Access Washing at the Imperial University: Militarism, Occupation, and Struggles Toward Disability Justice
Date of Award
May 2020
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Cultural Foundations of Education
Advisor(s)
Dana Olwan
Second Advisor
Eunjung Kim
Subject Categories
Education
Abstract
This dissertation uses a disability justice lens to explore uneven geographies of disability that persist despite claims of progress, or a new age of disability inclusion in U.S. higher education. Analyzing a range of textual materials and archived documents, I historicize the development of disability inclusion in higher education alongside the role of U.S. universities in supporting U.S. imperialism. This project considers how, through the practice and logic of access washing, the U.S. state and its universities deploy rhetoric about disability inclusion to conceal imperial and settler-colonial complicities in the U.S. and Israel. I argue that U.S. higher education institutions are a major site for the production of disability injustice through their investments in U.S. empire and Israeli settler-colonialism. I demonstrate how U.S. higher education supports the creation of racialized disabling conditions globally, specifically analyzing its economic and geopolitical investments in the occupation of Palestine. This project concludes by analyzing unfolding histories of student protest within the imperial university to chart an alternative genealogy of struggles toward disability justice within U.S. higher education.
Access
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Recommended Citation
Jaffee, Laura, "Access Washing at the Imperial University: Militarism, Occupation, and Struggles Toward Disability Justice" (2020). Dissertations - ALL. 1224.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/1224
