A Conversation with TL Lewis: Understanding the Intersection of Disability, Ableism, Racism, and anti-Blackness

Event Details

Date: Thursday, July 15, 2021
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm PDT
RSVP Link: bit.ly/Stanford-TL

Co-sponsored by the Office of Accessible Education, the Division of Student Affairs, and the Stanford Critical Law Society.

This event will have ASL interpreting and captioning.

If you need a disability-related accommodation for this event, please contact disability.access@stanford.edu at least one week in advance.

Event Description:

Ableism is embedded in every oppression; and disability is one of the most fluid and complex marginalized identities that exists.Notably, one does not have to be disabled to experience ableism because ableism evaluates and assigns value to people based on their divergence--whether actual or perceived--from constructed ideas of normality, intelligence, wellness, excellence, beauty, and [re]productivity. For example, oppression, deprivation, violence, and precarity are leading causes of disabilities for marginalized people including youth and students. Developing a more expansive understanding of disability and ableism will allow us to find ways to create and implement practices to increase solidarity between more people, and across more communities and social justice movements. Talila A. Lewis will facilitate a campus-wide conversation on the past and present nexus between ableism, racism, and other forms of oppression. TL will share personal experiences of navigating racism and ableism as an undergraduate student, as a law student, and beyond. Additionally, TL will challenge dominant narratives of disability and ableism, provide recommendations and/or tips for educators, including faculty and administrators, to foster access-centered practices and center disability justice and racial justice, among others, in and outside the classroom.

Talila A. Lewis is an abolitionist community lawyer, educator, and organizer who unites movements for justice by making manifest the inextricable links between ableism, racism, classism, and all forms of systemic and structural oppression. Recognized as a 2015 White House Champion of Change and one of Pacific Standard Magazine's Top 30 Thinkers Under 30, Lewis engineers and leads innovative and intersectional social justice efforts that illuminate and address grave injustices within education, medical, and legal/carceral systems that have gone unaddressed for generations. As the creator of the only national database of imprisoned deaf/blind people, Lewis, advocates with and for thousands of imprisoned and formerly imprisoned disabled people as the volunteer director of HEARD (@behearddc). As one of the only people in the world working on deaf wrongful conviction cases, Lewis regularly testifies, teaches and presents and on wrongful convictions of disabled people, carceral ableism, and related topics. Lewis serves as a consultant for dozens of social justice organizations and as an expert on cases involving multiply-marginalized disabled people. A founding member of the Harriet Tubman Collective and co-creator of the Disability Solidarity praxis, Lewis has taught at Rochester Institute of Technology and Northeastern University School of Law. A recent graduate of American University Washington College of Law, Lewis has received awards from numerous universities, the American Bar Association, the American Association for People with Disabilities, the Nation Institute, National Black Deaf Advocates, and EBONY Magazine, among others. Lewis is a 2018 Roddenberry Fellow & a 2018 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity.