The Judith E. Heumann papers document her activism as a disability rights advocate worldwide, focusing on the years 1983-2006, when she co-directed the World Institute on Disability (WID), was Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), and was an Adviser on Disability and Development at the World Bank. There is a small amount of personal material and records pertaining to her advocacy to teach in New York City's public schools and on behalf of the Independent Living Movement. The collection includes correspondence; biographical materials and media about Heumann; writings; materials pertaining to the Independent Living Movement, the WID, OSERS, and the World Bank; writings by others, publications, and ephemera related to people with disabilities, disability rights, and disability justice; and audiovisual materials.

Judith Ellen "Judy" Heumann is a lifelong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities worldwide. Huemann was born December 18, 1947 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and raised in Brooklyn. She contracted polio in 1949 and began to use a wheelchair. Heumann graduated from Long Island University in 1969. After passing her licensure test for a teaching certificate, she was denied employment with the New York City Public Schools because of her inability to walk. In 1970, she won one of the earliest, if not the first, disability-based employment discrimination lawsuits in the nation. Heumann received her Master's in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. She was a founding member of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living, and co-founded the World Institute on Disability (WID), with Ed Roberts and Joan Leon. Heumann served as co-director of the WID until 1993, when Bill Clinton appointed her Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). Heumann served as the World Bank's first Adviser on Disability and Development from 2002-2006. Barack Obama appointed her as the first Special Advisor on International Disability Rights for the U.S. State Department, where she served from 2010-2017, and Heumann served as a Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation from 2017-2019.

24.3 linear feet (19 cartons, 1 box, and 1 oversize folder)

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Collection is open for research, with the expection of digital materials