The only thing about my disability that is an inconvenience is how society has been constructed to isolate people with disabilities.


12


Hearne Award as an emerging leader in the fi eld of disability rights from the American Association for People with Disabilities for her work in form- ing a national network of emerging professionals with disabilities when she was a law student. T is award prompted her to leave the fi rm and run her network as a non-profi t. “I did all the programming, and


it was exhausting,” she says. “But I also developed consulting work at other non-profi ts and began advocacy consulting. It was the kind of work I wanted to do, discrete projects that allow you to focus.” She ran the non-profi t for 18


months, and then began the transi- tion to full-time independent scholar, activist, and teacher. T e move gave her great satisfaction because it enabled her to reach out to others in the disability rights movement. “I don’t feel I’m doing it alone.


Disability is an issue you see everywhere. And it’s hard to be off the clock now. I’ve been fortunate to be energized by other young attorneys with disabilities.” Her published works deal not only


with disability issues but also criminal justice, animal rights, and vegetarian issues. She also has served on the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law, chairing its lawyers


DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JULY/AUGUST 2011


with disabilities sub-committee, and sits on the advisory boards of several disability- related organiza- tions, including the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation, the National Association of Law Students with Disabilities, and the Review of Disability Studies at the University of Hawaii. Her book


Lawyers Lead On,


published this year by the ABA Press, is based on 40 letters from lawyers with disabilities. It gives advice on disability and disclosure, and dis- ability identity, and off ers guidance on developing legal careers for the people with disabilities, as well as refl ections on the disability rights movement. “I gathered a lot of data and found


many lawyers were self-accommodat- ing because they feared speaking out would jeopardize their work situa- tion,” she says. “Most lawyers with disabilities get hired ‘in spite of’ their disabilities and are directed toward disability-related jobs. We need a place at the table in the larger minor- ity eff orts within the legal fi eld and it has to come with the recognition that we have experienced discrimination, mistreatment and intentional exclu- sion from our profession, despite our excellent qualifi cations.” An important issue for disabled


attorneys, she says, is how to use the Americans with Disabilities Act with- out stigmatizing the disabled. T is has caused many in the profession to leave traditional legal work. “I struggled fi nding what I want to


do with the law,” she says, “but I really like teaching and would like to fi nd a permanent home in teaching.” Among the law schools where


she has taught are Penn State, the University of Tulsa, and the University of North Carolina. In the fall, she will be teaching disability rights at Case Western School of Law in Cleveland. She believes teaching, like her scholarship, enables her to have a more direct impact than in the judicial arena. “Many students in my disability


rights classes that have disabilities hide them,” she says. “I can connect them with others who can help them.” She left a tenure-track position in


Oklahoma because she wants to be located where there is a more active disability rights community. She wants to make an impact in her fi eld. Among those places she mentioned where she believes she would have the best opportunity to do this are Chicago, New York, or Berkeley, Calif. Berkeley is considered the home of disability rights because the university’s ground- breaking activism in the movement goes back to the 1960s. Basas, whose second book Disability


Rights Law is scheduled for publication next year by Carolina Academic Press, wants to make the world a better place by reaching out to people through her writing and her teaching. She acknowledges that it is not easy. “You need an amazing amount of


charisma and a whole lot of luck to change things,” she says. But this young woman who walks


with a cane seems prepared for the task. “We—disabled or nondisabled—all


live with some form of vulnerability or health condition, and we will all age and decline,” she says. “Where we draw the lines as to what constitutes a disability is a pretty arbitrary process, but it comes with social fear about disability, bias, and discrimination. I think that’s why disability elicits such a strong response, often one of pity or disgust, because it reminds us that we all struggle and are weak.” D&B


Tom Calarco is a freelance writer based in Altamonte Springs, Fla.


MCCA.COM


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