The Accessible Education Center in collaboration with the University of Oregon’s Deconstructing Whiteness Working Group presents an opportunity to engage in learning and dialogue around the intersection of disability with other marginalized identities. Over the course of 10 weekly discussions we will collectively explore the ways in which ableism, racism, and other systems of oppression are intertwined and perpetuated in our educational systems, and how we can use this learning to work toward equity and access. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, by Leah Lakshimi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centres the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people” with a focus on “creating spaces by and for sick and disabled queer people of colour…in our communities and political movements.” It is described as “a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind.” Read excerpts from Care Work. Limited to 10 participants. Paper books will be made available in advance of the first group meeting, with funding provided by University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion. Please contact organizers with requests for alternative text formats -  Abby Rotholz at arotholz@uoregon.edu or Katie Wolf at wolfk@uoregon.edu. Sign up via MyTrack.

Learning objectives:

• Participants will learn about the history and principles of Disability Justice.
• Participants will come to understand how “able bodied supremacy,” white supremacy, and other systems of oppression are intertwined and perpetuated in our educational systems.
• Participants will gain insight into how these systems of oppression are showing up in their own work environments, and how these beliefs have been internalized in their own thinking.
• Participants will have opportunity to work on dismantling their own internalized oppressive thought patterns, and will consider ways to dismantle systemic oppression within the structure of their work environment.