After experiencing disability discrimination in high school, Elijah Armstrong became motivated to help other disabled students continue their educational journeys. The American Association of People with Disabilities’ (AAPD) Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leaders Award has helped Armstrong, who is now an activist and law student, provide financial support and mentorship to other students with disabilities.
Armstrong used his Hearne Award to launch the Heumann-Armstrong Award, named after Armstrong and his mentor Judy Heumann, one of the original leaders of the disability rights movement. The award has provided scholarships and mentorship support to students for three years.
Each year, Armstrong and the selection committee choose 6-12 semifinalists and six finalists, ranging in age from middle schoolers to post-graduate students. The semifinalists receive a gift card and finalists receive $1000 and the opportunity to be filmed for video interviews. The videos have become teaching tools for educators all over the country.
“I think it’s important for institutions to be built that allow for disabled students to be acknowledged for the work that they put in to make spaces more accessible,” he said. “Part of the reason why you see less disabled people in these sorts of spaces is because of the fact that the work that these students put in regularly is not generally acknowledged.”
Originally, Armstrong named the award the Heumann Award. Heumann’s life was a testament to the importance of accessibility and accommodations in education. She battled disability discrimination throughout her educational journey and sued the New York City Board of Education when they denied her a teacher’s license. She went on to lead the sit-in advocating for the implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and served in multiple presidential administrations.
It was Heumann herself who insisted that Armstrong’s last name be part of the award’s name as well.
“She was very actively involved. I couldn’t have asked for a better or more engaged or more zealous partner in this project than Judy was,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong explained that meeting many previous Hearne Award recipients during his participation in the AAPD Summer Internship Program in 2018 helped inspire him to apply for the award.
“One of the things that I think was so driving about meeting so many Hearne winners while I was at AAPD was being able to say, oh, all of these people are creating these sort of programs that are creating the kind of change that I want to make in the world, and being able to see that firsthand, I think was very influential towards me ultimately applying and handling the work the way that I did,” he said.
For Armstrong, the Hearne Award emphasizes the importance of giving proper funding to people with disabilities.
“I think that’s part of the magic of the Hearne award is the fact that we have so many people across the disability community who are doing really, really, really important stuff with minimal budgets or no budgets, and that cash infusion really does a lot,” he said.
Patrick Cokley, Senior Program Officer, Equity and Social Justice Partnerships at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, formed a lasting connection with Armstrong after serving as his mentor during the AAPD Summer Internship Program.
“What I’ve always been impressed with is Elijah has not only thought about what are the skill sets that he has that he wants to share with others, and what are the changes that he wishes to see in our community. He also has that unique thing where he’s able to connect with folks who are already enduring leaders, and not necessarily get swallowed by their work, but think about how he can continue the work that they’re doing, and in some cases, even provide innovation that goes the next step beyond,” Cokley said.
In all his work, Armstrong strives to create spaces for disabled people to connect with one another.
“All of the work that we did resulted in a community of people who, granted, go in different directions and necessarily have different interests, but there is still very tangibly a network there, which I think is really important, honestly. I feel like sort of the goal of having this project was having direct lines to the youth of the disability movement, the new generation that’s coming, and I think that’s something that was really powerful that we did very well,” Armstrong said.
Establishing direct connections to and supporting the next generation of the disability movement was also one of Paul G. Hearne’s strongest passions – so much so that the Hearne award was established to do just that.
Because of the Hearne Award, Armstrong has been able to increase awareness of ableism in education within education-focused professional spaces that do not often focus on disability. Armstrong and a group of Heumann-Armstrong award winners spoke at a National Education Association conference and with leaders of the U.S. Department of Education.
“One of the things I think was coolest about the project, and specifically about all of the pomp and circumstance and the backing of AAPD with the Hearne award, was the fact that it allowed me to go to all of these other spaces where people were generally not talking about disability and say, hey, look, we need to talk about this,” he said.
The Heumann-Armstrong Award is currently paused while Armstrong finishes law school at Stanford University. He hopes to work in criminal defense after graduation because he sees parallels between the way disabled students and criminal defendants are discriminated against.
“You see the same thing happening in the criminal defense space all the time, people of color with disabilities who are overcharged, who are treated inhumanely, oftentimes for crimes that they had not even committed. And I feel like, especially considering the fact that I am from the South, that doing this work in that space is something that’s very important for me to be doing,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong looks forward to resuming the award in the future to continue supporting disabled students.
“Part of why I think it’s so important to to bring the award back when we get the chance, is just to continue getting that pipeline, bringing in people who haven’t quite identified as disabled or are still developing their disability identity and have all this passion, all these urges, and just help bring them in to help bolster the movement,” he said.