To Move Forward with Restoration, the Past Must be Reckoned With

“To Move Forward with Restoration, the Past Must be Reckoned With—A Conversation about being a Student with a Disability at Williams and Understanding the Disability Justice Framework with Sandy Ho and Maria Heredia.”

This event will be a conversation between Sandy Ho, a research associate with the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University and Disability Justice Activist, and Maria F. Heredia ’20, about navigating higher education as a person with a disability and coming to reckon with injustices and prejudices the disabled community has experienced through the lenses of the disability justice framework. The conversation is rooted in the theme of restoration, but to restore there has to be an understanding of the past. The past is often marred in pain, violence, and uncomfortable reflections we all must face.

The conversation will touch on topics of access intimacy, the disability justice framework, the intersectionality of being a person with a disability, why people with disabilities are left out of the conversation, and how our communities can work towards creating and honoring spaces for people with disabilities. The event will be hybrid conversation and Q&A that will allow students and community members to learn more and ask questions about disability and transformative justice.

Sandy Ho is a disability community-organizer, activist, and disability policy researcher. Currently, she is a research associate at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University where she manages the Community Living Policy Center. She is the founder of the Disability & Intersectionality Summit, a biennial national conference organized by disabled activists and centers marginalized disabled people. In 2015 she was recognized as a White House Champion of Change for her work in mentoring for transitional-age disabled women. Sandy is one-third of the team behind Access Is Love, a campaign that is co-partnered by Alice Wong and Mia Mingus. Her areas of work include disability justice, racial justice, intersectionality, and disability studies. She is a disabled queer Asian American woman whose writing has been published by Bitch Media online.

Co-sponsored by the Office of Accessible Education and the Davis Center.

9:15-10:45am

Access to Zoom links for non-public events will require a Williams College login. People with a williams.edu email can access Zoom links here.