Black text on white background: Intersectionality 2.0: Growing in Our Thinking and Philosophy of Care

Intersectionality 2.0: Growing in Our Thinking and Philosophy of Care

by Amber Davis, PhD, MSW, LCSW-C
Research Associate, Johns Hopkins University Disability Research Center
adavi212@jhu.edu

As an intersectional researcher I am committed to understanding the ways that intersectionality shows up and causes challenges for neurodiverse Black/African Americans and their families,[1] with an emphasis on the experiences of the Black autism community. In doing this work, it is a Big Task to be pioneering capturing race-autism intersectionality and resultant harms (i.e., additive hardships, chronic discrimination and cumulative trauma), quantitatively and qualitatively. Understanding psychosocial mechanisms for risk of Black autistic adults is a critical component to my program of research. In being steeped in this work and in the spirit of evolving as a scientist, a personal + ethical challenge I have been faced with in the past year as an early-stage researcher is to not stop there even when so many researchers seem comfortable and complacent with doing only this…

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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

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

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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