Chronicle Article

After the Sit Out protest that a group of us staged on my university’s campus, to protest the university’s lack of accessibility in planning, as demonstrated by the new set of stairs without any marked or nearby ramped access, I stood in my shower and sobbed. I couldn’t get a hold of myself. I tried to explain to my spouse, happy that the protest had been so well attended, why I was crying. I had to dry off, sit down, and write it all out. I cried in the writing and remembering.

I posted what I wrote as a Note on Facebook, to share with my friends, those cheering from afar and those who sat with me in solidarity. Someone I know though phil-tech community suggested I polish it and send it to see if it could be published.

The result came out with the Chronicle for Higher Education online today. It’s part of the Sept 22, 2017 issue. They have entitled the piece “The Long Way Around.” 

Infrastructure is technology: it’s the technology that can either permit bodies and minds to exist in different spaces – or bar that access. You can’t think about technology and disability without thinking about the structures – administrative, bureaucratic, and physical – that can either make it easy to be somewhere or not.

The participants in Technology and Disability classes have expanded my ideas of what counts as this subject matter and have assessed different facets of our campus through their own research projects.