Drake Political Review | Let's Talk Politics

Tag: disability

<h1>Closing the Disability Representation Gap</h1><h6><i>Candidates and elected officials with disabilities are underrepresented in all levels of government due to the accessibility barriers and systemic biases they face.</i></h6>
National, People

Closing the Disability Representation Gap

Candidates and elected officials with disabilities are underrepresented in all levels of government due to the accessibility barriers and systemic biases they face.

The 118th United States Congress has been heralded as the most diverse national legislature in the history of our country. Its membership includes the first ever Generation Z representative, and the number of women in its ranks is at an all-time high. Recent data from Pew Research Center shows that this is the most racially and ethnically diverse Congress in history. That same study shows that, at 13, the number of openly LGBTQ+ members has never been higher. Yet even with all these headline-making, record-setting gains in diversity, Congress continues to lag far behind the actual demographics of the U.S. population. Unsurprisingly, minorities are consistently underrepresented.  Perhaps no minority group feels that underrepresentation more acutely than the disability community. Rut...
<h1>Missing: Iowa’s Sign Language Interpreters</h1><h6><i>Communication access for deaf Iowans suffers under decline of interpreters and training programs.</i></h6>
Iowa

Missing: Iowa’s Sign Language Interpreters

Communication access for deaf Iowans suffers under decline of interpreters and training programs.

Art by Amanda O'Brien The interpreter training program at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs began and ended with Carolyn Cool. She was a graduate of the program’s first class of young sign language interpreters in 1980. Cool immediately started her career interpreting in the legal and medical fields across central Iowa.  Then, 12 years later, she returned. To live in her hometown. To work at Iowa Western. To teach new interpreters everything she knew in the same place she learned it. “It just was like the ideal job,” Cool said. “I remember saying to my husband one time, I don't know when I get paid and I don't know how much money I make because that was so irrelevant to me and I had so much fun going to Iowa Western every day.” Much of that fun was building...
css.php