Braille Monitor                          July 2019

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Creating a More Perfect Union: The Role that a More Perfect JTB Law Symposium Can Play

by Gary Wunder

The work of Dr. Jacobus tenBroek’s life extended far beyond people who are blind. He was concerned with all of those who were disenfranchised by society as evidenced by his writings and his service. He wrote The Right to Live in the World and made frequent contributions to other publications of the time. He also served on the California State Social Welfare Board and for a number of years served as its chairman. To honor and further his work, the National Federation of the Blind holds the Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium. It speaks to discrimination experienced by all people with disabilities, and its goal has been to have speakers representing those whose voice society has not heard or heeded.

But as progressive as we have tried to be, our efforts in being inclusive and fully representative have sometimes fallen short of the ideal Dr. tenBroek’s work created. Our work to be inclusive has taken many forms. First, we recognized that our organization did not always welcome people of color and to say through word and action that this was unacceptable. Of course, this was well-intentioned but not enough. We then created a group to deal with issues faced by people of color, but in retrospect we worked so hard at emphasizing our commonality as blind people that we did not fully appreciate or embrace the issues that needed to be addressed that were unique to those of us of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, or any of the other characteristics that provide different perspectives.

Embracing includes actively recruiting and accepting the talents of the groups who have for too long been on the fringe of our organization. We continued our evolution with the creation of the Underserved Populations Committee, but what we have come to understand is that failing to reject a group isn’t the same as embracing and really listening to its members. We reorganized the Diversity and Inclusion Committee in 2017 to reflect new thinking, emphasis, and direction. Next we crafted a policy statement that put in writing our expectations of one another, and in 2018 we published our code of conduct which again was a combination of codifying in formal policy what we have long strived to do in practice.

While we would prefer to believe that we are ahead of the curve and are able to see and bring about the changes required in our treatment of one another as equal members, sometimes internal processes are not enough, and we need to listen to the outside world. This presumes that the outside world also respects what we do and offers its criticism because it believes we are open to and able to change our behavior. We believe that this was the case when we received an open letter suggesting that our symposium has not worked hard enough to hear the voices of those who have for too long gone unheard, unheeded, unrepresented, and consequently underappreciated and underutilized in our movement.

Below is an open letter to the tenBroek Disability Law Symposium Steering Committee, and following it is a response from President Riccobono. After his response we are including a list of activities that will take place during the national convention intended to do a better job of listening to and being influenced by all of the intersectional voices that are a part of our role as the leading consumer organization of the blind. Our approach will be to continue to actively work to further the rights of blind people and to put equal energy into seeing that we warmly embrace and listen to all of the groups that make up the community of blind people we wish to serve and represent. Here is the open letter:

An Open Letter to the tenBroek Disability Law Symposium Steering Committee

April 5, 2019

Dear Steering Committee Members:

We write this letter in our personal capacities as lawyers, law students, and advocates dedicated to disability rights advocacy. We are current and former attendees of the tenBroek Disability Law Symposium, some of us for years, others in years past, and some for the first time. Some of us have also served on the Steering Committee. A few have desired but have never been able to attend. We come from different backgrounds, specialties, and areas of practice within the broad realms of disability rights and disability justice. What brings us together to write this letter is our concern about the systemic problems that exist within the tenBroek Disability Law Symposium regarding diversity, inclusion, and social justice.

We do not take lightly the decision to write a public letter such as this one. This, however, is a topic that has been brought up year after year, privately, and both formally and informally to members of the planning committee and other voices of influence within the conference. Unfortunately, these efforts have proven unproductive at best. Eventually, when dealing with matters of such importance to the community we claim to represent, a public approach becomes necessary.

The Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium is a space of great potential as an important gathering of disability rights lawyers, advocates, and other professionals to discuss matters pertaining to disability law. Unfortunately, like so many spaces in disability advocacy, this Symposium has excluded voices of color and LGBTQ voices in favor of predominantly white, cisgender, male voices. As an example, in 2019, during the first day of the Symposium, there were no speakers of color during the plenary sessions and only one during the breakout sessions.

Over the years, sessions about topics that disproportionately and predominantly impact people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities have been led by all-white, predominantly cisgender male panels. These topics include immigration, intersectionality, incarceration, the school-to-prison pipeline, and international disability rights, among many others. Rarer still are moderators, keynote or plenary speakers, and panelists with lived experiences related to these issues, which many other conferences and symposia have long-since begun to include. Some of these directly affected people included in other conference spaces include people who have been homeless or who have been targeted for criminalization—both issues that were discussed at length during this year’s conference with no representation from affected persons.

This leads to an environment at the conference that is largely unwelcoming to people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ, and people from other marginalized identities with disabilities in the profession. In past and present conferences, many of us have witnessed or experienced time and time again, unintentional and intentional prejudice on the part of tenBroek participants and organizers, often in the form of jokes and demeaning comments. Many participants with marginalized identities who have attended tenBroek in the past have stopped attending precisely because of these issues—leaving feeling unwelcome in this space and by extension, in the movement and profession.

