ABOUT

I'm Lesley Davis. In 2006, when my son was 8 months old, I went from a temporarily-able-bodied to Disabled overnight. I had a severe case of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which left me completely paralyzed and unable to breathe on my own for about 6 weeks, and then slowly, over the course of about five years, I regained enough nerve function to be able to live and do most of the things I used to do self-sufficiently with the help of various mobility aids and devices. Like many people with mobility disabilities, I am always on the hunt for better devices that help solve the problems of unequal access.
I have worked as the assistant dean for international programs at Indiana University Maurer School of Law since 2003. I know how lucky I am, as a Disabled person, to have a steady job with good  benefits and, what's more, it's a job that I love to do. My job allows me to work with people and institutions from around the world and to help others on a journey to intercultural understanding.
The vast majority of people with disabilities do not enjoy the level of privilege I enjoy. I am ridiculously lucky. The world is a difficult place - some places more difficult than others - for Disabled people. In 1990, the United States passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, the first comprehensive piece of disability anti-discrimination legislation in the world. This goes a long way in making the United States a more physically accessible place to live than many other countries. The ADA has its shortcomings, but it still serves as a model for other, even more far-reaching legal instruments, such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
In the past several years I have done a deep dive into the ADA (I am now a certified ADA Coordinator) and the UNCRPD. I am particularly interested in the ways in which supranational organizations, nations, states and localities address the issue of accessibility of "places of public accommodation" - i.e., restaurants, theaters, retail shops, sports facilities, music venues, private schools and colleges. Everywhere in the world I have traveled, as well as in the U.S., I have encountered the attitude that, while some efforts should be made to accommodate people with disabilities in governmental (or government-funded) and health care facilities, access to the places where daily life happens, the places where people gather and enjoy themselves, well, that's is a bridge too far. What's more, a nation's historic patrimony is far too sacred to be marred by ramps and lifts and braille signage, because not everyone is worthy of its enjoyment. I am an architecture junkie and also a small business owner, and on this line of thinking and exclusionary (in)action, I call bullshit. I started Everybody In! International to have a repository, available to all, to share disability law and policy research, accessibility finds, international travel resources, travel hacks, design-for-all triumphs, and to showcase people and projects that are part of the solution. I am eager to collaborate with like-minded people committed to dismantling the barriers to social inclusion and equity in access.
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