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Welcome – Please join us on May 10, 2022!!

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I welcome all Iowans, Iowans at heart as well as friends, family and colleagues near and far to join us for Disability Rights Iowa’s first Annual Hybrid Mental Health Awareness Celebration: National Mental Health Awareness Celebration with Keynote Speaker Dior Vargas.  We are excited to host this event in conjunction with our 25 amazing community Co-Sponsors.  As the Iowa Protection and Advocacy Center, Disability Rights Iowa’s mission is to defend and promote the human and legal rights of Iowans with disabilities.  Every day our team at Disability Rights Iowa strives to exceed this mission by empowering Iowans with disabilities by ensuring our rights of equality, opportunity, and independence. 

While this is DRI’s first Mental Health Awareness Celebration, nationally, we have celebrated Mental Health Awareness Month for over 73 years.  The month of May is dedicated to raising awareness about mental health and its impact on each of us, our children, our communities, and our nation and to addressing and reducing the stigma experienced by so many.  Each year, nearly twenty percent of adults (approximately 50 million) experience mental health symptoms, in Iowa, 473,000 adults (approximately 15% of the population) experience mental health symptoms.  The last two years of living through and with the COVID-19 pandemic have altered the landscape of our lives and increased the need for honest conversations on the state of mental health.  We all have experienced feelings of isolation, fear, panic, uncertainty, and sadness.  Many of us do not acknowledge our symptoms, feel unable to reach out for treatment, and find it challenging to connect with mental health providers. 

DRI serves all Iowans with Disabilities.  One of my top priorities as Executive Director is to establish a state-wide presence for DRI.  It is vital that all Iowans with Disabilities are aware of all the services we can provide, and have access to our resources and events.  This event marks the first of many state-wide events.  Through the in-person event in Des Moines, six in-person Community Satellite Venues in Sioux City, Mason City, Council Bluffs, Dubuque, Fairfield, and Davenport, and the livestream, individuals will have the opportunity to gather with their community to experience Dior Vargas’ Keynote Presentation.   Through our live-stream option, all Iowans will have an opportunity to join and participate in this event.  We hope to grow our connection with the Disability Community and develop new community partnerships in each of these cities, as well as all of Iowa through this event. 

I had the privilege of working with Dior Vargas multiple times over the past couple of years.  Dior is an exceptionally impactful presenter.  She shares her experiences of growing up Latina, knowing that she was experiencing symptoms of depression, and how not being accepted by her community or able to share her experiences with her family and community impacted her in a very personal and relatable manner.   Dior’s experience of learning that her mental health conditions were included within the protections offered under the Americans with Disabilities Act was a revolution that changed her life.  Understanding that she had protection from discrimination based on her mental health conditions changed and empowered her life and her advocacy. In planning for our first state-wide Celebration of Mental Health Awareness, I knew that Dior’s ability to share her lived experiences as a Queer Latina with mental health diagnoses made her the ideal person to lead our first-statewide conversation on mental health in Iowa. 

Today, we hope to come together to share, build community and learn from Dior Vargas on the impact of the provenance of mental health, mental health barriers, stigma, the empowerment of education, and solutions.  I am grateful for the support from our 24 Co-Sponsors, our Team at Disability Rights Iowa and our Disability Community for their commitment and excitement for this Celebration. We hope this Celebration begins a new conversation in Iowa on how we break down barriers, remove stigma and build an inclusive and supportive community. 

By: Catherine Johnson

Why it’s important to me to see an adult professional speak about Mental Health

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National Mental Health Awareness Event with Dior Vargas logo by Jill Wells, 2022.

Mental Health is whatever condition your emotions are in. At the most basic of levels – the everyday level – the level of health anyone is in at any given moment: that’s all mental health. This means every single day, every single hour, every single moment of my life I have been experiencing mental health. Sometimes my mental health is really great – I am super happy, I am experiencing a wide range of emotions and displaying them in a positive way, and there is no toxicity or negativity I am expressing in excess amounts. Sometimes I am not in good mental health and I am only experiencing what we have labeled as bad or negative emotions – sadness, fear, trepidation, desolation – simply, I am depressed.

