Erin is the creator of Substack Newsletter Rising and Gliding: At the Intersection of Disability and Culture. Their newsletter provides insightful commentary on cultural issues of the day from a disability justice lens.

Other Published Writing

Excerpt from Medium article, “A Guide to Disability Employment Awareness Month”

Anyone who has filled out a job application since 1991, when the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was widely implemented, knows it is against the law for employers to discriminate against applicants based on disability status, during and after the hiring process. Thirty years later, we know that “not discriminating” against a person is a low bar, and in the disability world, we say that the ADA is the floor, not the ceiling. There is no roadmap for how to become truly inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities in the workplace. Employers looking for disabled talent generally want to accommodate, retain, promote, and work alongside disabled colleagues, but they don’t know enough about disability to realize those laudable goals. If you are not-currently-disabled, it’s likely that you don’t know how myriad types of disabilities affect job seekers or what job accommodations and supports might look like. And how could you know? Our systems are designed for the young, “fit,” and “able-bodied.” In listening to the lived experience of disabled workers like myself, you are taking a step toward true disability inclusion, and I invite you to share what you learn with others.

It’s All About Inclusion

Disability inclusion is not just a buzz-word or a single letter of the ever-evolving DEIJB acronym. To me, disability inclusion is a specific mindset shift that occurs among not-currently-disabled people when they are adequately educated about the barriers access that disabled people like me face. Once not currently disabled leaders are aware of barriers to access, they can become allies. This shift from no awareness to ally-ship should be the goal of disability inclusion programs, and leadership (including HR) should be actively involved in these trainings. Who am I to make this claim? Well, I am disabled due advancing Multiple Sclerosis. I have had success as a commissioner on my local Commission on Disability, as a workshop leader at colleges and universities, and as a speaker at K-12 schools. I see inclusion work as an invitation to share my knowledge and lived experience, not as a reason to scold. We live in a society built by and for not-currently disabled people, so our systems are ableist by default. When people with disabilities speak up about our barriers to access, the only truly ableist response is to ignore or brush off our concerns. If you’re curious and willing to learn, you can become an ally, even if you’ve said or done something “ableist” in the past. We simply don’t know what we don’t know.