Letter from a Disabled American Woman and Mother to Vice President Kamala Harris
Copies of this Letter Were Also Sent to My U.S. Senators, U.S. Representative, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, President Joseph R. Biden, and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden
Dear Vice President Harris:
Thank you for taking time out of your busy and important schedule to receive my concerns. I am a disabled American woman and mother. I work outside my home as a part-time college writing instructor and part-time writing tutor.
I write to you with the hope you will put forth transparent support for and policies benefiting disabled Americans like myself who are negatively impacted by ableist structures in health care, governmental policies, work policies, the legal system, and the financial system. Despite the American with Disabilities Act, the United States through the social-theory of disability continues to disable those of us living with physical impairments, chronic illnesses, neurodiversity, mental illnesses or intellectual and developmental disabilities. The anti-racist scholar Ibram X. Kendi argues that ableism and racism are “conjoined twins.”
Recently, I contracted Covid for the first time. I have multiple sclerosis and have battled bacterial pneumonia three times prior to my Covid diagnosis. Twice pneumonia has hospitalized me. The first time I had pneumonia I nearly died from it. Once the Covid vaccine became available, I received my two initial vaccinations. If I had contracted Covid in 2020, I would not be writing you this letter.
Since then I have received a total of 5 boosters. My MS medication Kesimpta suppresses my already weakened immune system. Yet because of my vaccine and boosters, my Covid case was mild. Still my doctor prescribed me Paxlovid, since I remain a high-risk patient. Once I tested negative, I went back to work only to experience Paxlovid/Covid rebound a few days later. As I write you this letter, I am again Covid positive. I tested positive on Friday, September 13, 2024.
My current higher-ed workplace like my last one does not care about my disability and health though. It expected me to find a face-to-face substitute first thing after I tested positive again for Covid instead of me spending my day contacting and speaking with my healthcare team of multiple doctors. It also will not allow me to teach remotely while I am positive with Covid. I was reprimanded for not finding a substitute first thing and canceling my face-to-face class today (Saturday, September 14, 2024) to keep my students safe from contracting Covid. It also does not care that I remain available to my students via email and have provided engagement, lessons and activities on our Blackboard electronic learning platform as I again recover. This way my students stay on top of the course when we return to our class next Saturday, September 21, 2024.
My last higher-education employer at another institution took away my classes and my income when I had to make a doctor’s appointment that conflicted with a departmental meeting and when pneumonia hospitalized me the first time. In addition, I learned 20 years after I had dropped off my ADA paperwork at the institution’s human resource office that it had never been filed. A few years before learning this, I had reported two of my supervisors at this institution for ADA violations to its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office. The DEI coordinator told me based on my complaint and evidence that I had been discriminated against both times. I thought my ADA paperwork was on file when I had made my two complaints. Learning this essential paperwork had never been filed by HR made clear why I had lost both my cases.
I implore you to explicitly address disability, disability rights and dignity, and disability law and policy not only during your time as Vice President but in your Presidential campaign, Speaking for myself, I often feel unprotected, dismissed, or outright ignored not just at my workplaces but by U.S. society and its numerous institutions and systems.
Thank you for your time. I appreciate you acknowledging my concerns while you and President Biden work toward an Israel-Gaza ceasefire in addition to campaigning for your election as our first woman U.S. President. I know you will save our Constitutional democratic republic and work to “form a more perfect union.” Before contracting Covid, I was phone banking, writing postcards to voters, and addressing Project 2025 and your campaign on my Substack Bluestocking Bombshells.
Sincerely,
Laura Durnell, MFA
Part-Time College Writing Professor
Part-Time Professional Writing Tutor
Award-Winning and Nationally Published Writer
lauradurnell.com
bluestockingbombshells.substack.com
CC: Senator Tammy Duckworth, Senator Richard Durbin, Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, President Joseph R. Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden
This is a superb letter. I would hope that somebody would respond to this highly critical issue and address the cruelty that you’ve described.
Laura, my dear friend…is that strange that I look at you as a compatriot in the dizzying disability miasma? …I feel very proud to know you and equally incensed that you
were treated so abominably. I’ve found over the last 21 years since the onset of my neuropathic dysautonomia, that because I “don’t look sick” I’m not taken seriously. When I left my “regular” job as Director of Retail Sales for a motorcoach tour company that I had founded with a very good friend of mine and decided that I needed a job where I could use my sales skills yet make my own hours, more or less, I sought a real estate license in my home state of NJ. Long story short, did that, got a job the day my license was issued, and for the next 6 years did very well until I couldn’t. My broker boss refused to accept my illness was progressing even though she’d been informed of my illness the day she hired me. I thank you for your letter to MVP and President Biden, et al. Americas population is aging and this will become even more of an issue if not addressed now. Should you ever need my help I will do what I can. You can count on that. It shouldn’t take as long as it does to be “officially” deemed disabled. It’s hard enough to admit to yourself that a disease has taken over your ability to remain independent. With the utmost respect…Sara