“Civil rights are not given. You must fight to get them, then, fight to keep them.”
– Anita Cameron

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and the observance of Disability Pride Month, which is celebrated in July because of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These decisive laws have not only impacted individual lives—they have shaped generations and possible futures for marginalized Americans in ways we won’t understand for decades to come.

However, the Civil Rights Act and ADA are not where the fight stops. These laws are not perfect, and there is still much work to do.

At Virginia Tech, we recently launched the Disability Community Technology Center (DisCoTec) in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and funded by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This regional center will pay disabled people to consult on new technologies; host artists connected to disability justice with an artist-in-residence program; and develop a “radically inclusive gaming” group to create table-top role playing materials with neurodivergent and disabled players in mind.

DisCoTec’s first artist-in-residence was disability justice icon Anita Cameron, who worked on her memoir from June 1 to 20 and read a selection at the official launch of the center on June 27.

The principal investigator (PI) for the grant is Ashley Shew, associate professor in the department of science, technology, and society and author of Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement. Co-PIs include Keresh Afsari, Elizabeth McLain, and Damien P. Williams.

In addition to the center, Shew and McClain have supported Virginia Tech’s Disability Alliance and Caucus (DAC), a collective of disabled students and employees and their allies who meet with the goals of “community building, mutual support, and disability activism.” Lydia Qualls, counselor at Cook Counseling Center, also leads The Beyond Boundaries Support Group for Disabled, Neurodivergent, and Chronically Ill Students.

Campus-wide initiatives are taking place, too. Since 2018, the Campus Accessibility Working Group (CAWG) has been at the forefront of disability inclusion at Virginia Tech, leading pathway enhancements, all-gender bathrooms, live-captioning models, PDF remediation software pilots, and more via a community of practice model involving more than 10 administrative offices and three Virginia Tech community governance groups. CAWG also collaborated with the Office of Equity and Accessibility and Technology-Enhanced Learning and Online Strategies to host the inaugural Virginia Tech Accessibility Awareness Week in March 2024.

I take great pride in the work we have done so far in making Virginia Tech more accessible to our disabled students, especially those who are multiply marginalized. I hope we continue this trajectory so that, every July, we can continue to observe Disability Pride Month and celebrate the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act from a place of empowerment and optimism.