Washington, D.C., Oct. 1 – 2020 is a year unlike any other. This year will be long remembered for the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic crisis and the hotly contested presidential election. Not only that, 2020 is a year of key anniversaries for the disability community. Over the summer, in socially distanced and virtual events nationwide, millions of people with disabilities celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

2020 also marks the 75th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). Since the aftermath of the Second World War, the U.S. Department of Labor has challenged employers to fully embrace the incredible talents of workers with disabilities and make workplaces more accessible.

For 2020’s celebration of NDEAM, the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) chose the theme of “Increasing Access and Opportunity.” This focus is absolutely critical given how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the nation’s economy. Before the pandemic, the national employment rate for working-age people with disabilities in America was 37.6 percent compared to 77.8 percent of people without disabilities. Further, there continues to be significant disparities in employment outcomes within the disability community, which varies from state to state. [continue reading…]

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Rockville, Maryland, Sept. 25 – The country is celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, which began on September 15, 2020 and ends October 15, 2020. National Hispanic Heritage Month recognizes the contributions made and the important presence of Hispanic and Latinx Americans in the United States and celebrates their heritage and culture. It is important to note this includes 5.2 million Latinx people living with a disability in the U.S.

The Disability Statistics Compendium, released by Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire, shows that in the economic expansion prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 39.4 percent of working-age Latinx people with disabilities had jobs, compared to 76 percent of Latinx people without disabilities. In total, out of 2,915,754 working-age Latinx people with disabilities, only 1,149,092 had jobs pre-pandemic. [continue reading…]

“Disability inclusion is win-win for studios – driving equity and profitability”

Los Angeles, California, Sept. 24 – A new study has found there has been a significant increase in the number of leads/co-leads with disabilities in the 100 top-grossing films of 2019. Indeed, a total of 19 films featured a lead or co-lead character with a disability, which is a significant increase from both 2018 (9 films) and 2015 (10 films), according to the study by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, which has examined the top 1,300 films between 2007 and 2019. Furthermore, more than 40% of these disabled leads were female-identified. Eleven of these leads were boys/men and eight were girls/women. However, just four were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group and only one showcased a leading disabled character from the LGBTQ+ community, leaving a lot of room for additional improvement.

“Disability inclusion is a win-win for studios – driving equity and profitability,” said Lauren Appelbaum, who leads RespectAbility’s Hollywood Inclusion efforts as the organization’s Vice President of Communications and author of The Hollywood Disability Inclusion Toolkit. “As 1-in-5 people have a disability and audiences crave authentic content, disability inclusion can be a part of box office success and profitability. However, while this increase in lead characters with disabilities should be celebrated, the overall percentage of disabled characters is dismal. In fact, the difference between the percentage of speaking characters with disabilities and reality in the U.S. population is the largest difference in the inclusion crisis in film, at 24.9% (27.2% of U.S. population versus 2.3% of speaking characters).”

There has been no meaningful change in the percentage of speaking characters with disabilities in these top-grossing films in the past five years. Just 2.3% of the 4,451 characters analyzed in the 100 top-grossing films of 2019 have a disability. When the Annenberg study began tracking disability five years ago, it found 2.4% of speaking characters had disabilities in 2015, staying fairly consistent at 2.7% in 2016 and 2.5% in 2017. In 2018, this percentage dropped to 1.6% and the 2019 number of 2.3%, while a growth from the previous year, is still lower than 2015-2017.

“Including characters with disabilities does not happen by accident,” Appelbaum added. “What we see on screen influences how we act in real life, but that is dependent on filmmakers choosing to include individuals with disabilities in diverse and accurate portrayals. Thus, when just 2.3 percent of the 100 top-grossing films include speaking characters with disabilities, the disability community is pretty much erased on screen. When filmmakers choose to include characters with disabilities, they can help to remove the stigmas that currently exist about interacting with individuals with disabilities.” [continue reading…]

Rockville, Maryland, Sept. 23 – For more than 20 years, Dr. Victor Santiago Pineda has spearheaded initiatives to advance the principles of access and inclusion in the US and abroad. Pineda moved to the United States from Venezuela when he was seven years old because he was denied a right to an education. As a wheelchair-user, he grew up in Orange County and was 12 years old when the ADA was signed into law. By the time he graduated high-school, he realized that he had benefited from rights in the United States that were missing in many parts fo the world. He was driven to understand why some parts of the world advanced while others were left behind. He completed a dual degree in Political Economy and Business Administration. He continued on to a master’s in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley’s prestigious College of Environmental Design. His mentor, Judith Heumann, encouraged him to continue his studies and training, and completed a Ph. D. in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility mourns the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The NAACP and others have noted that former Pres. William Clinton, when nominating Justice Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, referred to her as the Thurgood Marshall of women’s rights. We in the disability community recognize that, as the author of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999), she is the Thurgood Marshall of disability rights as well. Justice Ginsburg often spoke about how her Jewish background – and growing up in the shadows of the Holocaust – led her to be an advocate for equality of all people, including those with disabilities.

Often hailed as the legal linchpin of independent living for people with disabilities, her powerful decision mandated that people with disabilities should live in the least restrictive environment possible. The opinion begins with a technical reading of regulations, but its centerpiece is really Justice Ginsburg’s recognition of the value and humanity of people with disabilities, and the danger of shutting us away. [continue reading…]

Rockville, Maryland, Sept. 18 – Workforce development for people with disabilities has not only been Jaime Pacheco-Orozco’s job for the past twenty years but also his passion. The Assistant Executive Director of the City of Los Angeles Department of Disability, Pacheco-Orozco manages the day-to-day operations of the department and oversees the budgetary, legislative and strategic planning processes. Put simply, however, his job is to ensure that people with disabilities are afforded equal access to and opportunity for fully integrated employment and education.

Pacheco-Orozco earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale University, and serves as the Chair of the Yale Alumni Schools Committee for the Central Los Angeles area. As a person with disabilities himself, he understands well the misconceptions and stereotypes held by society towards this population: he was born with a congenital hip disorder (which required hospitalization and leg braces to adjust), has a history of stuttering, and developed epilepsy as a result of a traumatic brain injury. [continue reading…]

As Rosh Hashanah approaches and we enter a new year, it is important to look back and reflect on the year that has just passed. In doing so, we look at all of the decisions we have made this year and try to remember that we can always do more and always do better. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, California, Sept. 18 – A new episode of Disney Channel’s Emmy Award-nominated series Big City Greens is breaking barriers when it comes to ensuring authentic deaf representation. In the “Quiet Please” episode, the Green family visits the city library hoping to find a book that will spark Cricket’s interest in reading, but they quickly run afoul of a strict, eerie librarian. Determined to keep the library a quiet place, she threatens to throw them out if they make any sound. Cricket’s sister Tilly notices two deaf library patrons communicating via ASL, giving her the idea that her family can communicate in the same way. While Tilly is the only family member to know ASL, they use that as inspiration to communicate through charades-like hand gestures. [continue reading…]