The YDN’s Lucy Hodgman writes on the announcement of DEFY’s successful advocacy to get the Disability Peer Mentor Program funded and institutionalized. Starting Fall of 2021, the DPMP with be operated through a DEFY- Academic Strategies partnership. Access the piece here.
“This year we had an opportunity to really focus the administration’s attention on a simple fact: we were providing community building and liaising services for free, whereas other affinity groups were paid for the exact same work,” Disability Empowerment for Yale Vice President and YCC Accessibility Chair Joaquín Lara Midkiff ’23, who is also a member of the News’ Editorial Board, wrote in an email to the News. “This was fundamentally inequitable. And spoke to the university’s trepidation around acknowledging disability as a cultural group.”