In this episode, we explore a wealth of readily accessible resources and practical tips to go beyond just acknowledging ableism and eliminating ableist behavior, to actively supporting our disabled friends and colleagues.
Show Resources:
Bias Training: UW implicit bias training, which includes disability material (this is now required to be on search committees and is freely available to the UW community).
Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT) freely available at Project Implicit hosted by Harvard. Project Implicit: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.htm
Resource Guide for Training on Disability Competence: A resource guide for PT and PTA faculty, clinicians, and students (December 2021)
Learn about disability identity from a diversity perspective:
UW Resources:
Bree Callahan, Tri-Campus ADA Coordinator, leading equity and compliance efforts for ADA/section 504
The D Center – UW Seattle campus Deaf and Disability Cultural Center:
Student Disability Commission: https://careers.uw.edu/organizations/asuw-student-disability-commission/
DO-IT: https://www.washington.edu/doit/
Disability Studies Program: https://disabilitystudies.washington.edu/
CREATE: https://create.uw.edu/
Other Groups of interest:
In this episode, we explore a wealth of readily accessible resources and practical tips to go beyond just acknowledging ableism and eliminating ableist behavior, to actively supporting our disabled friends and colleagues.
Show Resources:
Bias Training: UW implicit bias training, which includes disability material (this is now required to be on search committees and is freely available to the UW community).
Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT) freely available at Project Implicit hosted by Harvard. Project Implicit: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.htm
Resource Guide for Training on Disability Competence: A resource guide for PT and PTA faculty, clinicians, and students (December 2021)
Learn about disability identity from a diversity perspective:
UW Resources:
Bree Callahan, Tri-Campus ADA Coordinator, leading equity and compliance efforts for ADA/section 504
The D Center – UW Seattle campus Deaf and Disability Cultural Center:
Student Disability Commission: https://careers.uw.edu/organizations/asuw-student-disability-commission/
DO-IT: https://www.washington.edu/doit/
Disability Studies Program: https://disabilitystudies.washington.edu/
CREATE: https://create.uw.edu/
Other Groups of interest:
Episode 3 - Dismantling Ableism and Practicing Allyship
Kate Mulligan, PhD, Teaching Professor, Neuroscience and Human Anatomy, Associate Director, Center for Leadership and Innovation in Medical Education (CLIME)
Heather Feldner, PT, PhD, PCS, Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Associate Director, Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE).
Heather Evans, PhD, Acting Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Director of Research, Northwest ADA Center.
[Intro Music]
Amanda Garza: Welcome to CLIMEcast, I’m Amanda Garza the CLIME program manager and I am delighted to welcome you to our 3rd and final episode in our series on anti-ableism and allyship, with our host CLIME associate director Kate Mulligan, and fantastic guest speakers Dr. Heather Feldner and Dr. Heather Evans.
In this final episode of the series Evans and Feldner will explore a wealth of readily accessible resources and practical tips to go beyond just acknowledging ableism and eliminating ableist behavior, to actively supporting our disabled friends and colleagues.
Enjoy the Episode!
Kate Mulligan: Hey, welcome back.
[00:00:02] I have with me doctors, Heather Evans, and Heather Feldner and we're continuing our discussion about anti ableism and allyship with some practical tips today. Last session we left off talking about diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI initiatives and ways to not engage or to avoid engaging in ableism. Today we're going to turn towards, concrete ways that individuals in their day-to-day lives can go beyond just acknowledging ableism and eliminating ableist behavior to actively supporting their disabled friends and colleagues. And so I'm going to let you two take it away Evans and Feldner.
[00:00:50] Heather Feldner: Thank you. So, in kind of thinking about where we're headed today, with anti-ableist practices, uh, Evans and I were thinking you always have to come up with a catchy acronym, right? So, people walk away with like one thing that they remember, that they can implement when it, when it comes to anti-ableism. And we came up with an acronym trac, T- R- A- C, and that stands for training, recognition and representation, allyship and attendance, and calling to account. So we'll be talking about this, as we go today.
[00:01:24] Kate Mulligan: That's great. That is fantastic to have an acronym, but you've got a couple of extra R's and A’s, I might have to say Trrraac
[00:01:32] Heather Feldner: Exactly, it didn't quite fall off the tongue to do that extra bit, but it's still, it's still baked in there.
