Employment, United Spinal Updates

Coalition Building is Key to Addressing Disability Employment and Workplace Diversity

Monica Wiley
Monica Wiley

Q&A with United Spinal Board Member Monica Wiley

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become an integral part of doing business in the last couple of years. Major corporations and institutions are trying to rise to the occasion defined by passionate activists attempting to redress longstanding injustices. This development is most visibly defined by the recent upsurge in activity by movements around racial justice and LGBTQIA equality, but it is of course, also informed by disability rights activism.

With that said, here are a few questions:

Q. How do you think disability organizations can work effectively with companies to place disability empowerment at the forefront of their DEI hiring initiatives and strategies?

A: I think it is important for companies and organizations to think about creative innovative ways to place individuals with disabilities in senior level roles through eliminating unconscious biases when selecting a candidate for a position. Understanding the disability rights movement and people with disabilities as an asset—not adversaries—could build and sustain a welcoming, healthy, productive diverse workforce. There is an imperative for businesses and nonprofits to actively participate in normalizing disability. The disability rights movement proactively partners with other like-minded groups and organizations, which benefits companies and organizations’ overall aims towards general inclusion, but also specifically towards what I like to call DEIA: Disability Diversity, Disability Equity, Disability Inclusion (which is intersectional: joining up various affinity groups) and Disability Accessibility. We need to win the ability and right to have access to gainful employment, to quality healthcare, economic prosperity and to social programs (recreational programs, social life, digital arena, etc.) that enhance one’s overall quality of life.

Q. How can we turn up the pressure while maintaining trusting and collegial partnerships?

A: I would urge organizations to include establishing cultural competencies in their strategic plan. This should include appropriate language and disability etiquette. Each organization should have a DEIA program that should establish cultural competencies to foster an inclusive environment such as: cultural knowledge, cultural awareness (being aware of conscious and unconscious biases), and cultural liberation that provides an impact (advocacy) on equity and inclusivity internally and externally. People with a history of advocacy or aspiring advocates are an asset in this vein and in the workforce in general. They can assist companies that strive to develop a robust DEIA program in partnering with other like-minded organizations to create a DEIA coalition. My motto is, “Be the person that you desire to be”! And that should be the motto of organizations who strive to create a workplace that is as diverse as the society it serves, reflecting their employees’ identities in all of their complexity.

To promote greater diversity and advocacy in employment for people with disabilities, companies should establish a DEIA office that will collaborate with organizations and affinity groups to form a DEIA coalition or DEIA Council that will cultivate DEIA initiatives and practices. The coalition or DEIA Council should report to the local, state or federal government or their funders on the coalition/council’s work towards the goal of instilling cultural competency in the workplace that will foster a more welcoming, equitable, and inclusive environment.

Q. What are some of your favorite examples of the work being done?

A: Speaking personally, some of my favorite accomplishments are the following:

  • Establishing ERGs (Employee Resource Groups).
  • Commemorating Diversity Celebrations. Each month we highlight various cultures and affinity groups such as hosting Listen-Learn Series, Office Hours discussions, diversity receptions and newsletters. Each celebration featured guests from Congress, external organizations and groups as well as our workforce.
  • Enforcing workplace accommodations as part of the recruitment plan as well as the onboarding and offboarding process.


Q. How can disability employment advocates successfully ally with organizations and individuals representing other marginalized groups at their workplaces or in the advocacy space in order to promote each other’s interests and to strengthen the overall cause of inclusive hiring and the need for diverse workplace cultures?

A: We as advocates need to reinforce some basic principles and practices among our colleagues in order to build common ground: recognition that disability is an identity and not a problem to be dealt with, strive to change processes that support unconscious biases against people with disabilities and other marginalized people; and reform your perception of people with disabilities to reflect living reality. People with disabilities are literally barrier breakers, not barrier builders. We are natural coalition partners. In my work, I’m often reminded of Congressman John Lewis’ provocative quote, “We should always get into good trouble.” Coalition building is about getting into “good trouble.” Organizations and the workforce should adopt this approach to improving workplace inclusivity. We need to persuade others to join us in breaking barriers—to fight all forms of unconscious bias and invalidation of our identities and cultures.

Q. The concept of intersectionality was born out of legal analysis of Black women facing discrimination at the workplace—examining the inadequacy of existing civil rights frameworks and legal thought about racism and sexism in capturing the specificity of their experiences. What are the key challenges that people of color with disabilities face in seeking work or in attaining respect and accommodation on the job that you feel are overlooked by the wider disability community?

A: This is a great question. “They have an attitude problem; they are hard to coexist with at work; they are too loud and overbearing”. This is how the dual discrimination that Black women face in America is commonly expressed. Let me just say that in response to the simultaneous racism and sexism that undervalues and excludes us, we Black women have cultivated confidence in our identity. We are passionate and solidaristic about our community—which is mischaracterized as “loudness.” We are tired of being told to “calm down” or that we’re being “irrational” or mentally ill when we’re asserting ourselves, which I, a Black disabled woman, have been told many times. These specific biases target us for systematic poor treatment, undermine our ability to advance in our professions and wrongly discredit our fight for social progress on the job. On the other hand, when we don’t assert ourselves, we are rapidly become invisible. We are either silenced or overlooked: it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Black women with disabilities are constantly navigating and trying to overcome the low expectations and disadvantages in terms of hiring, pay and promotions that originate from racism, sexism and ableism—triple the discrimination. To confront simultaneous and multiple forms of discrimination, Black women and Black women with disabilities are making a national impact to change the narrative around Black women. We matter! Representation matters–and it starts with a seat at the table. It continues with organizations getting behind an intersectional approach to policymaking that encompasses all marginalized groups and connects different affinity groups on the basis of a unifying struggle for equity and recognition that embraces each other’s cultural differences while foregrounding our common desires and experiences. No matter what, I’m determined to be a beacon for Black women with disabilities in the spaces I’m in.

*****

Monica Wiley has over 15 years of experience as a disability adviser. She has worked on protecting and advancing the rights of people with disabilities on the federal and state level. She was the Virginia liaison on disability to the White House Disability Group under Obama, and was a Disability Advisor on Community Integration to the McAuliffe administration in Virginia. She is the co-founder of the Disability Issues Caucus Constituency Organization for the Democratic Party of Virginia, and is Vice Chair of the United Spinal Association Chapter of Washington, DC. Ms. Wiley holds a BS, in Criminal Justice with a concentration Pre-Law and Political Science from Virginia Commonwealth University. Ms. Wiley received a 2011 Community Activism Award from Special Olympics, a Leadership and Activism Award from The National Progressive Democrats of America, the 2011 Tom Whipple Democratic Party of Virginia Service of The Year Award, and the 2012 Top 40 under 40 Successful Leaders award by Style Weekly.