I can remember the specific moment I realized I had depression and I can remember the specific moment when I realized that I never thought about having a future because I didn’t know there could be one for me. Those two moments collided in the fifth grade. I never knew anyone who spoke about their own mental health outside of the TV and I remember telling my mom I was depressed and being so proud of myself for speaking my own truth and asking for the support I so desperately needed and I remember being taught immediately that depression was something to hide and that I shouldn’t talk about it – I shouldn’t experience my depression in the light – only alone in my room and in my head where no one else could be bothered by it.

As I begin planning and preparing for Dior Vargas to come to Iowa to share with us all about her own experiences with Mental Health I am astounded by this overwhelming emotion I can’t quite name. But I think it is that I am witnessing a future for someone like me who has a mental health diagnosis of depression –anxiety – or PTSD (those are just mine but there are so many more that people experience on the day to day) someone who can define a future that I’ve wanted to experience but didn’t know I could.

I witness Dior and am overwhelmed by many things that I can’t quite grasp – her openness about mental health experiences is validated by every person who participates and validation of mental health experiences seems so rare to me. Everywhere Dior travels to share her story the stigmas associated with mental health – the stigmas I’ve experienced – dissolve. They begin to fade away and acceptance blooms in her path.

Dior is a trailblazer for open communication surrounding mental health experiences. She is a landmark for children to learn from; success is not in direct opposition to mental health, sometimes it can be a direct cause for success as it was for Dior. As someone who didn’t know I could have a future, finding out I can not only have a future but it can be successful was earthshattering.

Dior is a Queer Latina Feminist Mental Health Advocate and I am just me, a community member, a person who lives with PTSD, who has been depressed since the 5th grade, who gets so anxious around people it becomes hard to breathe or stay calm. Dior is proof that I am an okay version of myself just for existing and I know I am not the only one who is made to feel that way in her presence.

Planning and preparation for the National Mental Health Awareness event featuring Dior Vargas as its keynote speaker is coming to a close. This awareness of my current mental state has me ready for a future that is clearer now that I know it can exist. Most of all I am ready to share this experience with Iowa, to encourage more acceptance, and growth, and to allow for the end of this spreading of stigma. Because it is important for everyone to know: Individuals who experience mental health symptoms or diagnoses can be successful and have futures. We just do.

Thanks to Dior, I know that now.

by: Katelynn Schultz

Why I will be attending the National Mental Health Awareness Event with Keynote Speaker Dior Vargas.

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by: Lacee Be

Growing up, I didn’t have a positive representation of what it meant to live with mental illness. I had stigma on top of stigma. I knew from young adulthood that I had bipolar disorder and PTSD, but I was terrified to get officially diagnosed. I studied both of these diagnoses in college (I majored in psychology), and I knew that mental illness ran in my family. But I kept telling myself, “No. It’s not me.” I listened to the stigmatized thoughts that everyone had filled my mind with.

Then I learned about Dior Vargas. Dior Vargas is a queer Latina feminist mental health advocate. She’s been advocating for mental health since before 2015. Her advocacy has won her awards, ranging from the 2015 Champion of Change for Disability Advocacy Across Generations, from then President Obama, to 2022 Mental Health Equity Journey Award from the NYS Office of Mental Health. Hearing Dior Vargas speak and share about her mental health diagnoses openly helped me break down my own stigma. Her story helped me understand things like, “You aren’t alone,” and, “You can succeed,” and, “You have worth.”

Finally, after experiencing open conservations about mental health, I sought diagnosis. Two years have passed since then, and I’ve gained a perspective about myself that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I’ve gained confidence in my ability to care for myself. I’ve gained my true personality. None of this would have been possible without the awareness I was offered around mental health through friends, family, and public speakers like Dior Vargas.

Perhaps if I had positive representations of living with mental illness from a young age, I wouldn’t have stigmatized my own symptoms and feelings. Perhaps I would have sought treatment and diagnosis sooner. Perhaps I would have grown into myself a lot sooner.

I’ve discovered people like Dior Vargas who have become important representations of what living with a mental illness can mean for me. Dior, among thousands of others, shows us that it’s possible to have a mental illness and to be healthy. To be experiencing mental health symptoms and to be successful. To be sad and to be happy. It’s not either/or. It’s and.

This representation changes the world. It breaks down the stigmas in different cultures and communities. It reduces harm amongst those of us with mental health diagnoses. It encourages strength and growth and power. It changes lives.


For all of these reasons listed here, and so many more, this is why it’s important to me that Dior Vargas comes to Iowa, that I’ll be registering for and attending this event, and that I hope you do too.