[00:01:41] Heather Evans: So we'll, we'll start off with T , which stands for training. And you know, we hear a lot about education, you know the kind of trope like education and awareness will change the world. Uh, but you know, our work really highlights that education alone is not enough.
It really takes learning constant ongoing learning. That is not just kind of passively taken in, but it's taken in and incorporated into our everyday actions. And so when we start talking about integrating learning into practice, we're really talking about training, right? This is why there is a big difference between learning about, say a research method and applying or using that method, right. Or to be trained in a method. So, we want to start out really encouraging folks to start educating themselves on all aspects of disability, the history of disability in the US, learning about laws, the civil rights legislation on disability, learning about disability identity and diversity, intersectionality, uh, and learning about disability culture and pride.
You know, to that end, we have included a list of resources for your listeners to access on the show notes of this podcast. And in those notes, we list not just dry academic texts, but include a number of short videos and clips. Some of which are pretty fun. These range from films to podcast, to Ted talks and blogs and websites, as well as some comedy routines, and all of that is in addition to more academic items.
[00:03:19] Kate Mulligan: Great thank you, perhaps you can highlight a few specific resources that you recommend in terms of priority.
[00:03:26] Heather Feldner: Yeah, absolutely! So, there are a few things that are really pretty accessible in terms of a kind of a quick and easy, training.
So the first one that we just wanted to bring up is the university implicit bias training. This is something that is freely accessible to everyone across the UW community. Um, and really now is specifically required if you're going to be performing a role such as being on a search committee for hiring someone, that sort of thing. There is specific disability related material in the implicit bias training. And so we think that's just a really great quick and easy way to get some baseline information about your own biases and where you may or may not be thinking about these and one of the other kind of more simple things to engage in is taking a disability attitudes, implicit association test. And there are many implicit association tests out there, for different types of concepts or different identities, but there is a disability specific one, um, and that is freely available at project implicit, which is a web site that is hosted by Harvard university. And this is a 10 minute assessment.
It's a word and image association, task that you may initially greet with some skepticism as you're taking it, you know, how can matching of words and phrases tell me about my disability biases. But you know, by the end you go through several different modules and based on the timing and frequency of how you match certain words and images related to disability, it provides a score that indicates how much you implicitly prefer either non-disabled people or disabled people.The tests at project implicit also measure explicit attitudes, which are often quite different. These can be consciously reported as well as consciously manipulated based on social desirability. Some people, no, not all, are not going to want to overtly admit that they prefer non-disabled people because this might be looked upon as unfavorable. And you can do that on an explicit assessment, but you can't really do that on an implicit assessment. And so, this is why both explicit and implicit bias is so important to learn about and I just retook one the other day and I think just being aware of biases, you know, not only encourages our own thinking and our own self-reflection, but it really helps us focus and investigate ways in which our biases may have a significant effect in both our personal and professional spheres.
So I think it, you know, it ultimately encourages humility and the sense of learning about what, what we may not even be consciously aware of. In addition to, to those resources, there are also some, very powerful and very readily available resources, on a couple of different websites and one that we mentioned in our last podcast, from the coalition for disability access in health science education, that website just has a wealth of resources, in terms of anti-ableism and, uh, increasing access and accommodation, for students and faculty with disabilities. And the other one I wanted to mention, is one that I was just recently involved in, as a co-editor, which is a resource guideline that specifically compiled for healthcare professionals in relation to, disability equity. It was just recently published on the American physical therapy association website, but really has some fantastic resources that are specifically geared toward clinicians of all kinds. That includes, you know, core competencies and disability equity, readings, media, blogs, other resources that cover a broad range of topics. So, you can go there to find data sources for disability statistics. You can go there to look at disability history and civil rights resources. And information about everything from provider attitudes, ableism, and interventions to reduce it. To universal design and web print and physical accessibility guidelines, as well as intersectionality. And, um, again, a link to this guideline will be included in the show notes for anyone who might be interested in accessing them.
[00:07:45] Kate Mulligan: I think it's lovely to have these and I'm pretty sure that, although they're focused on healthcare arenas, that it's easy enough to see how you can adapt them to your life as an educator or any other member of the community. So, thank you for having those. And just to remind everyone, we will have the show notes with all of these resources linked.
[00:08:06] Heather Evans: Yeah, absolutely Kate and that's a really good point, is that so many of these resources, even if they're developed in one particular area, there, they have strategies and lessons that can be applied in a variety of spheres.
