Judith Heumann

Life

Heumann's commitment to disability rights stems from her personal experiences. She had polio at the age of 18 months, and has used a wheelchair most of her life. Heumann had to fight repeatedly to be included in the educational system. The local public school refused to allow her to attend, calling her a fire hazard. Heumann's mother, a community activist in her own right, challenged the decision, and Judy was allowed to go to school in the fourth grade. She attended Camp Jened in Hunter, New York, a summer camp for teenagers with disabilities. It was there that she met Bobbi Linn and Freida Tankus, who she would later work with as disability rights activists. Judy Heumann began taking major steps toward rights for people with disabilities in college, organizing rallies and protests with other students with disabilities. When she got out of school and was denied her New York teaching license because the board did not believe she could get herself or her students out of the building in case of a fire, she took the case to court. After the judge recommended that New York City’s Board of Education rethink its decision, Heumann became the first person in a wheelchair to teach in New York City and taught elementary school there for three years.

In 1970 Heumann and several friends with disabilities founded Disabled in Action, an organization that focused on securing the protection of people with disabilities under civil rights laws. While serving as a legislative assistant to the chairperson of the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, in 1974 she helped develop legislation that became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. An early leader in the independent living movement, she then moved to Berkeley where she served as deputy director of the Center for Independent Living.

Initially Joseph Califano, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, refused to sign meaningful regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which was the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities. After an ultimatum and deadline, demonstrations took place in ten U.S. cities on April 5, 1977, including the beginning of the 504 Sit-in at the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. This sit-in, led by Heumann and organized by Kitty Cone, lasted until May 4, 1977, a total of 28 days, with more than 150 people refusing to leave. It is the longest sit-in at a federal building to date. Joseph Califano signed the regulations on April 28, 1977.

Heumann co-founded the World Institute on Disability with Ed Roberts and Joan Leon in 1983, serving as co-director until 1993.

Heumann served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services at the US Department of Education from 1993 to 2001. From 2002 to 2006 she served as the World Bank Group's first Advisor on Disability and Development, leading the World Bank's work on disability and worked to expand the Bank’s knowledge and capability to work with governments and civil society on including disability in the Bank discussions with client countries, its country-based analytical work, and support for improving policies, programs, and projects that allow disabled people around the world to live and work in the economic and social mainstream of their communities. She was Lead Consultant to the Global Partnership for Disability and Development. She was the Director of the Department of Disability Services for the District of Columbia, but in 2010 became the Special Advisor on Disability Rights for the US State Department under President Barack Obama.

She appears in the 2011 disability rights documentary Lives Worth Living.

In 2014 the Berkeley Rotary Club gave its annual Rotary Peace Grove Award to Heumann and to the late Ed Roberts, another disability rights activist.

On January 20th, 2017 Heumann left her post at the State Department and was replaced by paralympian Ann Cody.

Personal

Heumann graduated from Long Island University in 1969 and gained a Master of Science degree in public health at the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. She has been awarded honorary doctorates by Long Island University in Brooklyn, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Toledo. She was the first recipient of the Henry B. Betts Award from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (later awarded jointly with the American Association of People with Disabilities). Heumann is married to Jorge Pineda, and lives in Washington, D.C. She is the sister of Joe Heumann, a noted film professor and published author.