Educational Barriers for Disabled Students

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Walking into my elementary school for the first time, I was excited beyond belief. I moved through the halls just like the big kids. However, I noticed that everyone’s eyes turned to me, not because they loved my first-day outfit, despite my cool light-up shoes, but because I had a physical disability. I quickly felt self-conscious as I realized that I was different. Nobody looked like me. I stuck out like a sore thumb as I awkwardly toddled through the hallways while wearing my long-leg braces. My peers stared at my legs rather than listening to what I had to say. I couldn’t run with them on the playground or compete in the same activities in P.E. class. The school separated me from my non-disabled peers for something I couldn’t control. I tried resisting these feelings of helplessness I experienced as I watched my peers pass me by, but I knew that I would encounter that feeling of powerlessness for the rest of my education.

I was lucky because the education system deemed me smart enough and “normal” enough to behave within the socially acceptable standards of the classroom. My disabled peers were not so lucky and were hidden away in the special education wing of the school. Middle school was where I saw a drastic divide between the disabled and abled-bodied students. My disabled peers would join our classes in the morning for a brief lesson. Then they left and nobody saw them outside of the special education classroom for the rest of the day. Their learning and experiences would have been beneficial to all of us, but the structure of schools prohibited this.

This practice of segregating disabled students from the general school population dates back to the American eugenics movement of the early 20th century. Prominent eugenicist, Dr. Henry Herbert Goddard, popularized the use of intelligence testing to identify people who he claimed to be “feebleminded.” He believed society should institutionalize feebleminded people in order to stop the disabled from procreating and protect the strength of the American gene pool. Goddard used intelligence tests to test for feeblemindedness and those he believed were feebleminded were institutionalized at the New Jersey Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys in 1908. He later advocated for these tests to be used in public schools in order to weed out disabled children from the general school population. Eugenicists like Goddard argued for the creation of special education for the explicit purpose of identifying and segregating mentally disabled children. The normalization of segregating disabled students from their abled-bodied peers perpetuates these harmful eugenic ideas into current classrooms. While one-on-one teaching can be beneficial for disabled students, the failure to integrate them into mainstream school culture is harmful for both disabled and abled-bodied students.

Through the segregation of disabled students, teachers and peers miss out on important opportunities to grow in their understanding of disability. Regardless of my willingness to discuss disability in an educational setting, teachers ignored me completely whenever their lesson briefly intersected with disability. A teacher once told me that she didn’t want to trigger me during a lesson about a disabled girl so that’s why she never called on me. I appreciated this caution and recognition, but it also prevented a real-life learning experience for myself and my peers. I remember sitting and feeling my skin crawl as a classmate ignorantly presented on a book with a disabled protagonist. He also failed to ever look at me, but I presume he had different reasons than my teacher. He simply didn’t know how to discuss disability with a disabled student. This complete lack of recognition for the educational value of the disability perspective while simultaneously treating me differently because of my disability was a constant barrier during my education.

Generally, schools either lack the resources or the willingness to accept disability and include disabled students in classrooms. As the special education students walked around the hallways, I heard snickers throughout the class. Non-disabled students jokingly called each other the “R”-word when they didn’t make the smartest decision. I attempted to correct them in vain as they had no context of how harmful that word is for the disability community. The only thing abled-bodied students knew about the special education students was that they came to empty the recycling in all of the classrooms once a week. The school’s justification for this job may have been teaching them responsibility or how to complete a weekly task. However, all this job taught abled-bodied students was that disabled students were only capable of contributing to their “normal” classroom and society by removing their recycling.

Educational barriers for disabled students are vast and different for every person. However, the eugenic ideals that lead to the creation of special education and continue to segregate classrooms today are often the most challenging. This separation of disabled students from their abled-bodied peers removes the opportunity to discuss disability and inclusion at an early age. This lack of knowledge and ability to interact with disabled peers harmfully reinforces the stigma around disability. Accepting disabled students into the classroom diversifies learning for everyone. Students can play an active role in this inclusion by asking questions regarding disability and joining or founding organizations to support disabled peers. Education is the foundation of how people learn and grow in their understanding of the world. School systems cannot ignore disability any longer otherwise disabled people will continue to be isolated and removed from mainstream society.