I also want to highlight two other things. You know, we, again also included some resources that, that aren't, purely academic. There's also a lot of awesome Ted talks and other short media posts to discover there. Certainly, I would say a great introduction to learning about disability history, is the documentary “Crip Camp, a Disability Revolution”, and that's freely available for streaming on YouTube. Another that I would highly recommend is a short Ted talk by Stella Young. Stella young is a late comedian journalist and disability rights activists from Australia. The talk is titled “I'm not your inspiration thank you very much.” And this is, a great talk. We're Stella Young coined the phrase “inspiration porn” to point out the ways that disability is often intentionally objectified for non-disabled people often to make them feel better about their own circumstances. I always joke about when I tell students about inspiration porn, I encourage them to look it up, online and search it, but you gotta be really careful when you type in “inspiration porn”.
You want to make sure to have a and in there or put quotes around inspiration porn. Um, but just for, to give you a taste of it, there's this fantastic quote in which she's, she's going through these posters that are very familiar to most of us, that feature, for example, images of a wheelchair user, you know, pushing themselves up a steep rocky mountain or a child with a prosthetic leg out on a track field, being coached by a famous paralympian with, you know, quotes underneath that, say something “you don't know how strong you can be until you need to be.” Or “the only disability in life is a bad attitude.” And after one of these, Stella says, quote, that quote, the only disability in life is a bad attitude. The reason that's bullshit is because no amount of say smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp, no amount of standing in the middle of a bookstore, and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into braille end quote.
So there's this, there's a whole genre of material out there that is, like this and we just wanted to give you again, a taste of the flavor of some of even the tongue in cheek materials we've included in the list. There are many more fantastic pearls of wisdom within Stella's full talk and within a lot of the other resources in the media files that we've linked to.
[00:11:02] Kate Mulligan: There's a lot of really good material there. Thank you. So that's the T for TRAC. You've mentioned, "R", for recognition and representation. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[00:11:20] Heather Feldner: Absolutely, so let's tackle recognition first. And you know, again, I think, you know, what we spoke to in our last podcast is, is important and applicable here too, in that we have to recognize that ableism is literally everywhere. The first step in truly recognizing this is by continuously challenging our own assumptions about others.
We have to work really hard, not to assume that everyone in the room, or everyone in a given situation is able-bodied or minded, or that, you know, ability is the baseline and the assumed, you know, quote unquote, norm for reference. We see this when we think about like, oh, having a meeting or a class up on the second floor of a building that doesn't have an elevator, there's that underlying assumption that comes into that. Also just like any other bias that, that we may have explicitly or implicitly, recognizing that that bias is present in the first place is also really important for our day to day interactions. And, you know, when we think about that, in terms of ableism, right? Even for those of us who identify as disabled or with a disability, or those of us who conduct research in these areas and consider ourselves allies or accomplices, that we have these deep seated ableist perceptions that kind of impact how we think and how we act and internalized ableism, for example, is a very real experience for many people with disabilities and it doesn't get talked about a lot, and this is a direct product of the messages that people with disabilities receive about disability in our society. So getting back to recognition, recognizing that our own experiences, whether that be through the lens of lived disability experience or through the lens of allyship, these experiences are biased by our own privilege and identity, as well as our experiences in society because of that privilege and identity or relative lack thereof, and both, serve to limit and shape our understanding of disability as a construct.
Furthermore recognition of intersectionality is really important too, because that includes ableism, but it also includes, the other isms, racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera. I think part of recognition is recognizing that that intersectionality exists in the first place, but also recognizing that, finding ways to dismantle some of those isms is really this ongoing process, there's always a next step and there's always going to be a lot of backstepping that we need to do. So there's never really an end point to this it's just using the new information that we gain one, one step at a time to, push forward this idea of equity. And we know that further work is always going to need to happen.
[00:14:12] Heather Evans: Yeah, and I, I would jump in and say, you know, this is such an important point. Especially bringing in and recognizing intersectionality and the way that ableism, fits into that process. And it really, it leads us directly to our second R, which is representation. The slogan that emerged out of the 1970s, disability rights movement is still going strong today, right - and that slogan is “nothing about us without us.” And this really captures the reality that representation matters. We need disabled people to be represented at all levels of society, really at all levels of our organizations and as scholars. We know that no amount of academic information or book learning as my mother likes to say, can ever replace the kinds of knowledge and expertise that is derived from lived experience.
