Experiences in Disability Rights Law Webinar

and How Law Schools Can Promote the Equality of Rights with Persons with Disabilities

This event was held on April 6th, 2020. The recording is now posted to this page and you can read below about the topic and panelists.

About

Inspired by the Americans with Disabilities Act’s 30th anniversary, six prominent disability rights scholars and activists reflected back on their experiences with the disability rights movement and look forward to a future where every law student is exposed to people with disabilities and their impact on the law in their core curriculum.

 

Panelists

  • Portrait of Judge Thelton Henderson

    Judge Thelton Henderson

    • Former Judge and Professor of Law at Berkeley Law

    Judge Henderson served as a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California from 1980 to 2017. He is now a distinguished visiting Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law and the namesake of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at Berkeley Law. Judge Henderson has a long history of public service and civil rights advocacy.

  • Portrait of Elizabeth Jameson

    Elizabeth Jameson

    • Disability Rights Activist and Artist

    Elizabeth Jameson is a disability rights activist and artist. Prior to her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Jameson served as a public interest and civil rights lawyer, representing incarcerated children and children with disabilities. Jameson is also a prolific writer; her essays have been published in the New York Times, WIRED Magazine, and the British Medical Journal.

  • Portrait of Judith Huemann

    Judith Heumann

    • Disability Rights Activist

    Judith Heumann is an internationally recognized disability rights activist. Her policy work and activism from the 1960s to the present have been key to the creation and enforcement of
    significant disability rights laws – including Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Under the Obama administration, Heumann served as a Special
    Advisor on International Disability Rights for the US State Department. She is the author of the recently published book, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activists.

  • Portrait of Theresia Degener

    Theresia Degener

    • Professor of Law and Disability Studies at Protestant University of Applied Sciences, Bochum Germany

    Theresia Degener is a Professor of Law and Disability Studies at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences of the Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe. Degener is a longtime disability rights
    activist and the former Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She was one of the drafters of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Her contributions towards the disability rights movement earned her the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2014.

  • Portrait of Gerard Quinn

    Gerard Quinn

    • Co-Director of the Disability Rights Working Group

    Gerard Quinn is Professor Emeritus of Law at the National University of Ireland – Galway, where he directs the Centre for Disability Law and Policy and the the Raoul Wallenberg Chair of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund, Sweden. He was one of the drafters of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a leading authority on international and comparative disability rights law.

  • Portrait of Sydney Pickern

    Sydney Pickern

    • Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund Attorney

    Sydney Pickern is a staff attorney at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. Pickern has fought to improve access to healthcare, housing, and emergency services for people with disabilities in Alameda County.

  • David Oppenheimer

    David Oppenheimer

    • Clinical Professor of Law at Berkeley Law

    David Oppenheimer is a Clinical Professor of Law at Berkeley Law, and the Director of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law.

The Experiences in Disability Rights Law Webinar is available to watch via Youtube.