Iowa is Suppressing the Disability Community’s Vote

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Even amidst a global pandemic, voters turned out in record breaking numbers for the 2020 Presidential Election. Iowa had the highest voter turnout in state history with 1,700,130 voters casting ballots. 1,001,573 of those ballots were absentee. Iowa had an incredibly successful 2020 election where over 75% of Iowans voted. Yet, the legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds were extremely quick to pass legislation drastically reducing access to the ballot, especially for the disability community.

A 2021 Rutgers study found that voting difficulties for the disability community decreased in the 2020 election. However, one in nine voters from the disability community still encounter barriers while voting. This is almost double the rate of problems for voters without disabilities. These issues were most common for people with vision, intellectual, or developmental disabilities. Part of the decrease in barriers to the vote can be attributed to the expansion and ease of access to absentee ballots. It is important to note that Iowa’s absentee ballots are currently inaccessible for blind people, which violates their right to an independent and private ballot.

74% of voters in the disability community voted early at a polling place or by mail ballot. This success for the disability community should be used as a template for further progress to increase voter participation and to #CriptheVote. The disability community continues to vote 7% less than those without disabilities. Iowa should be actively engaging the disability community to increase accessibility of the vote to address the disability gap in voter turnout. Instead, Iowa is suppressing the disability vote.

Senate File 413 reduces the early voting period from 29 to 20 days, closes polling places one hour earlier, and limits the days to accept absentee ballots. Absentee ballots must now be received by county auditors by 8 pm on Election Day to be counted. Absentee ballots previously only had to be in the mail before Election Day and received by the following Monday. Under the law, only the voter, immediate family members, members in the same household, or caregivers can return absentee ballots to an auditor’s office or by mail. This is directly harmful to the disability community because they used to be able to designate anyone to return their ballots. These new regulations are being justified as a way to curb voter fraud. However, these restrictions are completely unnecessary because there was no evidence of voter fraud in 2020 even during the highest voter participation in history.

Restrictive voting rules only serve to further disenfranchise Iowa’s voters when there are already issues within the election system. 22 legally cast ballots were never included in the race between Rita Hart and Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s 2nd District. In this extremely tight race won by only 6 votes, every Iowan deserved to have their ballots counted. Two curbside ballots cast by the disability community were not counted in the initial canvass because the voting machine would not accept the ballots. Poll workers then placed these ballots in the voted pile even though the voting machine never cast the ballot. The Recount Board determined they could not count these votes because they were not included in the initial canvass. Human and mechanical errors similar to this persisted throughout the entire 2nd District. Absentee ballots were rejected for signature requirements that are not present in Iowa’s election laws. Other voters had absentee ballots sent to them in sealed envelopes and were rejected because they had to reseal the envelopes to return them. Iowa’s newest voting law will perpetuate these problems among voters and election staff that will ultimately disenfranchise more Iowa voters than these 22 people in the 2nd District. 22 people is already too many Iowans who are not having their voices heard when they did everything correctly to cast their ballot. Hart recently withdrew this petition as she claims “the toxic campaign of political disinformation to attack this constitutional review of the closest congressional contest in 100 years has effectively silenced the voices of Iowans.” These 22 legally cast ballots will not be counted. While they did everything right, these Iowans have been disenfranchised.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 grants the federal government a role in remedying disenfranchisement. As a result, President Biden issued the Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting. This Executive Order aims to promote and defend the right to vote while expanding education about voter registration and election information for minority groups. The National Institute of Standards along with several other organizations will analyze barriers for the disability community to voter registration, voting technology, and polling locations. They will also review poll worker training with regards to knowledge of voting technology and interactions with the disability community.

Other proposed federal legislation, such as For the People Act of 2021, would expand access to the vote for the disability community. This act would create procedures for the disability community to receive accessible paper or electronic ballots to protect their right to a private and independent ballot. States would also have to expand the early voting period to 60 days. Absentee ballots would have to be available for every voter and prohibit witness signature requirements. The numerous other efforts to increase the ease of voting in this act appear drastically different from the restrictive voting legislation sweeping across the nation and in Iowa.

Democracy and its success rely on the active participation of every voter. Reducing the early voting period and increasing restrictions on absentee ballots and polling place hours directly harms a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Iowa’s new voting law suppresses the voices of minority groups, especially the disability community. Five months after the highest voter participation in state history, Iowa should be capitalizing on this progress to further equal access to the vote. Instead, Iowans are being punished for their active voting and prevented from contributing to democracy.