You know, and this is precisely why I for example, as a white woman, I can study, I can teach, I can talk about racial oppression in our history and in our institutions today, but there's no amount of intellectual learning that can replace that visceral deep knowledge that comes from lived experience of being, say a black woman living in the U S. Right. So, we know that research is important to understand racial dynamics at the structural level. We know research is absolutely vital, but without that lived experience piece, you can't fully understand the breadth or the depth of the problems nor the solutions, challenges, and even the successes of a group of people to which you don't belong.
You really, you need diverse representation of people with lived experience. And that is why representation are in our TRAC. That's why representation and meaningful representation, not just tokenism really matters.
[00:16:19] Kate Mulligan: Great T-R. We're up to the A's. What's one of the A's allyship and attendance. Let's speak to those.
[00:16:26] Heather Feldner: So let's start with allyship. There are a lot of small, but really important ways to both avoid ableist practices as well as actively engage in allyship. And we're going to kind of break down the differences a little bit here today. So in thinking about ways to avoid being ableist to just, as an example, not parking your lime scooter so that it blocks an accessible door, ramp or a walkway. That's when we heard specifically from a lot of our research participants, refraining from commenting or complaining about being asked to, adapt for others accommodations such as being asked to use a microphone, or being asked to, turn on captions, let's say, not making noises of irritation or expressing your own frustration when someone may be taking a little bit longer in a checkout line, or, you know, their speed as they're moving in front of you is different from your own pace. Those are just some examples of, of kind of neutral behavior. Not engaging in enabled us to behavior. At the very basic level, if we're being human and civil, you know, we've got a great start, right? Yeah. It helps a lot. But we do need to kind of think about that next step. Right and you know, there's that famous quote by Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, he said, “we must always take sides neutrality helps the oppressor.” So if we just simply remain neutral, are we really achieving true allyship?
And so obviously in the minds of myself and Evans, we need to go one step further to really act as an accomplice, to dismantle ableist as thought and practice. And so kind of going back to our examples, um, you know, not parking your lime scooter in a pathway, um, or somewhere that blocks access, that's neutral. If you notice that and you actually take the time to move the scooter out of the way that's blocking the path. That's an allyship practice. If you're asked to use a microphone in a group setting and you go along with it, but you kind of grumble, even though, you know, you don't need it that's kind of neutral, right novelist, but if you are the one asking for a microphone to be provided in group settings to better enable group members to participate, even if you personally don't feel like you might need it, that's disability allyship, that's taking it that step further. Perhaps the hardest allyship practice of all is not automatically assuming that everyone is non-disabled unless, or until they disclose, which means doing accessibility check-ins regularly with collaborators and working groups and faculty meetings, et cetera. We talked a little bit about this in our last podcast, too, but I want to be really clear asking about access needs is very different than asking somebody to disclose their disability, which is generally something that we avoid we have to treat very confidentially and very carefully. That's a very personal decision to if someone decides to disclose, and we just generally don't do it in most situations. Um, and I think that that's important, right? Because it also points out that accessibility doesn't always have to be about disability.
For example, using captions and requiring your students or your faculty or your staff to include these when you're sharing or creating a video, that's not only a disability access issue, but it's also an access issue for people who are visual learners or people who may be non-native English speakers. So allyship here means asking about and ensuring access, not about disclosing why that access is needed.
[00:20:10] Kate Mulligan: Thanks for making that distinction. Yup.
[00:20:14] Heather Evans: I would jump in here and say, building off of that, is attendance. It's also important to point out that part of allyship is showing up, showing up to do the work. You know, again, allyship is not isolated act, it's an ongoing practice and you show up for disabled friends or colleagues when you use your privilege in any given moment to really push back on ableism. And that means a variety of things that can mean holding space for a colleague who takes a bit longer to gather their thoughts and express their opinion.
When you're all in the middle of a meeting with a tightly packed agenda, it means showing up to attend disability focused gatherings, lectures, events, some examples of fantastic organizations to reach out to can include, the Coalition for Disability Access and Health Science Education, The Stanford Medicine Alliance for Disability, Identity and Equity.
Again, these are some resources that you can find in our show notes, certainly Disability Rights Washington. I would encourage everyone attend a local disability pride event. Look for disability’s collectives in your area, find a disability group at your local LGBTQ plus pride event in June. In fact, I will be at the Seattle pride event, on June 26, in a booth on behalf of the Northwest ADA center. So come on by and say, hi, you know, get out there, get involved with these kinds of activities and events. That's how you show up.
