WORLD INSTITUTE ON DISABILITY, one of the first global disability-rights organizations founded and led by people with disabilities. Launched in 1983 by Ed Roberts, Judith Heumann, and Joan Leon, WID is a nonprofit organization dedicated to research, advocacy, and education with the goal of advancing public policy regarding disability rights.
Roberts and Heumann were pioneers in the disability-rights movement. Roberts was the first wheelchair user to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he fought for accessible housing on campus and founded the Disabled Students Union, the first student-led disability-rights organization in the country; Heumann became the first wheelchair user to teach in the State of New York after suing the New York Board of Education for her right to do so. Roberts cofounded the Center for Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley in 1972, and a few years later he asked Heumann to become the nascent organization’s deputy director. Leon, a nondisabled ally in the disability-rights movement, offered her services as a proposal writer to the CIL, helping them achieve meaningful political gains such as pushing the city of Berkeley to create accessible sidewalks.
The Independent Living Movement, of which the CIL was an avatar, sought to redefine disability as an issue of social exclusion rather than individual incapacity. It advocated for the rights of disabled people to pursue independence, agency, and meaningful inclusion in all aspects of social life and promoted the idea that disabled people have the greatest understanding of their own needs.
In 1977 Heumann coorganized a twenty-five-day sit-in at the Federal Office Building in San Francisco to protest the lackluster implementation and watering down of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which had been enacted to ensure that organizations receiving federal funds did not discriminate against people with disabilities. The protest, in which Roberts and Leon also participated, was particularly taxing on the participants, many of whom had severe disabilities. (The Black Panthers delivered hot food to the protestors after learning that one of their disabled members, Brad Lomax, was taking part.) Ultimately the protestors prevailed and the secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare issued new compliance regulations. The sit-in would become a defining moment in the history of disability-rights activism; it remains the longest such action in a federal building in American history.
Empowered by their success, in 1983 Heumann, Roberts, and Leon founded the World Institute for Disability, a majority disabled-run organization dedicated to “build[ing] a more in- clusive global society.” It partners with governmental organizations both in the US and abroad to conduct research and make policy recommendations in support of disabled people. The WID was instrumental, for example, in lobbying for the ABLE Act, which created tax-free savings accounts for individuals with disabilities. And since the early days of the internet it has advocated for accessibility in technology and created online resources to help people with disabilities understand and navigate their benefits programs. The WID also consults with private companies to help create accessible consumer products and services, and it has created scholarships and hosted conferences to promote academic research in disability studies. Its headquarters, the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, embodies the principles of universal design, making the building accessible to as many people as possible.