DREAM Weekly Email: November 8-14, 2020

DREAM Weekly Email, Disability and Higher Education in the News: November 8-14, 2020
 
From DREAM: Disability Rights, Education, Activism, and Mentoring
Sponsored by the National Center for College Students with Disabilities and
the Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD)
This week’s newsletter and archived newsletters are available at www.DREAMCollegeDisability.org
 
Top Five News Items This Week:

• Scholars say higher education needs to understand its ableist history and start thinking about disability as part of diversity and equity efforts.
• Vocational Rehabilitation agencies are underserving deaf people who are Black, young, female, and disabled deaf people, according to new research by the National Deaf Center. 
• The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and whether it should fall; this law has expanded coverage of children to age 26, allowed free birth control, expanded Medicaid, and protected those with pre-existing conditions; court-watchers believe the ACA will not be eliminated.
• Testing software to prevent cheating can be biased against dark skin and people with disabilities, and students across the globe are rebelling at testing resembling a “police state.”
• #QuarantineLooks by Black disabled “pleasure activist,” writer and professor Sami Schalk celebrates the “fabulously mundane” and resists ableist ideas about how sick people should look.

 
General News:

• The Common Application will no longer ask veterans about the type of military discharge they received, including medical discharges.
• Those fighting inequities for students with disabilities in higher education could learn from the work being done in K-12, says Steven Mintz from the University of Texas at Austin.
• The world’s first study on disability experiences and inclusion in MBA programs has started in Canada.
• VA Disability Compensation is factored into the FAFSA, but new bipartisan legislation would exempt it, making higher education more accessible for veterans.
• This Thanksgiving break, underclassmen with disabilities may enjoy these 15 romantic novels featuring characters with disabilities.
• Stigmas about mental illness may be preventing medical students from acknowledging mental illnesses and seeking help.
• A new Master’s degree in Diversity and Inclusion at Rowan University will include courses about disability and neurodiversity.
• ProPublica news is experimenting with plain language stories about people with disabilities, and a Politico reporter says it should be a training exercise for journalists.
• Casually using psychiatric terms like “OCD” or “narcissist” in daily language or casual “diagnoses” can add to stigma of mental and emotional illnesses on campus.
• AccessAble is an interactive website for University of Sussex students, with disability access information for buildings, restaurants, theaters, and other places on or near campus.
• The Daily Illini celebrates some University of Illinois history – including Timothy Nugent, who found a DRC in 1948.
• Rhode Island needs an Olmstead Plan for people to live in the community, attend college, and work, says the director of Mental Health Association of Rhode Island.
• Former athletic director Abe Naff filed suit against Ferrum College for alleged disability, age, and Title IX discrimination.
• The 12th annual poker game to raise money for Arizona State University scholarships for students with disabilities will end this year, says the family who hosted it to honor their son.
• Several Vanderbilt University programs were recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Labor as models for promoting diversity and inclusion.
• Tips for dealing with test anxiety, from qnotes.
• Is the disability experience about “overcoming adversity?”  Utah’s two law schools think so, offering two full-tuition scholarships for students with “significant hardships” that include disability as an example.
• Disability accommodations in college are common, but tests to get disability documentation are not affordable, explains Voice of America.
• Thomas Rossley, Jr. lost a suit alleging that Drake University discriminated against him as a man and a disabled student in expelling him for a sexual assault; his father already won a case against Drake for removing him from the Board of Trustees while he advocated for his son’s alleged discrimination.
• Lawyers say that during the 2018 Toronto van attack, Seneca College Alek Minassian had an “autistic way of thinking” resembling psychosis, showing their plan for his defense.

 
BIPOC and Diversity Issues:

• Deaf students, ASL faculty, and interpreters should be careful with Biden’s new sign name – some BIPOC Deaf people say it is similar to the Crips gang sign on the West Coast.
• Blind activist Khansa Maria is the first Pakistani woman with a disability to receive a Rhodes scholarship.
• Medical students across the country are demanding more anti-racism training to address health disparities in the U.S. and deal with medicine’s racist history.
• African Americans attending HBCUs may have a lower risk of health problems as they age, which may have to do with supports and less racial discrimination during college.
• A Latina administrator says higher education must offer more personalized supports as COVID intersects with students’ race, class, and gender.
• To increase student wellness and health, Beyoncé is giving free Peloton memberships to students at ten HBCUs.

 
COVID-19 News:

• Neurodiverse students face challenges as COVID-19 upends their lives and many of the campus programs offering them supports, says Teen Vogue.
• With COVID-19, there has been a “second pandemic” of mental health concerns for college students that needs to be addressed, says Harvard student Aysha Emmerson.
• Faculty are raising alarms about returning to in-person teaching, with questions about age, caretaking at home, high-risk groups, definitions of “disability,” and whether requests for exemptions should be routed through disability services and ADA offices; administrators are saying they can keep everyone safe.
• Quarantined university students in France had high rates of mental health issues, according to new research with over 69 thousand French students.

 
Election 2020 and Politics:

• Freshmen are struggling during the pandemic, but also coping and finding supports.
• Biden has plans for the disability community, including appointing a director of disability policy and increase funding for Medicaid services like attendant care; Biden’s disability policy plan includes supporting postsecondary education opportunities for students with disabilities.
• Social Security and SSI benefits will increase 1.3% in 2021, and the SSI Student Exclusions will increase $30/month.
• Newly elected to the Pennsylvania House, openly bisexual, autistic Jessica Benham’s political career started at the University of Pittsburgh, when she helped create a graduate students’ union.

 
Student Stories

• After “learning different ways to learn again” with a brain injury, veteran Eric Luteyn is finding peace and beauty in his plant studies at the University of Kentucky.
• Nevada student and type 1 diabetic Wes Fullmer is helping diabetic kids and peers learn how to think about diabetes in a more positive way.
• University students with eating disorders are struggling during lockdowns, says Cambridge University student Theola Ojo.
• As an athlete with type 1 diabetes, Oregon State soccer player Amber “Action” Jackson is getting supports from her team, trainers, and coaches.

 
Faculty Stories:

• ”Disability and design have so much to say to all our lives . . . in ways that carry the highest human and political stakes,” says Professor Sara Hendren of Olin College of Engineering.
• Law Professor Andrew Byrnes was elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia for his work on human rights and disability.
• Fort Hayes State University professor and military veteran Dr. Seth Kastle won the 2020 Max Gabriel Veterans Mental Health Award for his children’s books about combat-related PTSD.
• Professor Luigi Bonaffini is suing Brooklyn College for allegedly forcing him into retirement based on his age, nation of origin, and hearing loss.

 
Careers and Employment:

• Students with disabilities could have greater access to legal fields with the rise in telecommuting, according to the Legally Disabled research team in the UK.
• Screenwriter Jack Thorne has a chronic illness since college, and after claiming the word “disabled,” he now actively seeks ways to incorporate disability into his work.

 
 
 
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DREAM and the NCCSD acknowledge, with respect, the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe -- the Indigenous people on whose ancestral lands DREAM and the NCCSD are based.