Disability Studies Quarterly Summer 2008, Volume 28, No.3 <www.dsq-sds.org> Copyright 2008 by the Society for Disability Studies

The American Historical Association (AHA), as its slogan has it, aspires to be "the professional association for all historians," an inclusive organization open to all who study the past. In principle, membership has been open to all members of the profession since the Association was founded in 1884. Of course, the diversity of the Association has varied with the diversity of the profession. Over the years active advocacy has been necessary to ensure full representation of women, minorities, and other groups in the organization's governing structure, meetings, and publications. The Committee for Women Historians and the Committee on Minority Historians, both founded in the 1970s, remain active forces in the organization. More recently, a Task Force on Public History and the (?) Joint AHA-Organization of American Historians Committee on Part-Time & Adjunct Employment have also drawn attention to the concerns of underrepresented segments of the profession.

The Task Force on Disability, which begins a three-year term in June 2008, will be responsible for taking the next steps toward fulfilling the Association's inclusive mission. Representatives of the AHA and the Disability History Association (DHA) who serve on the five-member task force "will gather information about the concerns of historians with disabilities and propose concrete, practical solutions for as many of them as possible," including addressing barriers in graduate school, on the job market, and on the tenure track. The task force will also address disability as an area of research and suggest ways to improve the accessibility of the annual meeting and other Association activities.1

In March 2006, Catherine Kudlick (University of California at Davis) contacted Linda K. Kerber (University of Iowa), then president of the AHA, on behalf of the DHA "to explore the possibility of more fully integrating disability into the intellectual and functional life of the AHA." Noting that disability is a "valued category of human diversity on a par with gender, class, and race," she suggested that the AHA explore ways to "give credibility to a category of human experience and scholarship that our profession has largely ignored."2 Kerber and the AHA committee charged with ensuring equal opportunity for all historians, the Professional Division, responded enthusiastically to the suggestion.

Kerber encouraged the AHA's governing Council to take the small but significant step of adding "Disability" to the list of areas of scholarly interest on the AHA membership application. As of this writing, ten members of the Association indicate a research interest in the history of disability. More important, Kerber helped organize a November 2006 forum on disability as a field of study and category of analysis, and as a professional issue and practical concern for Perspectives, the AHA news magazine. In an introduction to the issue, Dr./Professor Kerber observed that census data indicate that 20 percent of the U.S. population reports having a disability, and a greater proportion is affected by disability over the course of their lifetime through age, injury, or as care takers. Thus, "those who articulate the needs of the disabled articulate the needs of us all."3

In spring 2006 the Professional Division was in the process of redefining its mission. The division ceased to adjudicate cases of professional misconduct in 2003, focusing instead on educating historians, students, and the public about professional standards and employment practices. Members had been discussing devoting more attention to diversity and readily agreed that disability should be a key component of that conversation. Accordingly, the revised mission statement for the division, approved by Council in January 2008, states that the Professional Division "promotes integrity, fairness, and civility in the practice of history…to ensure fair treatment of all historians, regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or physical disability, in the course of their professional training and their careers in the historical profession."4

Members of the division agreed that a formal committee should be created to address disability issues. Anthony Grafton (Princeton University), then vice-president of the Professional Division, wrote that "in an ideal world" the AHA would ensure that all of its activities would be fully accessible, but "In reality, the AHA is severely constrained by costs and other practical considerations. But the need is clear, and the officers and members of the Disability History Association are ready to serve as expert interlocutors. In these circumstances, it seems both right and urgent that the AHA form a task force…to collect information about best practices from other professional associations, to learn more about the needs and interests of historians with disabilities, and to collect precise information about the most effective, practical measures and their costs and impact."5

The division carefully considered the best structure for providing voice and representation for scholars with disabilities within the organization. Strong ties to the existing organizational structure are necessary to ensure sustained attention to issues in the organization's busy agenda. Therefore, members decided the best course of action would be to create a Task Force on Disability to include two division members: vice-president David Weber (Southern Methodist University) will chair and division member Leisa Meyer (College of William and Mary) will participate. David J. Ulbrich, Ohio University, will be the third AHA member of the task force. The leadership of the Disability History Association will be represented by Catherine Kudlick, chair of the DHA board of directors, and board member Paul K. Longmore (San Francisco State University). The task force will meet once a year at the AHA annual meeting for three years. It will devote its first year to gathering information and then prepare formal recommendations to be submitted to the AHA's governing board, the Council, after review by the Professional Division.

