Mia Ives-Rublee
Mia Ives-Rublee is a disabled transracial adoptee who has dedicated her life’s work to civil rights activism. She began her journey as an adapted athlete, competing internationally in track, road racing, fencing, and crossfit. She obtained her Master’s in Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill and began working with disabled people to help them find work and independence in their communities at the NC Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services. Mia is best known for founding the Women’s March Disability Caucus and organizing the original Women’s March on Washington in 2017. She has worked with numerous progressive organizations on disability justice and inclusion. As a public speaker, Mia advocates on the national stage for the rights of disabled people, immigrants, and other marginalized communities.
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From Athlete to Activist: One Person’s Story on Finding Their Voice
Storytelling is a fundamental tool used by humans to teach and connect. Mia provides participants the opportunity to learn how to use storytelling to create social change in their communities.
This online presentation explores:
- Mia’s story and how it has informed her own organizing practices
- The fundamentals of good storytelling
- Participant’s own stories and how they connect with specific issues their passionate about
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Disability Justice and Inclusion 101
Disability intersects every facet of human life. But many organizations continue to struggle with how disability affects the issues they care about and how to be inclusive of the disability community. This workshop provides participants the opportunity to understand the basics of Disability Justice and learn how to make their own organizations and businesses more inclusive of the disability community.
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The Pain Points: A Story of Empathy and the Journey Towards Macro Social Work
On the first day of field placement, Mia landed in the ER with a non-union fracture. Between numerous surgeries over the next 10 years, she obtained her Master’s degree, worked at Vocational Rehabilitation, and went into the field of research. This lecture will discuss the lessons she learned from social work and her own life and career. She will talk about how she got into national activism by accidentally helping organize one of the largest protests in history and began advocating with and for some of the most vulnerable communities. Her lecture will discuss how to utilize multiple tools including research, storytelling, and lobbying to uplift the needs and priorities of marginalized communities.
See Mia Ives-Rublee in action.
Mia Ives-Rublee is a disabled transracial adoptee who has dedicated her life’s work to civil rights activism.
Mia Ives-Rublee is a policy analyst, community organizer, international speaker, and passionate advocate. She currently works as the director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress and is one of the commissioners on the President’s Advisory Committee on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor’s in Sociology and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Master’s in social work.
After experiencing significant issues with the safety net system personally and with her clients at the NC Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Mia decided to commit herself to addressing more systemic issues. She worked in research, policy analysis, campaigning, and community organizing fighting for the rights of the most marginalized, including disabled people, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and people of color.
Mia helped organize the Women’s March by developing a disability caucus and ensuring Deaf interpreters were represented on stage for the original March. This helped push other progressive organizations and events do more to be more accessible and inclusive and clearly helped to eventually hire the first ASL interpreters at the White House. Mia got numerous awards for her work, including having Glamour magazine name her as one of 2017’s Women of the Year Award. She was also recognized by She the People as one of 20 Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020 and awarded the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Social Work.
Mia focuses on her personal narrative, community engagement, and policy when speaking on issues of diversity, disability, equity, and justice. She has spoken at Universities, non-profit organizations, and Fortune 500 companies.
Our speakers get attention.
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Politicians Don’t Understand DisabilityMany people, perhaps especially politicians, fundamentally don’t understand the disability community.
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Voting access for disabled people is still a work in progress. One toolkit offers solutionsA new toolkit aims to track the challenges that people with disabilities have when it comes to voting.
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Bobby Boyd Leadership Lecture: Mia Ives-Rublee urges social workers to be conduits for changeSocial workers must first consider how their own experiences with grief and pain may collectively impact the people they are trying to help.
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As the US reaches 1 million COVID-19 deaths, Congress still has work aheadI remember passing the National Mall in Washington, D.C. last September where small white flags stuck up from the ground almost as far as I could see. On many of…
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Disability Justice, Coalition Work, & Environmental Futures: Featuring Mia Ives-RubleeProf. Phaedra C. Pezzullo will be interviewing Mia Ives-Rublee about her expertise in disability justice with environmental organizations, institutions, and broader coalitions --including outdoor recreation access, being a competitive athlete,…
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Commentary: Mia Ives-Rublee — Employers ignoring workers with disabilities at own perilThe United States will face an epic worker crisis if its policies and workplaces do not adjust to the needs of the disability community.