When these issues are brought up, the response is often a demand for “non-white” lawyers to “step up” or “help out,” with little or no acknowledgement of the work marginalized people have been putting in to engage with and shift these problematic dynamics. In truth, it is people in positions of power who must take proactive action to remedy these kinds of systemic problems. Shifting the burden of responsibility, rather than assuming it, unjustly puts the onus on marginalized people to remedy that which they often have no structural power to change.

For too long, the burden of improving diversity and responding to the nature of intersectional identities has rested on the most marginalized among us, and it is not acceptable. Other times when these concerns are raised, we have been met with vitriol, defensiveness, or excuses (e.g., personally attacking people who raise concerns or claiming that underrepresentation is only because lawyers of color are not interested in participating) or have tried to shut down conversation by claiming that the act of identifying these problems is “uncivil.”

This prevalence of racism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ oppression, ageism, defensiveness, and exclusion is unacceptable within any activist community. It is anathema to the very core of the values of the disability community.

At a minimum, we believe that the following changes must take place for tenBroek to begin rectifying these wrongs as it aspires to honor Jacobus tenBroek’s legacy of full and meaningful inclusion:

We write this letter from a place of love and deep concern for the future of the symposium, and the disability rights profession and disabled communities after years of frustration. We cannot engage in the same practices, year after year, while expecting advancement for our profession, communities, or movements. As the advocates who claim to represent such an incredibly diverse community, we must evolve if we wish to remain part of the movement.

Sincerely,

Nancy Alisberg
Zainab Alkebsi
Alexis Alvarez
Ma’ayan Anafi
Torie Atkinson
Sam Bagenstos
Rabia Belt
Zoe Brennan-Krohn
Lydia X. Z. Brown
Debbye Byrne
Claudia Center
Natalie M. Chin
Sarah Colby
Sam Crane
Richard Diaz
Esperanza Dillard
Nida Din
Tim Fox
Dustin Gibson
Karla Gilbride
Pilar Gonzalez
Deepa Goraya
Kelly Israel
Scott Huffman
Caroline Jackson
Jinny Kim
Rachael Langston
Martie Lafferty
Talila A. Lewis
Katherine Mathews
Jennifer Mathis
Caitlin Parton
Katherine Pérez
Jamelia Morgan
Tifanei Ressl-Moyer
Gena Rinaldi
Amy Robertson
Rebecca Rodgers
Victoria M. Rodríguez-Roldán
Mehgan Sidhu
Ariel Simms
Brianna Terrell
Michelle Uzeta
Shira Wakschlag
Stephanie Woodward
Silvia Yee

Here is the letter President Riccobono wrote in response:

April 12, 2019

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the National Federation of the Blind Board of Directors, this letter is to thank the signatories for raising the issues detailed in “An Open Letter to the tenBroek Disability Law Symposium Steering Committee” dated April 5, 2019. We acknowledge and take responsibility for the concerns raised regarding the Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium. In this response, we hope to clarify the evolution of the disability rights efforts we are involved in and to make some initial commitments to evolving the Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium specifically.

We understand and take responsibility for the fact that individuals have been harmed by the actions that we have or have not taken. The letter also makes it clear that hostility and misdirected blame have been unfairly targeted at the segments of the population that are most underrepresented at the symposium. We commit to seeking more effective ways of listening and acting on concerns raised in the future and more fully pursuing the standards of equity and social justice that Dr. tenBroek championed. We apologize for our role in creating, explicitly or implicitly, a hostile and exclusionary environment in our law symposium. We have heard the urgent need for stronger representation of people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ, people from other marginalized identities with disabilities, as well as voices with lived experience regarding the topics being discussed. The commitment of the National Federation of the Blind to diversity is real, and we are prepared to evolve the Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium to ensure that it leads the way in broadening the diversity of disability rights generally. We invite, and in fact need you to be a part of this evolution.

As President of the National Federation of the Blind, I have the ultimate responsibility for the programs we conduct and the environment that we create for guests to our events in and outside our building. The Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium is one of the most important events that we organize and host, and I am deeply disappointed that we have missed the mark in meeting the highest expectations for the symposium. The steering committee, along with a number of the Federation’s volunteer members and Federation staff, helps to guide our work on the symposium. It is worth acknowledging that our steering committee members have volunteered dozens of hours of their time to share their ideas, connections, and insights to continue building the symposium into a dynamic community. We believe that they are also people who work from a place of love, and I know they share my disappointment that an important set of voices in our movement have been unintentionally or unconsciously unwelcomed and excluded. We acknowledge that we have work to do in formalizing the process for engaging individuals including people of color and people who identify as LGBTQ on our tenBroek steering committee. We are further committed to more clearly articulating the role of the steering committee and ensuring that they, like leaders of the Federation, remain guided by the diversity statement found in the NFB’s Code of Conduct.