[00:21:47] Kate Mulligan: There must be some like local UW campus events and groups to tell us about as well, if we don't want to have to tap too far afield
[00:21:54] Heather Feldner: Absolutely. Yes. Um, and you know, what's exciting is that there are a lot of opportunities just within UW in and of itself. And I think that's really exciting because there's so much fantastic work being done on campus right now that I think it, it really positions us, you know, we're poised to become a real leader when it comes to disability equity. The fact that, that we get to be a part of that that's really exciting. For example, people may or may know about, our colleague Bree Callahan, who serves as the tri-campus ADA coordinator and she leads equity and compliance efforts for the Americans with disabilities act as well as in section 504 transition plan.
So that office is a great resource for people here on campus. The D center, our campus deaf and disability cultural center, another fantastic resource gathering place. Um, advocacy, activities, a really fantastic resource there. There's a student disability commission there is the, Do It organization, which stands for disability opportunities, internet working and technology. There is of course the disability studies program that Evans and I, are on the faculty of, and that's just, yeah, that's a fantastic multi multi-disciplinary, program that offers, formal coursework as well as seminars and, events around campus.
CREATE, I mentioned this in the last podcast, the center for research and education on accessible technology and experiences. Another really rich multidisciplinary initiative, focused on access, through school of medicine, through computer science, through engineering. And then of course we have our very own CLIME symposium, which this year is, focused on anti-ableism and healthcare education. And so we really hope that that is an event folks considering joining us for, on June 10th, 2022. We have two keynote speakers who are really steeped in this anti ableism work in health care education, Dr. Lisa Meeks and Dr. Neera Jain. We're also going to be interviewing, Dr. Conrad Addison who's a practicing physician who identifies as disabled, who trained here at UW Medical School. And so we're really looking forward to speaking with him and, and sharing stories from folks who identify as disabled or with a disability across our UW community. So, there's some really exciting things happening and, and, we're happy to play a small, a small part in, in, in having this reach different audiences,
[00:24:38] Kate Mulligan: Great. I think it's worth mentioning that these groups are also available for consultation to our WWAMI partners. I think it's fair to say that you can just reach out to any of us at CLIME or to the Heathers.
[00:24:48] Heather Evans: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Our, our contact information will also be listed in the show notes. And most of these groups I'll say, if, if you were to reach out to even the UW campus groups, like our, our Deaf and disability cultural center in a heartbeat, they would be happy to collaborate and consult with folks and they do all this.
[00:25:12] Kate Mulligan: Well, what are we up to? C? Let’s TRAC
[00:25:17] Heather Evans: Yes, the last letter of our handy pneumonic TRAC. So we're using C for calling to account and, you know, we want to start by saying that we all share responsibility for calling our leaders and peers to account for their actions, but we also need to hold ourselves accountable for our actions. And, you know, there seems to be a bit of a trend right now on calling people out. And I think it's really important to always start with yourself. Uh, what behaviors are you engaging in that is maybe subtly or even overtly marginalizing members of a particular group, right? And again, by beyond just ceasing those behaviors, what can you do to step into an allyship role?
The fact remains even when we undergo training and we challenge our own assumptions, change our practices. You know, we're all swimming in waters that enact ableism for us, even if we just do nothing. So we do need to hold particularly those in leadership positions, those who claim to represent our organizations or claim to lead us, we need to hold them accountable. And so for Feldner and I, you know, we generally emphasize. Calling in, rather than calling out. We do want to acknowledge however that there are times in places in which you may need to call people out. Those situations may be ones in which the power differentials are just so great or in which there's not going to be an opportunity for interactive dialogue. Calling someone out for ableist practices may be appropriate, in a particular situation. But in the majority of circumstances, there is an opportunity for dialogue and it's in those cases, we find really that calling people in is far more effective in fostering disability allies.
[00:27:19] Heather Feldner: And, you know, I want to jump in here too. And just to say that a lot of this also has to do with basic modeling or setting expectations at the start. Right. And this could be something as simple as saying, “Hey, I'd like to have, or I'd like to lead a conversation at our next faculty meeting about how our division's engaging and accessible practices.” Or you could even drill it down further and say, I'd like to talk about how we're configuring our physical space or how we're promoting the use of accessible course materials, that sort of thing. Other examples I think of when I think about modeling, this is, is requiring our students to caption their videos for class assignments, requesting that microphone and captions are automatically used at all professional conferences, events, classes. Regardless of whether you may personally need that or not this also could look like at the onset of a group meeting or a class or an event, inviting somebody to use alternative language, to able us terms or to invite a group or class to practice avoiding these language.