While some might fear that a short-term task force would have less impact than a permanent committee, the 2001-2005 Task Force on Public History provides an effective precedent. That group prepared and submitted a final report recommending concrete steps for addressing the professional concerns of public historians within the existing organizational structure. At the suggestion of the task force, the Professional Division took primary responsibility for public history. I was appointed Public History Coordinator to provide ongoing staff support for implementing the recommendations in the report. Results have ranged from increased coverage of public history in Perspectives on History to the establishment of a formal joint committee with the Organization of American Historians and the National Council on Public History to draft guidelines and best practices for evaluating the work of public historians in the academy, one of the major recommendations in the report.6 The Professional Division hopes that similar real and continuing change will result from the work of the Task Force on Disability.

Rather than waiting to take action until the formal creation of the task force, the Professional Division sponsored open forums on disability at the 2007 annual meeting in Atlanta and the 2008 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Participants suggested several possible courses of action. For example, the AHA might act as a clearinghouse for information for historians seeking advice about accommodating students and faculty with disabilities; avoiding discrimination in hiring, tenure, and review; and including disability studies in their teaching and scholarship. The AHA could also create advice documents on topics such as how search committees should interact with a candidate with a disability or at what point candidates should discuss a disability with potential employers. From these early discussions, it is clear that the task force will need to consider carefully which issues are specific to the discipline of history and which broader issues would be more effectively addressed through referring historians to a larger organization.

The task force will be able to build on solid research conducted by other organizations as it compiles its report. The Modern Language Association's Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession consulted an access specialist for advice about making the association accessible and continues to address disability issues within the organization. AHA staff have already consulted with MLA staff on strategies for improving access to the annual meeting, and we hope that the AHA task force can use the reports and experience of its counterpart at the MLA as a solid starting point. Groups such as the Society for Disability Studies and the National Organization on Disability will also be a valuable resource as the task force prepares its report. The task force may even compile a directory of free or inexpensive resources developed by access experts, university Americans With Disabilities Act compliance officers, and affirmative action offices for use by historians with questions about access and the profession.

Staff have already taken steps to improve accessibility of the AHA's meeting, the largest annual gathering of historians in the United States. A recent survey on access to academic conferences conducted by the International Studies Association suggests that the AHA is on par with other organizations in making its meeting accessible, though of course there is room for improvement.7 Since 2006 the AHA has discouraged the formal reading of papers, introducing new and potentially more inclusive forms of presentation, such as sessions where papers are precirculated online. Guidelines encouraging presenters to make eye contact, speak slowly, describe all visual aids, and, if applicable, provide advance copies of their work to sign interpreters were published in the 2008 annual meeting supplement and will be distributed electronically to all presenters in 2009.8 For many years the Association has provided sign language interpreters on request. In 2007 and 2008, interpreters were also provided for the presidential address and the business meeting. The task force will be an invaluable tool for helping the staff make the meeting as inclusive as possible.

Disability studies scholars argue that the primary barrier to access is attitude—a barrier that, we hope, does not exist at the American Historical Association, which is committed to addressing the professional concerns of all its members.9 Over the next three years, the Task Force on Disability will develop a concrete plan for helping the Association live up to that ideal.

Debbie Ann Doyle is Administrative Manager, Public History Coordinator & Convention Assistant at the American Historical Association. She will staff the Task Force on Disability and works closely with the Professional Division on public history and other projects. She also works with the Convention Director on the annual meeting. She received her PhD in American history from American University in 2003.