Disabled College Students Deserve Better

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COVID-19 changed our everyday lives in the blink of an eye. I went from college midterms and planning for a summer abroad to being rushed home for an extended spring break without any idea what the rest of my semester would entail. Professors brainstormed with students how they could possibly teach online and still give us the education we deserved. Students shared excited but anxious smiles as we waved goodbye to our roommates for what we thought would be a brief break. I ran across campus to be wrapped in the tightest hug without even thinking this would be my last hug from a college friend for the next year. Students relished this opportunity to sleep, but we never realized that we would not be waking up from the nightmare of COVID-19 anytime soon.

I returned home in a bubble of constant anxiety. As a disabled person with a compromised immune system, I was genuinely terrified. There were months as a kid where I couldn’t function because I got the flu. If I was that sick then, I had no idea how or if I can survive COVID-19. Even if I survived, how was I supposed to complete college classes while being so sick? My family quickly shut down any in-person interactions with friends and extended family in an attempt to keep me safe. However, I know that not everybody took these necessary measures.

As we switched to online classes, my anxiety exponentially increased under the stress of my college workload. Professors tried to ease our loneliness by inviting students to share how they were coping with our ever-changing reality. When my peers explained how they were meeting friends outside or not paying much mind to the pandemic, I realized I would be living a drastically different life from them solely due to my disability. I won’t say I was shocked because I’ve lived this experience many times before, but I will say that I felt even more isolated. Unlike my peers, I would not even have a glimpse of my normal life for the next year because I am immuno-compromised. Professors, friends, and even the media cautioned us that our mental health was so important, and we had to maintain some quality of life. However, my quality of life is extremely dependent on my health, and there was no way I could risk it. This moment was when I began my year-long battle, not with COVID-19, but with the choices of society, political leaders, and my college.

I decided to live at home and continue with remote learning for my fall and spring semesters. This was a heavy choice and the weight of it was made worse by the abundance of required documentation my college needed to approve my request. Could my college force me to come back to campus even if it was detrimental to my health? I’m extremely grateful I never had to find out the answer to this question.

Zooming into class has some advantages: I don’t have to wake up as early, and I don’t have to wear a mask all day. However, that’s about the extent of the benefits of remote learning. My peers file into the classroom as I click to launch the meeting. They chat excitedly before class, finally seeing each other in person again. I sit on the other side of the screen and strain to hear. As my peers interact, I watch, knowing that I am miles away from campus and miles away from ever having this opportunity again.

When I served as a peer mentor for a freshman class in the fall, I realized that while their semester was not normal, they were experiencing many of the aspects of college I am missing every day. I watched as new friendships formed and grew strong during this stressful time. Classmates would sit under the maple trees as they talked instead of working on homework. They ran across campus laughing as they attempted to escape the freezing winter air. They hung Christmas lights in every single corner of their dorm room until you could see them from outside. They counted down the days until break on their shared whiteboard and smiled brightly every time they crossed off a day. They vented about their hard days and found comfort in the empathetic words of their roommate. This used to be my college experience. If I had known that I would never have those moments for the next year, I would have laughed more, hung even more lights, and hugged so much harder. While I am stuck at home, I know there are students from my college still creating those unforgettable memories. This knowledge makes my isolation so much harder to bear.

While remote learning is far from perfect, it has not been my biggest obstacle this school year. Every time students go to bars or completely ignore the pandemic, I realize that they prioritize the college experience over the health of everyone else. Every time the college eases restrictions, I know that I can’t risk returning to campus. Every time political leaders emphasize that COVID-19 is only harmful to vulnerable populations, I can so clearly see the ableism rampant throughout society.

COVID-19 has stolen so much from all of us. For me, I’ve missed out on an entire year with college friends in what is supposed to be the best experience of my life. However, COVID-19 has also wholly eradicated any security I believed I had with my health. I’m relegated to my house while other society members feel free to continue with their everyday activities. I will remain isolated away from my college community until I qualify for a vaccine. Only then will I regain some aspects of my normal life. But I will take with me the lesson that I must be the greatest advocate for my own health when the institutions supposed to protect the vulnerable continuously fail. My life and the lives of the disability community should mean more than society’s attempts to grasp the coattails of normalcy in a world that will not be returning to normal for quite some time.