And really collectively identify a list of groups approved alternatives. This is something that I've used in, in a few classes and it, and it works well. And, and the group takes ownership of that. It's not me being the language police, as we mentioned in our first podcast. It's us collectively coming up with a set of alternatives that we feel really empowers people. This could also even be requesting that everyone comes scent free to an event or a class, and that that can generate some buzz.
People, people wonder why that, why that's the case. And then it opens up the opportunity to have a conversation about sensory accessibility as well. So you know another example I think of this, this could be modeling and consistently using accessible introductions, that, that we all did. Um, and that you took part in Kate, you know, at the beginning of our first podcast session that consistently use, image descriptions, pronouns positionality, maybe announcing yourself as a speaker in a group setting for people with visual impairments, consistently engaging in these access check-ins that Evans had talked about earlier and, you know, also.
The time to explain why those are important and you know, finally this could look like, jointly crafting a lab diversity statement, or a lab accessibility statement where, you know, again, all of your members of your lab are, are involved in creating the culture and the expectation for, for practicing inclusivity. Not to say that we won't get this wrong a lot because we will get this wrong a lot, but these are some concrete steps that we can take to get it right more in the future.
[00:30:00] Kate Mulligan: That's great, so many fantastic ah hints there. That C is a big, big umbrella, right? It almost deserves maybe another C where we're creating ways to preempt ableism. I mean, I think I love the focus on preemptive and, and designing the environment. So ableism is just not allowed to flourish in any way.
[00:30:22] Heather Evans: Great. I love that idea. Kate!
[00:30:29] Kate Mulligan: in the first session, um, you spoke eloquently about inclusivity and inclusion and how that already encompasses the notion of access, but I think we still might need a reminder on what access practices really look like for full inclusion for folks with disabilities. Can we spend a little time on that?
[00:30:47] Heather Evans: Oh, yes! One of our favorite subjects, Kate!
[00:30:52] Heather Evans: uh, you know, as we mentioned in our last conversation with you disabilities disability is already firmly embedded in the notion of implementing practices that really do foster and sustain diversity equity inclusion. And so that means access too is a central part of DEI work and the most concrete way that organizations can ensure that they are really providing meaningful, equal opportunities to disabled people is to begin by reviewing and confirming that they are indeed providing access and by access, we mean access to all spaces, physical spaces we're also talking about information technology, operating procedures, policies, schedules, certainly social environments. The only way to know or evaluate how well you're providing access is by literally conducting regular reviews or audits, if you will, of the spaces. So I want to note here that we're not talking about just being in compliance with the law, right?
I mean, sure. That is important, but that is literally the floor. And in fact, I would even say that's the basement that's before the floor, when we start talking about legal compliance. So we're talking about meaningful access and the only way to assess where there are barriers to participation for disabled folks is to, again, to do formal evaluations and to do them regularly because access needs of any community organization they change.
You know, for example, we're constantly adapting to and adopting cool new technology, even in our workspaces, but that means we need to assess where barriers are going to pop up when those cool new technologies are adopted, because diverse users are going to have diverse needs. And this means that evaluation of your access plan and notice here, that means I'm assuming you have an access plan, but evaluation of your access plan is a cyclical process, no organization however needs to go out on their own and recreate their wheel. Right. This is part of what ADA coordinators do professionally. So, for example if you're at the University of Washington and you might be wondering, well, how do we develop an access evaluation? You can reach out to our tri-campus ADA coordinator, Bree Callahan, to help with that. For folks in other campuses, I guarantee you, you all have an ADA coordinator, that's part of that legal compliance part. So, reach out and find them if you need help with, or want to revisit evaluating your access.
[00:35:02] Kate Mulligan: So if an organization has limited capacity or resources, I'm not sure why I'm saying “if” the organization has limited capacity or resources to dedicate to DEI work, do you think they should prioritize racial justice? For example, at this moment.
[00:35:22] Heather Evans: This is a really important question. I'm so glad that you brought this up Kate, in part, because I think we're really socialized to approach questions of equity and fairness from a scarcity perspective, you know, as if there is a finite amount of dignity or respect, that we can give to folks.
