Idayah Miller is an 11 year-old black girl with cerebral palsy. She’s being discriminated against not because she’s black, not because she’s a girl, but because she’s disabled.
Read all about Idayah’s story at http://bit.ly/fc2vWg
After applying to one of the best schools in the country, her application was rejected because her wheelchair was deemed a fire hazard, because it “takes up too much space”.
With a cruel irony that would be difficult to make up, the motto of the rejecting school is “All Can Achieve”. Almost incredibly, the one organization that you would have expected to uphold and fight for Idayah’s equality in this day and age, is failing her.
Arguably the most seriously damaging thing about this treatment could be that the very organization that is supposed to give her the best possible start in life, might end up creating a negative spiral which is difficult to clamber out of.
Because of Idayah’s refused entry to the school of her choice, if she is unfortunate, that could have a knock-on effect throughout the rest of her educational life.
That spiral ends up with more disabled people ending up as long-term unemployed, and more than twice as likely to have no qualifications & living in relative poverty – it means that by the time they reach 26, disabled people are 400% more likely to be unemployed.
It is incidences like Idayah’s, initiated by people who really ought to know better, that make it easier for people to level accusations of benefit scrounging at disabled people.
And it is attitudes like that, so prevalent, even if unwelcomed by many, in our society, that make the need to change attitudes towards disabled people so necessary.
