EDI Speaker Series
Dr. Yvonne Simpson

Event Speaker: Dr. Yvonne Simpson (Educator and Disability Advocate)

Event Date and Time: Thursday, November 2 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EST

Event Format: Zoom webinar (Zoom link will be sent upon registering below); this session will include a 45-minute talk followed by a moderated 45-minute Q&A session with the audience. ASL interpretation and live captioning will be provided.

Event description: In this reflection on the struggles of achieving accessibility and equitable practices in post-secondary education, Dr. Simpson brings to attention the significance of an intersectionality framework as a key indicator for analysis in determining real achievements in EDI initiatives. She argues that new mechanisms for accountability of progress towards achieving barrier free experiences can only be effectively advanced with changing the way systems operate in the lives of people who require accessible environments. Drawing on disability discourses and recent examples of discrimination, Simpson implicates deeply entrenched historical exclusionary practices, archaic administrative models in disability services, recruitment and hiring as troubling areas for equity identified racialized members in post-secondary institutions.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Yvonne Simpson earned her PhD in Critical Disability Studies from York University. She is dedicated to fostering excellence in curriculum through transformational practices and coalition building to enhance achievement of accessibility and anti-racism in education. She has held cross functional roles in post-secondary education including teaching in interdisciplinary areas of critical disability, equity studies as well as serving as a subject matter expert in developing and designing education programs. She has worked as a practitioner in the disabilities field for many years and has held various leadership roles in the private and public sectors. Her recent research project entitled, Accounting for Racialized Immigrant Workers: Historiography of the colour coded system of disability exclusion, delved on human rights and social justice in the context of acquired workplace disability among racialized immigrant workers. In this project she engaged critical theoretical methodologies, including critical race theory and institutional ethnography, to interrogate structural barriers as influential regimes in the production of disability as an outcome of labour market exploitation, transnational migration, colonization and racialization.

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Registration

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