40 Big Ideas

Summary

Disability justice is an idea that began as a way to move beyond limitations of the Disability Rights Movement. While the Disability Rights Movement focused on making existing systems accessible to disabled people, the Disability Justice Movement questions the validity of oppressive and exclusionary systems and seeks justice for everyone.

The Disability Justice Movement was founded in 2005 by a collective of disabled, queer, women of color and gender non-conforming activists. The framework was borne out of their experiences of exclusion from the mainstream Disability Rights Movement, which they felt predominantly centered white, cisgender, and heterosexual perspectives. Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern served as the primary architects of the disability justice framework, which views disability as interconnected with other forms of marginalization, such as racism, sexism, ageism, and economic injustice, and asserts that disability, like all marginalized existences, is experienced differently based on race, gender, sexuality, class, and other identities.

In 2015, the Sins Invalid collective, an organization founded by Berne outlined 10 principles of disability justice, identifying the aspects necessary to establish transformative engagement in social movements and organizing efforts. The principles are critical aspects of collective engagement that must be considered and actively addressed to ensure that disabled people are welcomed, included, and valued, and that they benefit from all aspects of collective engagement. These principles guide the work necessary to create inclusive and welcoming spaces and offer constructive instructions on how to build truly inclusive and supportive communities, organizations, and collaborations to all who do the work to apply them comprehensively.

The 10 principles are:

1. Intersectionality: Overlapping identities amplify inequality.
2. Leadership of Those Most Impacted: Centering directly affected voices.
3. Anti-Capitalist Politic: Challenging profit-over-people systems.
4. Commitment to Cross-Movement Organizing: Uniting different justice movements.
5. Recognizing Wholeness: Valuing all of a person.
6. Sustainability: Nurturing long-term community well-being.
7. Commitment to Cross-Disability Solidarity: Unifying diverse disability groups.
8. Interdependence: We all need each other.
9. Collective Access: Creating inclusion for everyone.
10. Collective Liberation: No one is free until all are free.

Disability justice is not simply an extension of the Disability Rights Movement. While the Disability Justice Movement evolved out of the Disability Rights Movement, a more accurate description is that the Disability Justice Movement is a corrective and transformative framework that was developed and defined in response to limitations of the Disability Rights Movement. The Disability Rights Movement focused on making existing systems accessible to disabled people; the Disability Justice Movement questions the validity of oppressive and exclusionary systems and seeks to create more just systems for everyone.

Photo courtesy Disabled and Here

Disability justice is not, or at least should not be, superficial language that gets interjected into the “best practices” lexicon with overused words and underperformed actions. There is a real risk that the disability service system will dilute the language of disability justice, as it has with terms like “person-centered: and “inclusion.” This must be actively guarded against.

Disability justice offers clear, essential, and actionable guidance and direction on the efforts necessary to create more inclusive, welcoming, and collaborative communities and collectives at all levels of our society. The disability justice framework offers the disability service industry the direction necessary to build and implement a service system that truly values, empowers, and supports the lives of disabled people and adds value and benefit to their communities, but only if we are willing to do the difficult work necessary to implement the principles.