I am ecstatic to announce that we, in collaboration with The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy and Innovation are opening applications for our third annual Heumann-Armstrong Awards. This is possible due to funding from the American Association of People with Disabilities and Esquire Bank. Check out the video for more information! Applications are open from May 15th, 2023, until July 16th, 2023. May Judy’s memory be a blessing.
More about Elijah:
I am Elijah Armstrong, one of AAPD’s Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award winners for 2021. I am an epileptic from Jacksonville, Florida, and went to high school at Stanton College Preparatory School in Duval County Public Schools. My junior year of high school, the lights in my math classroom flickered, and it caused me to have seizures every other day. When I asked my school for an accommodation, my guidance counselor told me that I would need to leave the school for the integrity of the program.
This motivated me to become an activist in the space of disability and education. Through a lot of self-advocacy, I am proud to say I graduated from Stanton in 2015. I then went on to Penn State, where I majored in Education and Public Policy, and found a deep interest in advancing the rights of all students. While at Penn State, I founded Equal Opportunities for Students as a way to help tell the stories of marginalized students in education. I also expanded my advocacy, by being a member of the Disability Resources, Education Activism, and Mentoring (DREAM) board from 2017 through 2019. Throughout all of this, I remained dedicated to justice and equity for students with disabilities in Duval County Public Schools, and reached a settlement with Duval County in 2017.
After graduating from Penn State in 2019, I went on to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I was President of the Black Student Union. I earned my Masters’ in Education Policy and Management from HGSE in 2020.
A note from Elijah:
Hey y’all. It’s Elijah. I’m really excited for the opportunity to start this award! I wanted to thank you all for applying for this award. It can be really scary to publicly disclose you have a disability, and really difficult to talk about. It’s not difficult because of having a disability, but it’s difficult to receive harassment, both in person and online, because of who you are. That’s part of why we’ve structured this application the way we have. Disability is incredibly diverse, but we also recognize people don’t always feel safe revealing all of who they are. We want to make sure we reach a diverse pool of applicants with different races, genders, ethnicity, sexual orientations, immigration statuses, and religions, but we also understand societal discrimination may make some applicants want to hide that information for safety. On question 14 of this application, we ask if you are a part of any other marginalized groups, and we would love to see you answer that question, but we also understand if you choose not to answer that question because it makes you uncomfortable. It’s OK to choose safety; you don’t have to answer any of the optional questions you don’t feel comfortable with.
Requirements:
Applicants must be students with disabilities in the 6th grade or higher, including higher education, and must be willing to be interviewed on video about their experience with disability and ableism in education. Please use our contact form or email CoelhoCenter @ lls.edu with any questions.
Here is the link to the application: https://shorturl.at/ijuCX