Topic Area: DEI
Presented by: Emily Abrams
Abstract:
Dolmage (2017) argued that postsecondary education promotes ableism more than most cultural institutions. Noting that “disability has always been constructed as the inverse or opposite of higher education” (p. 3), Dolmage described how ‘academic ableism” erases disabled students and maintains practices that create and maintain the inferiority of disabled people. The purpose of this information session is to apply crip theory (Kafer, 2013; McRuer, 2006) through the use of personal narrative to expose the academic ableism that shaped postsecondary education’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and, more so, to offer accessible practices regarding teaching and learning for disabled college students moving forward. Crip theory presents disability as fluid and challenges dominant discourses that define normalcy. Specifically, crip theory challenges the discourse of compulsory able-bodiedness/mindedness that pushes people toward an unobtainable normalcy, determining who is disabled and therefore less worthy. I will use my own personal experiences as a disabled student and educator to ground my discussion of these topics. I will offer suggestions that go beyond accommodations to discuss access as the practice of solidarity toward liberation in the disabled community that aims to enact disability justice (Mingus, 2011)
