A keyboard for visually impaired people.
(Dieter Menne / DPA via Getty Images)
By Joshua A. MieleGuest contributor
March 4, 2025 3 AM PT
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When I was a teenager, a professor my parents knew heard that I wanted to major in physics. Because I am blind, he told my parents that wouldn’t be possible: “Physicists,” he informed us, “have to be able to write on blackboards.”
I went on to earn a physics degree from UC Berkeley, proving him wrong about blackboards. But his warning, meant to highlight the hurdles of inaccessible technology, inadvertently highlighted an even larger and more pervasive barrier: ableism.
Ableism is the societal package of preconceptions, assumptions and negative stereotypes about disability that pervade our educational system, our hiring practices and our physical and digital [...]