Name: Laila Henry

Social Justice Group: Disability Rights: Accessibility in NYC (A)

Date of Fieldwork: January 9, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Allison Isbel, Assistant Head of School

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

 

On January 9th my group interviewed Allison Isbell, assistant head of school, previous principal of high school. Mrs Isbel does not have a physical disability but still is someone who would consider herself as an ally for the disabled community. 

We talked to Mrs Isbel about her background being around people with disabilities. She said she grew up around people with disabilities and worked with them. She does not have any physical disabilities so we talked about the definition of disabilities as a whole. She thinks a disability is an impairment and a physical disability is something that limits them to navigate through life. She made a very specific point as to say that the definition of accessibility that the ADA (Americans with disabilities act) is not what she considers a disability. Allison said that the definition of ada could consider everyone disabled. When we talked to Allison we also learned about the concept of universal design and MIXdesign, a architecture firm that focuses on building accessible and inclusive designs. Allison talked about her childhood being around people with disabilities and how she would volunteer at a nursing home and go to the sunshine school to help out when she could. She said that because of her close connection with the disabled community she decided to study learning differences. 

When we asked her something that she learned about people with disabilities that everyone should know, her response was that DIA ( Disabled In Action)’s mantra is nothing about us without us. She made a comparison that really stuck with me about how you wouldn’t touch a random stranger’s stroller without asking when trying to help them up the stairs. Just like how you shouldn’t assume that just because someone is in a wheelchair or blind that they are helpless. Also when Allison brought up DIA we also talked about the laws that she thought should affect disabled people she talked about how much the DIA is involved in getting their voice heard when all laws are getting passed in NYC. Our interview with Allison helped us get a view on the more “educated outsider” perspective. When we finished her conversation Allison she gave the information and names of different organizations that we could reach out to and a lot of new information.