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Black background with yellow text that reads: Lawyers, Mental Health, and the Character and Fitness Investigation The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality. ThinkEquitable.com

Lawyers, Mental Health, and the Character and Fitness Investigation

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by Jamie Polinsky

Every October students across the United States wait with bated breath for their bar exam results to be posted. After studying for the LSAT, three years of law school, and even more time spent for the bar exam, everyone wants to finally see their hard work pay off and start a legal career. Yet, there are law school graduates who, even after passing the bar exam, cannot be sworn in as attorneys because they checked “yes” on a question on the Character and Fitness portion of the application and then were determined to be “unfit to practice law.[1]”

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Blog Post. Accessibility: The Questions I'm Learning to Ask. Teal background with white text. The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality logo

Accessibility: The Questions I’m Learning to Ask

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By Tracy Waller, Esq., MPH

On July 26, 2023, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) turns 33. The ADA was intended to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in areas including employment, transportation, housing, and public accommodations. While the ADA and other discrimination laws exist to protect people with disabilities (PWD) from discrimination, the reality is that PWD must grapple with the aftereffects of loopholes within the laws daily. Often from a shortage of governmental financial resources available or allocation, PWD still face a lack of accommodations regularly.

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Purple, Blue and Turquoise background with brown hand holding a cell phone with an image of a person with long black hair smiling. Text: Blog: To Disclose or Not to Disclose. Online Dating, Disability, and creating your online profile with confidence

To Disclose or Not to Disclose

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By Chris Mason-Hale, BSW

Disclaimer: The writer of this blog identifies as a quadriplegic operating a manual wheelchair. The contents of this blog are an opinion of the writer based on their lived experience and several years as a peer mentor for people with disabilities and not meant to omit the experiences of other people with disabilities.

Online dating has made romance – or at least meeting people – more accessible than ever. Dating sites give people with disabilities a platform to maybe find that “someone special.” Many people form meaningful relationships–some local and some long distance. For those with disabilities, dating apps can be a remedy for the isolation brought on by barriers such as limited transportation options and the COVID-19 pandemic which have made it difficult to meet new people. It also provides an opportunity to disclose your disability on your terms. However, whether you’re swiping left, being left on read without a response, or swimming in dating matches, online dating is a heart-pounding experience…just not always in a good way. For those with disabilities, the worry that their disability will be too much for a potential partner is often very real. Which begs the question, “To disclose or not to disclose?”–But is that the right question?

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The Intersection of Driving, Disability, and Being Black. Image of police lights flashing

The Intersection of Driving, Disability, and Being Black

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Michael Saunders
Director of Money Follows the Person
Independence Now

Traffic stops are already dangerous and have proven deadly for black drivers, and when you add disability, your risk increases. My fear of a traffic stop is one that I have all the time. Not long ago, it came true on the DC Capital Beltway. I was driving down the beltway when I looked in my rearview mirror to see a state trooper following me. I knew at that point he would pull me over. When he did, my heart was beating because I immediately thought about our location and what he would do when I told him my wallet was in my wheelchair backpack. At first, he didn’t get out of the car, and he was talking through his car speaker. I couldn’t tell him I was in a wheelchair, and I couldn’t do what he asked, which was to get out of the car. I wasn’t speeding too much that required me to get out, so I didn’t understand why that was being requested.  

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Text: The Paradoxical Perspective on Paxlovid Purple Background with The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality logo

The Paradoxical Perspective on Paxlovid

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By Tracy Waller, Esq., MPH

“If it’s COVID, Paxlovid.” Or is it? Pfizer launched its most recent commercial for Paxlovid in February 2023 and has gone full throttle into its advertisement of the drug. Pfizer first received Emergency Use Authorization (“EUA”) for Paxlovid in December 2021 and then received a revised EUA in February 2023. The commercial touts the drug as a “miracle” drug of sorts. On November 6, 2022, the Office of Veterans Affairs released a study showing that Paxlovid can reduce the risk of symptoms of long COVID. Pfizer includes in its commercial for the drug, as required, that certain classes of people are excluded from taking Paxlovid based on negative drug interactions; however, the gravity of the number of people who are ineligible to take the drug is not readily apparent and leaves large swaths of the United States’ (“US”) and global populations without access to this life-saving drug. The lack of access to Paxlovid for the people most vulnerable to COVID-19- the elderly, people with disabilities, and other immunocompromised people – emphasizes the need for pharmaceutical companies to focus on developing treatment options that meet the needs of so many of those left behind.

