Disability bias is rife in trained AI models, according to recent research from Penn State. Here’s what we can do about it.

Image description: A wheelchair icon on a blue background.

Imagine being repeatedly told to get a hysterectomy by multiple gynecologists for no medical reason.

Image description: A collection of people at the 2017 Women’s March wearing winter hats, many of them pink “cat” hats. In the center of the image is a sign two people are holding up that reads, “Nasty Women Unite!”

I was eight when I first saw an open-captioned movie in a theater. It was 1997, the animated musical Anastasia.

Image description: A collection of people in a dark movie theater watching a movie.

Tim Jin speaks with his toes. He has cerebral palsy and uses his feet to control his augmentative and alternative communication devices (AAC). He believes that everyone should have the opportunity to communicate through technology.

Image description: An illustration of diverse disabled people by Jessica Oddi.

Because of their association with the United States, many members of disability-rights organizations in Afghanistan are at risk.

Image description: A person pushing another person in a wheelchair by a body of water.

Deaf people are adapting signs to accommodate the limitations of video communication while working from home.

Image description: A group Zoom call displayed on a laptop. Beside the computer is a green mug.

As life moves online, gaps in digital accessibility mean millions of disabled Americans are being left behind.

Image description: A shattered tablet screen.

This removal of a project two years in the making is another in a series of failures to provide residents of Tobytown with adequate and sustainable transit access to jobs, education, health care and other basic services.

Image description: The inside of a peopled bus.

More than a third of Americans killed by police have a disability. It’s time to listen to black and disabled activists.

Coauthored with Dominic Bradley.

Image description: Police at a protest.

Thanks to absentee ballots, drop-off boxes, and curbside voting, people with disabilities turned out in record numbers in the 2020 election. That’s likely to change.

Image description: A collection of I VOTED stickers.

The partisan divide on disability rights is bigger now than at any time in recent memory.

Image description: A person wearing a surgical mask holding a sign that reads, “OVERWORKED, UNDERVALUED, EXPLOITED.” They appear to be at a protest.

I’ve always felt like the object of a constant tug of war between the deaf and the hearing communities.

Image description: A photo of a white man holding his ears to indicate he can’t hear. He has close-cropped gray hair and facial hair.

Two years ago, a high-speed train I was riding from Baltimore to my job in Virginia jolted to a stop. A voice announced the stop's name over the intercom, but it was garbled to me, because I am deaf. (My hearing aids offer some, but incomplete, access to spoken language.) So, I glanced outside the window for clues: No readily visible signs.

Image description: A train station.