Speech: Inaugural Disability Community Graduation

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Sarah Craig and I use she/her pronouns. To give a little visual description, I am a white woman with brownish hair and I am wearing a burgundy dress. I am also wearing a ginormous smile on my face, and that’s because I am so excited to welcome all of you to the inaugural DISCO Grad, a graduation celebration for Georgetown’s disability communities.

Last May, I sent an email to my then disability studies professor, with the subject line “a potentially wild idea — disability graduation?” It was the first in a series of emails and conversations with various staff members of me just rambling about this idea and being unsure of what direction to take. But thanks to Dr. Kenny—who so graciously met with me during her second week on campus—and my fellow DISCO grad committee members, we were able to actualize that wild idea and create something beautifully historic and joyful.

The concept of disabled joy has guided us throughout the year that we have been planning this event. On a campus that’s so inaccessible—in more ways than one—it can often feel like being disabled at Georgetown is nothing more than forced intimacy and bureaucratic ableism, as if that piece of our identity is an obstacle and nothing more.

Programs like the Georgetown Disability Alliance, the Disability Studies program, and the Disability Cultural Initiative have worked to carve out spaces for disabled joy on campus, spaces that celebrate disability for what it is and how disabled students, staff, and faculty make Georgetown better. The hope is that this graduation celebration will become a cornerstone for disabled joy at Georgetown, one that allows students to celebrate their time in college and the achievement that is graduating from this institution as a disabled person. 

It also feels important to recognize that the multitude of spaces for disabled joy on campus would not exist without a rich history of activism, driven by some of the individuals in this very room. Here today we have Professor Lydia Brown, who wrote the initial proposal for a Disability Cultural Center as an undergraduate in 2012, the revival of which paved the way for the establishment of the Disability Cultural Initiative last fall. And three of the students who fought so hard for DCI—Dominic, Nesreen, and Gwyneth—are with us today, all graduating seniors who I hope are looking back at their efforts with pride.

We also have Tiffany Yu here, who not only founded Georgetown’s first ever disability student group, but also donated $50,000 to support the Disability Cultural Initiative and the eventual Disability Cultural Center. And we have Dr. Amy Kenny, the actualization of this long-fought battle, who over the past year, has dedicated her time and passion to creating a more equitable and accessible campus for disabled students, staff, and faculty members. 

And the legacies they leave rest on those of who came before us, crip elders who fought for basic rights and access. They rest on the legacies of Indigenous crip elders, Piscataway and Anacostan ancestors whose unceded land we exist on today. They rest on those of queer, trans, crip elders of color who fought to make the disability justice movement intersectional, to create a kind of collective liberation that would propel us all forward. These legacies have laid a foundation of justice, solidarity, and joy, and they are why we are able to celebrate here today.

Today’s inaugural DisCo graduation is a beautiful, joyful, historical moment that rests upon a rich history of disability activism and culture, and I feel so lucky to bear witness to it alongside you all. It is a wild idea, realized, one that I hope will cement a place for disabled joy at Georgetown for many years to come.

And now, to further honor our crip elders and their joy, I’d like to welcome Reverend Ebony Grisom to the stage to offer our invocation.