‘Disability Sparks Innovation’: Insights from Deafblind Human Rights Lawyer Haben Girma

As many organizations continue to strive toward achieving their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, there is a crucial factor that must not be overlooked: accessibility for disabled individuals in the workforce, marketplace, and society.

Haben Girma, a human rights lawyer working to advance disability justice who was the first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, is a passionate advocate and thought leader in this space. She recently spoke about the importance of accessibility and increasing representation of disabled people at Deloitte’s annual Chief DEI Officer Forum, which brought together Chief DEI Officers from some of the world’s largest organizations to create a mutually-supportive community and share strategies and learnings to help advance equity in and beyond the workplace.

During her powerful speech, Haben shared that the barriers she has encountered as a disabled person have been primarily due to ableism: a system of beliefs and practices that treat disabled people as inferior to non-disabled people. The daughter of refugees and a Black disabled woman, Haben says she built her path to success on the belief that “inclusion is a choice."

As someone who was named a White House Champion of Change by President Obama, Haben has also appeared on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List, has learned to dance, ski, climb, and surf, and is an accomplished lawyer and disability rights advocate—her disability hasn’t held her back. But ableism, she said, whether intentional or unintentional, often creates barriers for people in the disabled community every day, often preventing them from full inclusion in the workplace, being supported to achieve their potential and contribute their skills, as well as being able to fully participate in other aspects of their lives and society.

“We need people to recognize that disabled people are talented,” said Haben during her remarks at the forum. “In many organizations, disabled people are not represented. Diversity is multi-layered. We need all our different experiences represented. Every single one of us has something to bring to the organization.”

In addition to increasing diversity, which has been shown to lead to a wide variety of benefits for businesses, Haben offered several compelling reasons why accessibility matters, as well as ways to counter any pushback. “You will encounter people who say, ‘We're too busy for accessibility. Accessibility is too expensive,’ and I want to share some arguments you can use,” she said. “The first one is you reach more people. There are over 61 million disabled people in the U.S., and around the world over 1.3 billion disabled people. That's a huge market. So you gain more customers, a larger audience, and a larger talent pool—one of the largest untapped talent pools.”

“My favorite argument,” expressed Haben, “is that disability sparks innovation,” a topic she explores in her article “People with disabilities drive innovation” published in the Financial Times. “When you invest in a disability challenge, you could end up building a new solution that drives society forward.” One example of this she offered is called the Curb-Cut Effect, the idea that addressing disadvantages or exclusions experienced by one group of people often ends up benefitting all of society.

Haben explained, “Berkeley was one of the first cities to install curb cuts—those are the ramps at the end of sidewalks, going from the sidewalk down to the street and back up to the sidewalk—and when they installed them, people who used wheelchairs gained greater freedom and mobility. Parents pushing strollers benefited from the curb cuts. Travelers with luggage benefited from the curb cuts. Kids with skateboards loved the curb cuts. In 2023, autonomous delivery robots benefit from the curb cuts. I doubt in the sixties and seventies, the cities thought that robots would be using the curb cuts to deliver medicine and groceries. But when you design for accessibility, you literally pave the way for better innovation for the entire community.”

Haben also pointed to an added benefit of designing for accessibility: gaining a greater, expanded understanding of any project or area of expertise. She experienced this firsthand when she decided she wanted to learn how to surf. “I found a [surfing] school that said, ‘We've never heard of a Deafblind surfer, but let's figure it out. Let's find a way.’ And in the process of figuring it out, the school deepened their understanding of surfing. They had to reexamine, what are the different ways we receive information when we're out on the water? You can feel the direction of the sun to help stay oriented. The direction of the wind, the waves, you can tap on the board to signal and communicate with the people you're out on the water with. In any field, if you explore how to make it more accessible, everyone working in that field deepens their understanding.”

When thinking about accessibility, Haben shared her belief that organizations need to consider not just their employees but also their clients, customers, and the larger population. For instance, she emphasized how important it is to make technology more accessible. “Sometimes when I talk about accessibility, people think, ‘Oh, we'll build a separate website for disabled people.’ Separate is never equal. It might start out with good intentions, but down the line, the separate app or website for disabled people ends up with fewer updates, fewer resources, and that's not equal. So what we want is one app, one website, one organization that's accessible to everyone. And when you are designing digital services, consider the web content accessibility guidelines.”

One simple but impactful way individuals and organizations can do this, she recommended, is to always use the accessibility practice of adding image descriptions and alternative text. “When you share content on social media, when you share photos and videos on websites and in emails, add image descriptions so blind people also gain access to the stories and can be part of those conversations.”

“Just about any activity, program, or technology can be designed for accessibility if we bring our creativity into the project,” said Haben. The best way to do this, she emphasized, is to “design with accessibility from the beginning. A lot of times, people build a product and then think about accessibility once the product is finished. That's kind of like building a skyscraper without an elevator and telling yourself once the product is finished, then we'll think about putting in elevators. That's more costly and time consuming.” She also urges organizations to hire disabled designers and engineers and to ensure they’re at the table at the start of the design process.

As someone who is often told by others that she is “inspiring,” Haben reflected, "Sometimes when non-disabled people feel nervous around someone with a disability, they use the word ‘inspiring,’ and, consequently, a lot of us disabled people associate that word with pity. “I love the word ‘inspiring’ if it's used for action. If someone says, ‘I'm inspired to increase hiring of disabled people,’ ‘I'm inspired to make my websites more accessible,’—that's beautiful inspiration. It's a gift to be able to move people toward action. So when people tell me I'm inspiring, I ask, ‘What are you inspired to do?’"

Haben hopes that her work, personal story and experiences, and the insights and perspectives she shares will move people to action to help eliminate ableism, rise to the challenge of designing for accessibility, and remove barriers for the disabled community. “Many organizations have said, ‘We've never had a disabled person in our program.’ That's an invitation to investigate, what are the barriers and how do we remove the barriers? There are a lot of small barriers that we brush off. Barriers affecting women, people of color, disabled people. We tell ourselves, ‘Oh, it’s just a small thing. Just deal with it.’ Those small things add up. When we take the time to address a small barrier, we build up the skills to master the larger obstacles.”

For more information on Haben Girma and her work, you can visit her website.

For more information visit Deloitte’s DEI Institute.

This article originally appeared at Forbes, and was written by Marianne Schnall, a widely published journalist, author, and contracted writer for Deloitte