Fall 2021 Semester in Review

Events

In addition to HPOD’s annual fall open house, HPOD’s wide-ranging fall 2021 semester academic and educational events addressed emerging issues at the intersection of mental health and legal capacity, COVID-19 and persons with disabilities in Latin America, as well as disability rights in the varied contexts of accessible technology and development, business and human rights discourse, and journalism.

Advocacy

HPOD also supported advocacy efforts to promote initiatives advancing disability rights, particularly in the areas of education, access to justice, and bodily integrity by taking on restrictions on access to special education services, defending remedies available under federal civil rights statutes, and advocating for greater protections for students with disabilities in restrictive settings. 

Capacity-Building

One of HPOD’s core remits is to strengthen the self-advocacy movement by building the capacity of self-advocacy organizations through trainings and technical support. HPOD has done so by partnering with self-advocacy and other civil society organizations in the United States and abroad to develop and disseminate information materials and provide trainings.

Research

HPOD also continued its ongoing research and writing activities to produce salient information for policymakers and civil society stakeholders to address key disability rights issues on education, health care, ethics, supported decision-making, climate change, and beyond.

Spring 2022 Events

On March 2nd, HPOD organized a panel on “Universal Deaf Access: How to Reshape Cultural, Academic, Architectonic, and Virtual Spaces,” featuring panelists Rachel Kolb, Junior Fellow at the Harvard University Society of Fellows; Raja Kushalnagar, Professor & Director of the Information Technology Program at Gallaudet University; Jeffrey Mansfield, Design Director at MASS Design Group; and Pamela Molina, Executive Director of the World Federation of the Deaf. Together, they discussed the road ahead for ensuring greater access for deaf persons through laws and policies promoting sign language interpretation, increasing portrayals of the deaf community in mainstream media and the arts, adopting designs that facilitate deaf persons’ access to built environments, as well as ensuring accessible multimedia information and communication for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Access a recording of the event here.

On March 24th, HPOD will co-organize with the Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession an event on “Global Disability Cause Lawyering,” featuring panelists from around the world, including: María Soledad Cisternas Reyes, United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility; Janos Fiala-Butora of the National University of Ireland Galway’s Centre for Disability Law and Policy; Sanjay Jain of the ILS Law College in Pune, India; and Elizabeth Kamundia of Kenya's National Commission on Human Rights. This event and accompanying thematic issue of The Practice will present a window into the growing cohort of lawyers who strategically align their practices with the goals of the global disability rights movement in advancing protections of persons with disabilities’ rights in international and local fora. Register for this event here. 

On March 28th, HPOD Executive Director Professor Michael Ashley Stein will deliver the Boston University Law School’s annual Pike Lecture on the “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Global South.” Professor Stein will discuss the barriers to making the CRPD as influential as it ought to be for 80% of the world’s more than one billion disabled people living in the Global South relative to those living in the Global North, situating the CRPD’s evolution within the context of the international human rights regime’s historical, limited salience for people living in developing states.

On April 13th, HPOD will co-organize with the Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program and the Harvard University Center for African Studies an event on “Children with Disabilities in Africa,” featuring Benyam Dawit Mezmur, chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, chairperson of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and lecturer at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.

Last, HPOD is proud to be this year’s honoree at the annual gala of Partners for Youth with Disabilities on May 4th. Also in attendance at this event will be special guest Josh Blue, a breakout comedian with cerebral palsy, who became a household name last fall on his way to winning America’s Got Talent.