Frequently Asked Questions
As people with the lived experience of visible and invisible disabilities, we've learned what it means to navigate the world when it isn't built for you. Education has not been easy for either of us to come by, and as we've journeyed through education, we've met countless other students who have faced such inequitable treatment in their colleges and universities, forcing some of them to even drop out.
Between the two of us, we've passed statewide legislation, founded Disability Cultural Centers, and worked within our schools and larger communities to effect change for the better within higher education institutions. One of the biggest barriers to creating change in higher education has been the fact that school administrators simply do not see enough evidence of structural barriers to spur them into action. We wanted to change that by providing students, faculty, and administrators with evidence of the many barriers that exist in higher education, the policy frameworks that impact higher education, and the best ways to conquer these larger challenges.
We were excited to be given the resources we were through Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. These resources allowed us to work on this project, conduct our research, build this website, and distribute the report and guide to the world.
We approached this project in three phases:
Evaluation of the pain points that prohibit anti-ableism from taking a wider stage on campus, which informed what topics and questions we wanted to address.
Structural analysis of the literature that exists on anti-ableist frameworks in education.
An analysis of the current legal environment students find themselves in across the United States.
From there, we developed an annotated bibliography of all academic literature we could find on the subject of anti-ableism in higher education, and expanded our search from there. After that, we conducted a thorough review of the legislature websites across all 50 states in the U.S., to find out which ones have developed legislation around disability and higher education, and what those policies are. Finally, we developed a framework and goal we wanted to achieve, which informed the way we wrote the report.
We wanted to ensure that this research is digestible, accessible, and understandable to all. As such, we designed our 114-page report to be browsable by subject and index. We also wanted to ensure that the key findings could be gleaned without reading the full report, which is why we developed a companion guide to go with the report. The guide is intended to feel more informal, like a zine, with more eye-attaching information and general advice on how to be anti-ableist.
We learned a lot through this project, and as a team, neither of us had ever tackled a project quite like this, but we found it rewarding. We hope you find it beneficial as well.
As the primary coauthors of this project, we independently developed this research while receiving invaluable support from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, which provided funding, material resources, advisory guidance, and access to a vast network of civil advocacy leaders.
We also collaborated with the Accessibility Coalition at Arizona State University to distribute physical copies of the guidebook within the community, organizing town halls and community-driven initiatives to foster dialogue and action. Additionally, through Disability Cultural Centers United, we expanded distribution nationwide, ensuring this guidebook reaches universities across the country in the pursuit of systemic change.
The goal of this project is to drive systemic change in higher education by addressing ableism through policy, advocacy, and institutional reform. Through this work, we aim to:
Equip students with tools to challenge systemic barriers, advocate for their rights, and push for inclusive policies on their campuses.
Offer faculty resources to integrate accessibility and disability rights concepts into their curricula and foster a learning environment that reflects the experiences of disabled students.
Guide administrators in embedding accessibility into institutional frameworks, ensuring sustainable and proactive inclusion efforts.
Encourage state policymakers to recognize and address legislative gaps in disability protections, fostering stronger, more comprehensive accessibility laws in higher education.
Amplify national conversations that center disability justice and shift accessibility from a compliance-based approach to a core educational value.
By distributing this guide widely, we aspire to catalyze legislative action and institutional transformation so that accessibility is embedded into the fabric of higher education at both state and institutional levels.