As readers and listeners of BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY have witnessed, many, if not most, of my posts on the blog, are concerned to identify the mechanisms, practices, and strategies by and through which the exclusion of disabled philosophers and the marginalization of philosophy of disability are produced.

To take just one example, in a recent post, I drew attention to the exclusion of disabled philosophers and philosophy of disability from conferences of the American Philosophical Association (APA) which has mandated in-person-only conferences whose justification is premature and relies on fictional grounds. Predictably, the APA did not respond to this public complaint, as it has likewise ignored most of my criticisms of it in the past; alternatively, the APA acted upon them and refused to acknowledge the role that I played as the impetus for new policies or practices that it has introduced.

To take another example, I coauthored a post with Nora Berenstain, which was published at BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY on many occasions, in which we drew attention to the continued exclusion of disabled feminist philosophers of disability from the editorial boards of Hypatia. In the post, we itemized the ways in which this exclusion impacts the content of the journal and the role that it can play in the transformation of the discipline and profession of philosophy. Time and again, I notice how the highly relevant work of disabled feminist philosophers is left out of certain articles that appear in the journal (i.e., because Hypatia’s reviewers haven’t recognized and understood its relevance, Hypatia’s editors are unfamiliar with this area of feminist philosophy, and so on).

Indeed, the disrespect with which disabled feminist philosophers of disability are historically and routinely treated occurs on a daily basis in every context and level of the university in general. No one apologizes to us for their ableism. No one is accountable for the ableism that they inflict on us. As Sara Ellenbogen pointed out in her recent Dialogues on Disability interview, no offers use apologies or accountability because they assume that, as disabled people, we should be treated with this disregard.

One final example. A little over a year ago, I was contacted by administrators at Laurentian University who sought to hire me as a consultant for some course content on human rights, reproduction, and disability. I signed a contract to do work that was divided into two parts and was to be completed as such over a period of a few months. I have copied below the email that I sent the Laurentian University administrators earlier today:

Hello,

I am writing to express my great disappointment with, and disapproval of, the manner in which this arrangement has transpired. I was contracted by your office to do consultation work on a course syllabus/content, one half of which I completed well in advance of the deadline that I was given. Nevertheless, I was not sent the materials required to do the second half of the work, although I requested them when they did not arrive by the designated date. I was told that I would receive them.

Since the work for which I was initially hired has not been completed entirely, I have not been paid at all for any of the work completed. I feel that I have been disrespected and that my expertise about the subject matter has been exploited. It is ironic, to say the least, that these outcomes arose due to my expertise with respect to the content of a course on disability and social justice.

Dr Shelley Lynn Tremain