Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann Speaks at Baltimore Jewish Abilities Alliance Event

February 24, 2022 Simone Ellin, Associate Editor

Judy Heumann: “There are certain things that we can do within the Jewish community besides having programs that are working on helping disabled people get jobs." (Provided photo)

Judith Heumann has been advocating for the rights of individuals with disabilities almost all of her life.

An author, activist and Obama administration appointee whose role in the 2020 Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” introduced her to audiences outside the disability community, she spoke at the Feb. 22 program “Being Heumann: An Evening with Disability Rights Activist Judy Heumann.”

Opening the virtual program – presented by the Baltimore Jewish Abilities Alliance — was Janet B. Livingston, abilities and inclusion thought partner for The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore. Livingston, who is a board member of Associated Women and Jewish Community Services, reminded viewers that February is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month.

Before the discussion began, participants were given an opportunity to watch the trailer for “Crip Camp.” Afterward, Livingston turned over the program to Sue Rabin, board member of the Macks Center for Jewish Education and SHEMESH, who served as the program’s moderator.

Rabin asked Heumann, 74, to discuss her experiences growing up in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1950s. Heumann contracted polio when she was 2 and has used a wheelchair since the age of 5.

“If we can go back and think about the late 1940s and 1950s right after the war … there were no laws on the books that dealt with issues around discrimination against disabled people,” said Heumann, the child of German Jewish immigrants. “I learned later that when I was 2, the doctor suggested I be put in an institution. If you read my books ‘Being Heumann’ or ‘Rolling Warrior’ for kids, I project that my parents would not have put me in an institution for many reasons, one of which was because of what happened in Germany with the first people being killed being disabled people.”

Despite being a wheelchair user, Heumann said she was accepted by other children and families in her neighborhood. But when her peers began attending school, she said she was left behind due to accessibility and mobility issues.

“I didn’t go to school until I was nine years old, and I had a teacher that was sent by the board of education for two-and-a-half hours a week,” she said. “All these points are historically important because it really underscored the fact that there really wasn’t an expectation that I was going to learn the same way my brothers were.”

The same applied to the Jewish community, said Heumann. “My mother tried to get me into a Jewish day school, but the principal said I didn’t know enough Hebrew to get into the first grade,” she said.

In retrospect, Heumann realized the principal’s concern was simply an excuse for excluding her.

“But my mother took it to heart,” she said. “Our physical therapist’s wife was from Israel. So my mother took me to her house multiple days a week to learn enough Hebrew to get to the first grade. And then when she called the principal and said, ‘I did what you wanted,’ he said, ‘Oh no, it’s not going to work.’”

When finally gaining admission to a local public school, Heumann said she was forced into special education classes.

“Even though the program I got into was not a program that my parents would have chosen … they decided that socialization was really important,” she said.

Rabin asked Heumann to describe her experiences at Camp Jened, the New York summer camp profiled in “Crip Camp.” It was at Camp Jened where Heumann first began to consider and discuss disability rights.

“Camp was a real opportunity to be with other disabled kids and to begin looking at, ‘Why aren’t the buses accessible? Why aren’t there ramps? And why don’t we see ourselves on TV? And why do we see so much about disability as a tragedy and soap operas where disabled people miraculously are no longer disabled?’” Heumann said. “I think also we were being impacted by the civil rights movement. And for me, it was also really important to see the Jewish community involved in the civil rights efforts.”

Rabin asked Heumann to talk about her experiences as a person with a disability in the professional world.

“When I was in college, I worked in the president’s office, I worked in the alumni office,” she said. “My first experience in looking to get a job outside of the university was when I applied to be a teacher. I was denied my teaching license because I couldn’t walk.

“While I was in the middle of applying to be a teacher, I applied to be a social worker and had an interview on the phone with a woman who said, ‘Oh, great interview, I’m sure you’re going to get this job.’ And we set up a time and then I called back and said, ‘Oh, I didn’t mention I’m in a wheelchair. Where’s the accessible entrance?’ She said, ‘I’ll call you back.’ And she did and said, ‘Oh, no need to come in for an interview.’”

Still, Heumann persisted.

“There still weren’t any laws on the books, but there were a number of things that fell into place,” she said. “There was a disabled guy who worked for the New York Times. He spoke to one of the writers who did an editorial [about the discrimination Heumann faced with the board of education.] And then, I got a call to be on the ‘Today’ show.”

The publicity led to Heumann finding an attorney, and her employment discrimination case went to trial in federal court. The judge “strongly encouraged them to give me another interview, which they did. And then I got my license,” Heumann said.

Today, laws such as Section 504, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act have greatly benefited disabled individuals, she said. But Heumann noted that unemployment rates among those with disabilities are still much higher than the general population.

“There are certain things that we can do within the Jewish community besides having programs that are working on helping disabled people get jobs,” she said. “Everybody who is in a management position, where part of their responsibility is hiring employees, really needs to look at what’s going on within their companies. In the last couple of years, I’ve been speaking with many companies, and there are more companies looking at disability from a diversity perspective, which is great. But I think what you find is as these companies are moving forward and they’re hiring some more disabled people, there are people within the companies who are beginning to self-disclose about their invisible disabilities. They’re also beginning to speak out more about what the companies are not doing.

“We really need to do self-inventories,” Heumann said. “We really need to look at what are our biases.”