Disability Rights vs. Disability Justice: A Day with Dr. Fady Shanouda

As part of the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology’s (FCAT) 2025 Community in Practice Day, Dr. Fady Shanouda presented his lecture, “Accommodations vs. Access: Disability Rights vs. Disability Justice” on January 31st to a combined audience of FCAT faculty, staff, and students at The Wosk Centre for Dialogue and online.

In his presentation, Dr. Shanouda reflected on the violences embedded in the accommodation process in relation to the changing geographies of higher education. He also considered the challenges and benefits of transitioning toward an access-oriented model for responding to bodymind differences in higher education and examined the tensions between disability rights and disability justice models of access in these spaces. The lecture concluded with a Q&A, in which the audience was able to ask Dr. Shanouda questions about the lecture and their own experience with disability justice in academic spaces.

Following the lecture, FCAT undergraduate and graduate students were invited to a catered lunch session featuring the SFU Disabilty and Neurodiversity Alliance.

In the afternoon, Dr. Shanouda and the Centre for Educational Excellence's (CEE) Bee Brigidi and Sarah Turner, led a workshop on Dr. Disability Justice in the Classroom, which was followed by a screening of the film "I Didn't See You There" with conversation facilitated by Nadia Shihab from the School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA).

A recording of Dr. Shanouda’s talk is available to view below.

About Dr. Fady Shanouda

Fady Shanouda is an assistant professor in the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation at Carleton University. He serves as co-director of the Disability Justice and Crip Culture Collaboratory and as co-editor of the Disability Culture and Politics Series at UBC Press. His scholarly contributions lie at the theoretical and pedagogical intersections of disability, mad, and fat studies and involve socio-historical examinations of the interconnections of colonialism, racism, ableism, sanism, fatmisia, and queer- and transphobia. He has published scholarly articles on disability/mad-related issues in higher education, Canadian disability history, anti-fat bias in medicine, and community-based learning.

About FCAT Community in Practice

Community in Practice (CiP) is an initiative led by FCAT’s Advisor, Equity, Community and Care. It encompasses our active work to respond to and demonstrate our commitments to decolonization, Indigenization, truth and reconciliation, and the wide range of issues within the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) compass. As the title emphasizes, it is a practice, and it is something we are doing collectively as a faculty to provide the time and space for FCAT faculty, students, administrators and staff to listen and learn together, to disrupt our regularly scheduled programming to discuss important topics affecting academic work life and student life—and to reflect on how we work together.