And then if we create inclusive spaces for one group that that must automatically come at the cost of, or create barriers for some other group, and frankly, in most cases, this is just not true. However, funds, money that gets invested in improving access is definitely finite. So conversations about where to focus DEI efforts, or even simply where to first focus DEI efforts is going to be a conversation, when you're doing this kind of work. And as we stated earlier, Disabilities already an integral part of diversity, what is not productive or what we certainly do not want to do is encourage any form of a quote unquote oppression Olympics, you know, to suggest that one form of institutionalized oppression is somehow worse than another.
And this is part of the challenge of really taking intersectionality seriously, recognizing that marginalization is not additive, right? It's not as if having a second or third marginalized identity, simply stacks, equal levels of oppression on top of each other. Certainly critical race scholar, Feminist scholarship work, from queer and Crip scholars have very effectively documented and unpacked the fact that each identity we hold really impacts and shapes the ways that the other identities we have are both perceived and expressed. Right? So for example, you know, the experience of a woman who's white is going to have lots of shared experiences with a woman who is black, but there's also going to be some differences just as a woman who is black is going to have shared experiences with a man that's black, but how his race and her race are read or reacted to, will be different in a variety of ways.
So intersectionality is incredibly complex certainly having multiple marginalized identities is very different from having one marginalized identity, but the actual impact of marginalization really varies and not across just other identity markers, but also varies across contexts. So different situations are going to make certain identities more salient right than others.
And one of the key of the complexities of understanding intersectionality is really appreciating these nuances of how different identities are self-expressed and how they interact with each other. Right. And all this is. You know, racial justice is absolutely. And just so critical to DEI as is gender justice, age justice and disability justice. Right? Just to name a few, but these identities are combined in individuals, right? They're not separate. And so it follows that to create inclusive communities. We need to make room for that is provide adequate access to opportunities for all of those identities at the same time, right in the same space so that people can show up and they can participate as their whole self.
[00:38:54] Heather Feldner: And, and yet, and this makes me think of, Immani Barbara and who is a black disabled activist, in Pennsylvania, and she does a lot of media on YouTube and podcasts and such, and she, she talks about, I wish people would stop asking me to separate my disability and my blackness. I think that's just a, a really great example, and that's another one we can add to our watch list for the, for the, for the show notes here. To kind of go off of Evans, last set of comments, fostering and honoring intersectionality is indeed complex, but the good news is, is that there are these really amazing well established as well as emerging strategies for combating and dismantling, institutionalized depression, um, in whatever form that might take. And so many of the strategies for fostering inclusive spaces for a variety of marginalized identities are actually the same so again, think about TRAC, right?
We think about training. We think about learning about a group to which you don't belong and integrating that training into your practices. We think about representation, making sure that we're reaching out to and engaging with people with lived experience. In addition to those that may have scholarly insights. Allyship, which we've talked a lot about here, and calling to account those who claim leadership roles in our organizations and, and in our communities. That collectively we can really make some solid and meaningful progress, for equity across all of these identities and especially disability.
[00:40:31] Heather Evans: Yeah. And I, I would just, I have to add here that, you know, so if people come to you and they ask, well, well, we don't know where to start, or how do you include disability in DEI, et cetera?
[00:40:41] We would just say, just get on TRAC
[00:40:55] Kate Mulligan: Thank you so much for sharing, sharing these two podcasts with us sharing your wisdom with us, I feel like you've both broadened our perspectives and understanding and helped us to focus our attention on, on where it needs to be at this point in time. And I've really enjoyed talking to you and I hope we hear more from you very soon. Thank you.
[00:41:15] Heather Feldner: Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure, Kate and Amanda and all of the CLIME team. We're just so excited to do this work with you. And of course this is, you know, just one step on, on the journey for us as well. And so we hope to, to continue getting it wrong sometimes and continue to use that, to help us get it right more in the future. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Amanda Garza: Thank you for listening to our series on Anti- ableism and disability allyship in medical education with Dr. Heather Evans and Dr. Heather Feldner and of course our amazing host Kate Mulligan. All the resources mentioned in all 3 episodes will be in the show notes and our CLIME website. Please visit the CLIME website for more information and resources on this topic. We would also like to mention that you can subscribe to the CLIMEcast podcast on most streaming services to get updated when new episodes drop. Thanks!
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