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Community of Practice- About Us

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The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality. An Administration for Community Living Project of National Significance. Text included below image

The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality

Who We Are
We are a group of people with disabilities, family members of people with disabilities, professionals, and collaborators committed to learning and teaching about the interests, needs, and wants of people with marginalized identities and lived experiences of disabilities. Five partner organizations founded our Center.

What We Do
The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality identifies and works together to reduce inequities in healthcare, community living, and justice for people with disabilities. The Center: (1) amplifies the voices of people with disabilities, (2) creates materials to impact positive change, and (2) shares information with people with disabilities, their families, their communities, and policymakers.

How We Work
We convene a Community of Practice (CoP), which is a group of people collaborating to dismantle systems of ableism, racism, cisgenderism, and other forms of oppression. The Community of Practice will meet monthly and may work between some meetings to develop resources and tools. The Center is also home to the Changemakers Coalition, which supports the diversity of youth with disabilities working for a more equitable future.

How Can You Join
If you are interested in joining the CoP, e-mail Leah Smith at leah.smith@cchmc.org. To find out more about the Center, visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

"Nothing was said if I wanted to have more kids. The blessing to give life was bestowed upon me by The Creator and this man stole it from me. I'll never get it back. Everything I have ever done has been illegal. This is the most money I've ever had legally. But look at what it took to get it." - Survivor of California's Forced and Involuntary Sterilization Program

An Attempt at Reparations: California’s Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Program

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On January 1, 2022, the State of California launched a reparations program in an attempt to respond to its history of operating the largest eugenics/sterilization program in the country. From 1909 – 1979, 20,000 people were forcibly or involuntarily sterilized in the state of California.[1] However, providing reparations in the form of monetary compensation (approximately $25,000) to survivors has been complicated as the state tries to reconcile its past. 

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Two light and dark brown hands are on top of one another (one smaller than the other) with the red HIV ribbon hanging on the pointer finger of the top hand. Text reads: To truly eliminate the HIV virus we must address the intersectional systemic inequalities that have allowed the virus to continue to spread. These inequalities include: racism, incarceration, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, police violence, poverty,houselessness. These are all public health issues that disproportionately affect Black communities.

To Better Understand Intersectionality and Health Justice, Look to the Experiences of People Living With HIV

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By: Tyler Cochran, JD

Due to incredible, cutting edge advancements in antiretroviral therapies that treat HIV, and pre-exposure prophylactics that reduce transmission rates, people living with HIV have never been so able to exercise their sexual agency, bodily autonomy, and freedom to love. With each passing day, we endeavor to move towards the visions for our collective future imagined by visionaries such as Marsha P. Johnson and her contemporaries at organizations such as ACT UP— visions of liberation for all people living with HIV, and of a world that fully values the dignity, brilliance, and worth of those living with HIV who are most marginalized by racism, transphobia and homophobia, and poverty. 

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Orange background with a black and white image of Audio Lorde to the right. Text reads: There is no such thing as a single- issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Logo of The National Center for Disability, Equity, and Intersectionality at the bottom

Why Intersectionality Is An Essential Part of Public Health

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By Tracy Waller, Esq., MPH

Life-limiting inequities continue to persist in healthcare, community living and justice for people with disabilities.

The Center for Dignity in Healthcare for People with Disabilities (Center for Dignity) focused on the important work of addressing the inequities that persist for people with disabilities in healthcare and their perpetuation due to systemic ableism. 

Every person has their own unique and lived experiences. As poet Audre Lorde said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

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