We would like to take this opportunity to make it clear that while the National Federation of the Blind has been a strong supporter of the development of the Disability Rights Bar Association, it does not dictate the policies and practices of that entity. The National Federation of the Blind has supported that community through financial and in-kind support, and many of our members are active in the DRBA. However, the Federation does not direct the priorities of that organization. We have tried to create synergy through the tenBroek Symposium by providing space and resources to programs like DRBA and, more recently, the Deaf Law Day, to bring the community together rather than divide it. It is clear from the letter that our collaboration in these activities has created uncertainty about how they are planned and organized and who has responsibility for them. On behalf of the National Federation of the Blind, we plan to seek ways to make the processes more transparent and to share the priorities of diversity and inclusion with programs that are conducted in partnership with the symposium.

Seven specific items were identified as necessary reforms for us to achieve the quality of community at the Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium that we all want to experience, and we commit to considering those as important guides in shaping the symposium of the future. It would be disingenuous to make a complete commitment to achieving each of the reforms by the time of the 2020 symposium—especially after just one week of reflection. While this symposium is a critical forum in the disability rights movement, it is only one piece; the broader success will take the continued commitment and engagement of many more organizations. However, we ask you to recognize that our organization has made a significant commitment to this work. We know that it is going to continue to take real work to evolve the symposium effectively, and it is our intent to make changes for long-term growth not simply for short term effect. We ask that you hold us accountable, and we welcome your assistance and active engagement as we move down that path.

There are some immediate steps we are taking to begin this process. These are initial action items, and do not represent the entire scope of the work that lies ahead.

Those are our near-future steps, and we are certain that much more work will be needed. We are confident that we do not know all that we need to and that we are not aware of all of the people that are best suited to help. We take responsibility for our symposium, but we sincerely do need your help. We need to know where you can help and what your interests might be. We are certain that it will be impossible to fully implement every suggestion in the short term, but we know that we are bound to fall short if we do not receive your input. Please consider sending your thoughts directly to [email protected] with the subject line “#JTBLaw Recommendations” so we can consider them.

I close with again thanking you for your direct approach. I have attempted to be open and honest and invite you to continue the dialogue. I am certain there is more to learn together, and I hope that you will take away from this letter my sincere openness to continuing to build upon the legacy of Jacobus tenBroek in a way that each of us can be proud.

Sincerely,

Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind

New Diversity Initiatives That Will Occur at the 2019 National Convention

Sunday, July 7

5:30 to 7:00 PM          Mujeres of the Federation
Join us for a keynote from a dynamic Latina leader. This session will provide inspiration and mentorship opportunities for the next generation of blind Latina trailblazers. ¡No te lo pierdas!

7:00 to 9:00 PM          Black Leaders Advancing the Federation
Celebrate the numerous contributions of black Federation leaders. Let’s inspire youth through personal empowerment, leadership development, and mentorship. All are welcome to attend.

Monday, July 8
4:30 to 6:00 PM          Asian Membership Development
Contribute and gather ideas on how to provide culturally relevant outreach and support to the Asian community. Your thoughts are critical in shaping the course of this initiative.

7:00 to 9:00 PM          Diversity and Inclusion Committee Meeting
We are providing an avenue to share experiences, explore strategies, and generate ideas to support NFB diversity efforts. Get involved in this aspect of our movement.

Tuesday, July 9
7:30 to 8:30 AM         Presidential Diversity Morning Mixer
This gathering provides an open opportunity to engage with national leaders to chat about diversity and inclusion topics. Please drop in and share your ideas, suggestions, and thoughts about our continued efforts to broaden the participation and advancement of blind people from diverse backgrounds in our movement. Facilitator: Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind

Thursday, July 11
6:00 to 7:00 PM          Intersectional Meet-Ups
Participate in a series of special topic community conversations that include:

Moving Forward

These meetings at the 2019 National Convention and changes in the steering committee and other processes for the Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium are obviously not the end of the journey. They are the next steps taken on the path to being as inclusive and as representative as we can be. The Federation embraces all members as family, united in the desire to make the world a better place for all blind people and determined to see that blindness will not be the defining characteristic of our lives. But in focusing only on the characteristic of blindness we will not lose sight of the other facets of our Federation members that will enrich our organization with their diverse identities of race, gender, sexuality, and life experience as we work together in challenging the barriers that would prevent us and future blind people from living the life we want. We look forward to these ongoing efforts to uplift our diverse perspectives and showcasing our span across a broad cross-section of society, because we are the nation’s blind. We will be listening to Federationists and supportive outside voices alike as we determine the next steps to take in traveling a more inclusive path.

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