Judith (Judy) Heumann formerly served as the Special Advisor for International Disability Rights at the US Department of State from 2010-2017. She is now building an online presence under The Heumann Perspective through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. This new project is intended to broaden and spur discussions on the intersectionality of disability rights. On a recent trip to Washington, DC, Dr. Brent Elder made dinner plans with Judy Heumann, and she invited him to her home to film an episode of The Heumann Perspective. What follows is a short video of their conversation about inclusive education, representation in the media, and disability rights.

The October 2018 “technical learning session” began like the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The Global Disability Advisor of the World Bank, Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, introduced each of the 12 country delegations represented at the session.

Bernard Bragg, founder of the world-renowned National Theater of the Deaf, actor extraordinaire, author and educator, died Monday, October 29, 2018, in Los Angeles. He was 90. Bragg singlehandedly transformed the Deaf community in the United States and overseas with his revolutionary work as a mime, stage actor, sign master and all-around Renaissance man of the theater.

I am a student attending California State University, Channel Islands, and I am double majoring in Political Science and Performing Arts with an emphasis in Dance. Now, these are two totally different majors so let me explain myself. I have Cerebral Palsy and use a power wheelchair.

Literacy skills are a fundamental component of most daily living skills. Literacy skills are needed to break out of the poverty cycle, to access health services, and gain employment. Literacy skills for children with disabilities can also help support future independent living and improve the ability to be self-advocates and enable self-determination. However, most international education programs that focus on early grade reading do not or only minimally address the needs of students with different types of disabilities.

TANGATA GROUP, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to the proposition that disability rights are human rights and founded by two School of Education graduates, has received a $200,000 grant through the United Kingdom’s Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning (DRILL) to further its work on deaf access to justice in Northern Ireland. The DRILL grant comes from the world’s first major research program led by people with disabilities and is financed with money from the United Kingdom’s National Lottery.

On May 1, 2018, Brent Elder spoke at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. about assessing students with disabilities around the world in ways that facilitate their membership in inclusive classrooms rather than justifying their placement in a segregated school.

I am not much of a writer but writing this piece was surprisingly a breeze. With World Down Syndrome Day approaching, I get the privilege to share our little world with you and give you a first hand understanding of what it means to include someone with an intellectual disability in the real world.

This expansion of teacher training on inclusive education and critical disability studies promoted sustained school- and community-based discussions on inclusive education and sensitisation on issues related to disability. These practices also led to the development of inclusion committees, co-teaching practices, and stimulated the partial dissolution of the physical boundaries and categorical distinctions between ‘primary’ and ‘special’ schools. In conjunction, all of these factors ultimately led to an increase in the number of students with disabilities accessing any form of education for the first time. 

Associate Professor of Law Michael A. Schwartz has been awarded a grant of more than $200,000 to explore access to justice for deaf people, working in collaboration with the British Deaf Association, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Rowan University, NJ. This grant is part of approximately $1.5 million awarded to 10 research and pilot projects across the United Kingdom. The funding has been granted as part of the Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning (DRILL) program, led by disabled people and funded by the UK's Big Lottery Fund.

In 2017 I was arrested eight times fighting against the more than $800 billion in Medicaid cuts that were proposed over and over again in the attempts to repeal Obamacare. Throughout all of my arrests I was not alone. I was always surrounded by 20 or more of my siblings in the grassroots Disability Rights group ADAPT.