The Office of Student Disability Services is raising awareness on campus in commemoration of Disability History and Awareness Month.
Jennifer Stollman, academic director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, gave a lecture Wednesday to students and faculty on, “How To Recognize, Interrupt and Respond To Microaggressions.”
Microaggression refers to any action that is “verbal, behavioral, environmental or sensory” and that conveys inferiority, according to Stollman.
“I don’t think that people intentionally want to commit microaggressions to people with different abilities, but they don’t know what they are, so we have to tell them,” Stollman said.
Jennifer Stollman, academic director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, presented to students and faculty “How To Recognize, Interrupt and Respond To Microaggressions” Wednesday afternoon in the Union.
Stollman created an open forum that allowed students and staff to ask, respond and tell stories related to their experiences with microaggression. By examining how people should treat those who have different abilities, Stallman said she tried to explain how to focus on the person rather than the their disability.
Stollman suggested using ‘people-first language,’ as a way for people to combat their hesitance toward describing a person that have disabilities.
The forum included using phrases that refer to specific individuals as “people with disabilities or different abilities” as opposed to “disabled people,” or using “person with a cognitive diagnosis’” as opposed to a person with “brain damage.”
“I think it’s important for students, and also faculty and staff, to learn about the courtesy of how you interact with somebody,” Director of the Dr. Maxine Harper Center for Educational Research and Evaluation, Lori Wolff, said. “We all have these implicit biases and stereotypes we use, and some of us, because they are implicit, don’t realize that they’re coming out as microaggressions.”
Throughout the presentation, Stollman focused on the importance of apologizing. She said that sometimes people do not always realize when they commit a microaggression, so it is always a good idea to say sorry when they realize they have said something offensive.
“Sometimes they think they’re being well intentioned and compassionate, but they’re also being injurious,” Stollman said.
