Girma, Haben – First Deaf/Blind Graduate of Harvard Law School
By
John C Abercrombie
Today is day 17 of 31 featuring Black women we should all know
Haben Girma is an exceedingly rare person and defies the stereotype of the disabled person. She is legally deaf and blind. Thus, she lacks the two senses that most of us depend on. She is to be admired because she did not let that hinder her scholastic work and she certainly deserves kudo’s for being the first Deaf-Blind student to graduate from the Harvard Law School. Research shows that about 0.2% of people of worldwide suffer from the condition.
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31 Amazing Black women we should all know 2023
Haben Girma is an exceedingly rare person and defies the stereotype of the disabled person. She is legally deaf and blind. Thus, she lacks the two senses that most of us depend on. She is to be admired because she did not let that hinder her scholastic work and she certainly deserves kudo’s for being the first Deaf-Blind student to graduate from the Harvard Law School. Research shows that about 0.2% of people of worldwide suffer from the condition.
Born in 1988 to an Eritrean immigrant family, her father Girma Kidane Adgoy was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa and shares borders with Eritrea to the North, Djibouti to the Northeast, Somalia to the East and Northeast Kenya to the South. South Sudan is to the West and Sudan to the North. Ethiopia is home to 117 million people making it the 12th most populous country in the world and the second most populous in Africa after Nigeria.
Haben’s mother Saba Gebreyesus was born in Asmera, Eritera.
Asmara or Asmera is the capital and most populous city of Eritrea in the country’s Central Region. At 7,628 feet above sea level, it is the sixth highest capital in the world and the second highest in Africa. The city is located at the tip of an escarpment (a long, steep slope, especially one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights.) that is both the Northwestern edge of the Eritrean Highlands and the Great Rift Valley in neighboring Ethiopia.
In 2017, the city was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its well-preserved modernist architecture. The site of Asmera was first settled in 800 BC with a population ranging from 100 to 1,000. The city was then founded in the 12th century AD after four separate villages unified to live together peacefully after prolonged periods of conflict. Under Italian rule the city of Asmara was made capital of Eritrea in the last years of the 19th century.
Girma was born in Oakland, California in 1988. Her mother fled Eritrea to Sudan in 1983 during the Eritrean War of Independence and Ethiopian Civil War. Her parents met in California. They are fluent in three languages, Tigrinya, Amharic, and English. Most Africans speak multiple languages.
Girma lost her vision and hearing as a result of an unknown progressive condition that began in early childhood. She has about 1% of her sight left. She benefited from Civil Rights laws including the Americans with Disabilities Act and she also had access to technology such as a digital Braille device. She graduated from Skyline High School. This is a mainstream public school, in 2006.
She challenged herself to have no limits and at the age of fifteen she traveled to Mali to do volunteer work building a school. It must be noted that her parents were genuinely concerned, but she was determined.
Girma attended Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. A private liberal college chartered in 1867 as the Albay Collegiate Institute in Albany Oregon. The school relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Clark College after the famed explorers.
While at Lewis and Clark, she successfully advocated for her legal rights to accommodations in the school cafeteria. (See the videos accompanying this post). She graduated Magna Cum Laude – Magna cum laude means “with great praise” and is awarded to students who have achieved academic excellence. It is more prestigious than cum laude honors but less prestigious than summa cum laude. The criteria by which each of these distinctions is achieved depends on the specific requirements of each institution.
After Lewis & Clark, she became the first deafblind student to attend and graduate from Harvard Law School, earning her JD in 2013.
In 2013, Girma joined Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) in Berkeley, California as a Skadden Fellow. She worked there from 2015 to 2016 as a staff attorney, working on behalf of people with disabilities.
Haben Girma became a lawyer to help increase access to books and other digital information for persons with disabilities. Her current work is to change attitudes about disability, including the development of accessible digital services
Girma is quoted “Digital information is just ones and zeroes and can be converted into any kind or format. Those developing these services, programmers, technology designers have incredible power to increase access for people with disabilities.”
While working for DRA in July 2014, Haben represented the National Federation of the Blind and a blind Vermont resident in a lawsuit against Scribd for allegedly failing to provide access to blind readers, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Scribd moved to dismiss, arguing that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) only applied to physical locations. In March 2015, the U.S. District Court of Vermont ruled that the ADA covered online businesses as well. A settlement agreement was reached, with Scribd agreeing to provide content accessible to blind readers by the end of 2017.
In 2014, Girma gave a talk at TEDx Baltimore. She confronted TED for not readily providing captions for all of their recorded TEDx talks, including her own.
In January 2015, Girma was appointed to the national board of trustees for the Helen Keller Services for the Blind.
On July 20, 2015, Girma met with US President Barack Obama at the White House to highlight the importance of accessible technology. She provided introductory remarks on the occasion, the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In April 2016, Girma left DRA to assume non-litigation advocacy full-time.
In June 2016, Girma gave a talk on accessible design at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.
In 2018, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Girma directed at the Texas State Board of Education, which had voted to remove Helen Keller from the social studies curriculum. The board ultimately reversed its decision.
In August 2019, she released a memoir, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law.
Girma is highly active and enjoys participating in physical activities including surfing, rock climbing, kayaking, cycling, and dancing. She uses the assistance of a guide dog.
