AASR Live

A Discussion on Forced Treatment, Institutional Abuse, Youth Rights, Disability Justice, and Racial Justice

January 15, 2021 The Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint Season 2 Episode 1
AASR Live
A Discussion on Forced Treatment, Institutional Abuse, Youth Rights, Disability Justice, and Racial Justice
Show Notes

Join Shain Neumeier and Lydia X. Z. Brown in conversation about the connections between youth rights, disability justice, and racial justice movements in addressing coercive and forced treatment, institutionalization, and mass criminalization. They will discuss the connections between applied behavior analysis and conversion therapy, the history of the Judge Rotenberg Center's electric shock torture, and the deinstitutionalization and decarceration movements.

Shain Neumeier is a lawyer, activist, and community organizer, as well as an out and proud member of the disabled, trans, queer, and asexual communities. Their passion on the issue of ending abuse and neglect of youth with disabilities in schools and treatment facilities stems from their own experiences with involuntary medical treatment and bullying, and led them to go to law school. They have pursued their goal of using legal advocacy to address these problems ever since. Shain's work appears in Autistic Activism and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontlines, Resistance and Hope: Crip Wisdom for the People, Rewire News, and Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking.

Among other honors, they were named the Massachusetts Bar Association's Outstanding Young Lawyer in 2018, the Self Advocacy Association of New York State's Self Advocate of the Year in 2017, and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities' Leadership in Advocacy Awardee in 2015. Shain has previously worked with the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project, the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, and the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth. When not working, they're probably crafting, playing Dungeons & Dragons, listening to history podcasts, or watching Netflix with their partner and three feline roommates.

Lydia X. Z. Brown is a disability justice advocate, organizer, educator, attorney, strategist, and writer whose work has largely focused on interpersonal and state violence against multiply-marginalized disabled people living at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and language. They are Policy Counsel for the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Adjunct Lecturer in Disability Studies for Georgetown University's Department of English; and Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. They are also founder and volunteer director of the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color's Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment. Currently, they serve as a founding board member of the Alliance for Citizen Directed Supports, presidential appointee to the American Bar Association's Commission on Disability Rights, and chair of the American Bar Association's Section on Civil Rights & Social Justice, Disability Rights Committee.

Previously, Lydia worked on disability rights and algorithmic fairness at Georgetown Law's Institute for Tech Law and Policy, served as Justice Catalyst Legal Fellow for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and worked at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network as a member of the national policy team. They are former Chairperson of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, Visiting Lecturer at Tufts University, Holley Law Fellow at the National LGBTQ Task Force, and Patricia Morrissey Disability Policy Fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership. While a student, Lydia was a legal extern/student practitioner for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, student attorney in the Prisoners' Rights Clinic, and investigative intern for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.

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