person must work, but the only work they can find is low-paying. In the US, this exists as sheltered workshops where disabled workers can legally be paid less than one dollar an hour by multi-million dollar corporations.
Heumann also wrote painstakingly about human rights violations against disabled people all over the world. She described how disabled people in India were shunned to the point where they were left to crawl the streets of the cities and their families were ashamed that they experienced disability. As a result, many disabled people were neglected and forced to roam the streets as beggars.
DISABILITY INCREASES RATES OF ABUSE
Aside from poverty, disabled people around the world also suffer from social issues. Studies have shown that women with disabilities experience similar or higher rates of abuse than their non-disabled peers. Some of the abuse is disability-related, including “withholding medications, denying access to mobility devices, neglecting personal care, and preventing attendance at doctor’s appointments”. The aforementioned acts of abuse are egregious violations of human rights against disabled people.
Despite more recent developments in advocacy surrounding domestic abuse, disabled women are often left out of the conversation. I experienced this during my time as an undergraduate. During my last semester of college, some students started an online movement to unveil the rampant sexual assaults that administrators at the university routinely sweep under the rug, and, more importantly, to support survivors and give them a platform. There was only one problem with the movement: it was not inclusive of all marginalised survivors. For example, the movement was made inclusive of Black survivors of sexual assault as well as LGBTQ survivors, but disabled survivors were not included in the changes until I privately contacted one of the leaders. Many who advocate for the rights and protection of abuse survivors fail to understand the intersection between disability and Blackness or disability and sexual identity.
In an editorial published in Teen Vogue, Sarah Kim details the struggles that Black disabled people face, even within racial justice spaces. Kim acknowledges that many victims of police brutality, like Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray, had disabilities. According to an op-ed published in The Baltimore Sun, Freddie Gray had a developmental disability that resulted from lead exposure. Sandra Bland, who died in police custody under suspicious circumstances, had epilepsy and depression. Eric Garner, who was murdered by the police, had asthma and a heart condition. George Floyd also had a heart condition, high blood pressure, and a sickle cell trait. But their disabilities are seldom discussed in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement. The erasure of disabilities in the very people who inspired the movement is disgraceful. Both disability and skin color independently contribute to the likelihood of dying by police violence, and when Blackness and disability co-exist, the statistics are even worse.
When I read Judy Heumann’s memoir, additional human rights issues facing the disabled community came to my attention. In it, she details her life as a disability rights activist, but one thing that struck me was what she had to say about her advocacy overseas. When Heumann traveled to Delhi with the World Bank as its Advisor on Disability and Development, she witnessed what are called “the crawlers,” disabled people who do not have wheelchairs, so they must crawl around, as described above. It is horrifying to realise that people in the world are robbed of such a basic need. But more horrifying is knowing that many human rights activists around the world do not even know about it. I realise that there are cultural differences between my hometown in a suburb on Long Island, New York and Delhi, but I have to believe that the disabled people there want to have mobility aids. In all cases, disabled humans everywhere deserve to have their human rights upheld.
Erica Mones is a writer and disability advocate from Long Island, NY. Her work has been published in The Progressive, Well + Good, Rooted in Rights, Audacity Magazine, and PopSugar.