Disability Rights

Every July, Disability Pride Month asks a simple question: What does it mean to take pride in a life that includes disability, rather than despite it? For The Arc of Oklahoma, this is not a rhetorical exercise. It shapes how we advocate, how we talk about the people we serve, and how we ask our communities to show up. What does Disability Pride Month mean? Disability Pride Month traces back to 1990, the same year the Americans with Disabilities Act became federal law. The fir

Access is not an afterthought to equality. It is what equality is made of. A right that a person cannot actually exercise, because the tools, the training, or the entry point were never built with them in mind, is not fully a right at all. That is the argument at the center of digital literacy work, even though it rarely gets framed that way. For Oklahomans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the ability to safely navigate a phone, a video call, or a news feed i

This summer, America turned 250. Parades, fireworks, flags. A celebration of the ideals this country was founded on. Liberty. Justice. The belief that every person has the right to live a full life on their own terms. It is a good moment to ask whether we are living up to those ideals. For Oklahomans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the answer is: we are getting there. But we are not there yet. Civil rights did not stop at disability The Americans with Disabi