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The Unitarian Universalist Association is investing money and energy to build more inclusive congregations and to raise the profile of disability justice work.
Last year, Rev. Amanda Schuber was hired as the UUA’s first disability justice associate to advance these goals, working within the Side With Love Organizing Strategy Team. Schuber also serves as minister of High Street Unitarian Universalist Church in Macon, Georgia. Over the past three decades, Schuber has been active in other roles, including the EqUUal Access board, a UUA partner.
In this conversation, Schuber shares insight on progress being made to make UU spaces accessible to more people, challenges that still need to be overcome, and ongoing UUA disability justice priorities.
Highlights from the Conversation with Rev. Amanda Schuber
Rev. Amanda Schuber, UUA Disability Justice Associate
On What Disability Justice Means
“Disability Justice centers that disabled people are whole people just as they are. They don’t need to be fixed. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with them in our societal context, and so it works to look for full inclusion. And it also reminds us that people are not ‘worthy’ because of what they produce in this world.”
On Accessibility Challenges in UU Spaces
“We, as Unitarian Universalists, do love our buildings, and too often we get caught in the cycle of thinking that the limits that are there are too big to be dealt with. They’re going to cost too much money, or we might have to give up some of our privilege as people who are temporarily able-bodied in order to, perhaps, move our buildinaddg or come up with creative ways of doing things so we can be fully inclusive.”
On Mental Health Advocacy
“I think one of the best things we can do is just educate ourselves. There are several wonderful books out there, including one by Rev. Barbara Meyers called [Held: Showing Up for Each Other’s Mental Health;Skinner House, 2020] . . . which is a wonderful book talking about mental health within our congregations, and it even has a guide on how [to] help support people with mental health [challenges]. But I think, really, the most important thing is just educating ourselves. It's being open to inviting people with these concerns into conversation and finding out how we, as a denomination, and as individual congregations can best support the communities that are seeking refuge in a safe space within our walls.
On Voting Rights in an Election Year
“This year in particular we will be focusing a lot on disability justice work on the upcoming election and making sure that people with disabilities have access to vote—that has been a consistent problem, throughout the years, both in terms of just physical access, accessing the polls, being able to have assistance if we need it to fill out our ballots, [and] push back when it comes to making sure that people with mental health struggles are able to access that.”