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disability-related news

Remembering Judith Heumann,

​Disability icon died at 75.
Judith_Heumann,_2014_(cropped).jpg
1947-2023

Judith Heumann, a disability icon, died on Saturday, March 4th, 2023. She fought against discrimination, protesting for disability rights and citing her experiences to further equity for people with disabilities. She was 75 years old. Heumann was a wheelchair user, and she was one of the victims of discrimination when attempting to get a proper education. At the same time, the public school declined her education due to her disease Polio. 

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After successfully reaching the goal of getting an education, she later fought for ramps and founded "Disabled in Action". Disabled in Action is an organization that focuses on furthering the rights of a person with a disability, reaching out to companies and other government and non-government organizations to accommodate their workplaces to be ADA-compliant. She was also a teacher in New York after fighting for her license in 1970. 

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She was on Human Rights Watch, the Ford Foundation, and the World Bank boards. She worked under the Obama Administration as the Special Advisor for International Disability Rights at the U.S. State Department from 2010 to 2017. 

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