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Haben Girma
An interview with Haben Girma, the first deaf-blind person to graduate from Harvard Law – New Day NW
Haben Girma’s life story is filled with remarkable adventures that she details in her new memoir, “Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law.”
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Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law
The incredible life story of Haben Girma, the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and her amazing journey from isolation to the world stage.
Haben grew up spending summers with her family in the enchanting Eritrean city of Asmara. There, she discovered courage as she faced off against a bull she couldn’t see, and found in herself an abiding strength as she absorbed her parents’ harrowing experiences during Eritrea’s 30-year war with Ethiopia. Their refugee story inspired her to embark on a quest for knowledge, traveling the world in search of the secret to belonging. She explored numerous fascinating places, including Mali, where she helped build a school under the scorching Saharan sun. Her many adventures over the years range from the hair-raising to the hilarious.
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Heat Pump – many sizes
Summer and Winter
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Why I work to remove access barriers for students with disabilities | Haben Girma | TEDxBaltimore
The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma advocates for equal opportunities for people with disabilities. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change, and Forbes recognized her in Forbes 30 Under 30. Haben travels the world consulting and public speaking, teaching clients the benefits of fully accessible products and services. Haben is a talented storyteller who helps people frame difference as an asset. She resisted society’s low expectations, choosing to create her own pioneering story. Because of her disability rights advocacy she has been honored by President Obama, President Clinton, and many others. Haben is also writing a memoir that will be published by Grand Central Publishing in 2019. Learn more at habengirma.com.
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Unstoppable: Women With Disabilities
Around the world, people living with disabilities face barriers in the built environment, in employment and education, and in social attitudes and policies that can make it hard to live a full and satisfying life.
The ten women we meet in this book face physical and mental health challenges, some from birth and some who became disabled later in life. But they all share the determination to make the world a better place, not just for themselves but for those who will come after them. Their fields are as diverse as elite sport, neurosurgery, architecture, and environmental activism, and while some have devoted themselves to disability policy, others prefer to lead by example. In either case they have proved themselves to be unstoppable.
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Braille Label Maker
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Designing Accessible Technology | Haben Girma | Talks at Google
Harvard Law’s first deafblind graduate, Haben Girma, excelled in large part because people created accessible technology. Haben, who works at Disability Rights Advocates, encourages the development of accessible services and products. Recognized as a Champion of Change by the White House, Haben moves us towards a world where people with disabilities access the same services, on the same devices, and at the same time as non-disabled consumers. Technology designed with accessibility in mind truly transforms the lives of people with disabilities. Through this thoughtful discussion, Haben invites everyone to design products from the ground up with universal access in mind. To learn more about Haben, visit habengirma.com. To learn more about DRA, visit dralegal.org.
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The Story of My Life
The Story of My Life (Dover Thrift Editions: Biography)
When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880–1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps — with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan — is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word “water” and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables, her education at Radcliffe (from which she graduated cum laude), and-underlying all-her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan, who showed a remarkable genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil. These and many other aspects of Helen Keller’s life are presented here in clear, straightforward prose full of wonderful descriptions and imagery that would do credit to a sighted writer. Completely devoid of self-pity, yet full of love and compassion for others, this deeply moving memoir offers an unforgettable portrait of one of the outstanding women of the twentieth century.
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Blender
Wide Variety
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Haben Girma on “Disability and Belonging” | #OBConf2019
Disability rights advocate and lawyer Haben Girma gives a talk focused on connection, community, inclusive access, and belonging at the Othering and Belonging conference 2019.
Girma is the first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School. She advocates for equal opportunities for people with disabilities. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change. She received the Helen Keller Achievement Award, and a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30. Haben travels the world consulting and public speaking, teaching clients the benefits of fully accessible products and services. She’s a talented storyteller who helps people frame difference as an asset. She resisted society’s low expectations, choosing to create her own pioneering story. Haben is working on a book that will be published by Hachette in August.
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Disabilities Advocate Haben Girma | Connecting Point | Oct. 22, 2019
Disabilities advocate Haben Girma is the first deaf-blind person to graduate from Harvard Law School. Girma’s work centers around making equal opportunity commonplace—not the exception—for people with disabilities. And the thirty-one-year old’s work is receiving accolades, including being named a White House Champion of Change by President Obama, the Helen Keller Achievement Award, and a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Girma visited western mass to give a lecture this week and joined Carrie Saldo in-studio to share more about her work as a disabilities advocate.
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Black Roots: A Beginners Guide To Tracing The African American Family Tree
Trace, document, record, and write your family’s history with this easy-to-read, step-by-step authoritative guide.
Finally, here is the fun, easy-to-use guide that African Americans have been waiting for since Alex Haley published Roots more than twenty-five years ago. Written by the leading African American professional genealogist in the United States who teaches and lectures widely, Black Roots highlights some of the special problems, solutions, and sources unique to African Americans. Based on solid genealogical principles and designed for those who have little or no experience researching their family’s past, but valuable to any genealogist, this book explains everything you need to get started, including: where to search close to home, where to write for records, how to make the best use of libraries and the Internet, and how to organize research, analyze historical documents, and write the family history.
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Haben Girma is proof positive that anything is possible if you only believe. Afflicted with disabilities that many people consider as making success impossible. However, she preserved and achieved levels of success beyond what able bodied people have done. throughout her life. She challenged a subject that many allow to intimidate them, yet she excelled. She is not to be pitied but admired and held up as an example of what is possible.