Join the Supporting and Advocating for DPS EC & Disabled Students Collective! For the 2025 school year we are working to create a webinar series!
Disability justice is a framework that goes beyond just advocating for the rights of people with disabilities. It focuses on fairness, inclusion, and equal opportunities for everyone, especially those who have been historically marginalized. Disability justice calls for a world where everyone, regardless of their abilities or backgrounds, is valued, supported, and included.
Key principles include the following items:
People with disabilities experience different challenges based on other parts of their identity, like race, gender, and class. Disability justice recognizes that these identities intersect, and we must consider all of them when advocating for change.
People with disabilities should lead the movement for disability justice, as they have the lived experience to guide their work and decisions.
Disability justice challenges systems that prioritize profit over people’s well-being. It promotes an understanding that everyone deserves support and care, regardless of their economic status.
All disabilities, whether physical, mental, sensory, or cognitive, should be supported and valued equally. The disability community is diverse, and everyone should work together for a common cause.
Disability justice values all people as whole beings, not just focusing on their disabilities but also on their strengths, skills, and abilities. It encourages seeing people as complex individuals.
Disability justice acknowledges that no one can do everything on their own, and we all rely on each other. Building systems of support and community care is essential for everyone’s well-being.
True access means everyone, regardless of ability, has what they need to participate fully in society. It’s about creating environments where everyone can thrive, not just accommodating those with disabilities.
Disability is not just about medical conditions or impairments; it’s also shaped by society’s structures and attitudes. Disability justice calls for changing those structures to make the world more accessible for all.
We pace ourselves, individually and collectively, to be sustained long term. Our embodied experiences guide us toward ongoing justice and liberation.
Shifting how social justice movements understand disability and contextualize ableism, disability justice lends itself to politics of alliance.