This webinar series will explore how disability history continues to shape contemporary practices, policies, and perspectives. Across three webinars, participants will examine how 19th- and 20th-century ideas about race and gender influenced current understandings of developmental disabilities; how race and racism have shaped the experiences of children in special education; and how disabled activists and activists with disabilities have challenged the interconnected systems of ableism, racism, and sexism.

Together, we will analyze how these historical legacies continue to influence present-day policies and practices and consider strategies for addressing ongoing inequities. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with and learn alongside our speakers through presentations, questions, and discussion.

Topics will include the ways disability history has shaped participants’ experiences—both positively and negatively—and how we can work collectively to build a more just, equitable, and accessible world.

September 3: What We Talk About When We Talk About Developmental Disability with Dr. Elizabeth Maher

Why are diverse disabilities like Down syndrome and cerebral palsy grouped together? This presentation looks at how the idea of "development" became an important way of understanding disability and how ideas about race, gender, and class helped shape this category.

October 1: The Cost of Arriving Late: Toward a Formative Justice for Intersectional Disability Policy with Dr. KD Harris

Disability policy activates only after harm, addressing one identity axis at a time — leaving multiply-marginalized disabled people to absorb the mental health toll, trauma, and exhaustion that remediation never anticipates. This session introduces formative justice: reframing policy’s task from repair to answering for the formative conditions.

November 5: Forging a Path: Activism, Self Advocacy & Disability Identity

This panel discussion looks at the many ways disabled people have worked to create space for themselves in a world that is often inaccessible and shaped by ableism. They explore how the history of disability activism continues to shape the present and what it can teach us about building a more just future.