Preface.

In 1999, at the urging of our sister/colleague Barbara Faye Waxman Fiduccia, the Center for Women Policy Studies launched a new series of publications on women and girls with disabilities -- beginning with two groundbreaking reports, Violence Against Disabled Women: Research and Data in Brief and Women and Girls with Disabilities: Defining the Issues -- An Overview. Barbara envisioned and co-authored both of these reports and together we began to make plans for several additional reports and for a larger program of policy leadership and training for activist disabled women.

Sadly, we lost Barbara in April of 2001 and will always miss her great and powerful spirit and her passion to ensure the full human rights of women and girls with disabilities. We continue this work, therefore, in her name, in her feminist spirit, and in her memory.

This report, written by Harilyn Rousso, one of leaders in the struggle for educational equity for women and girls with disabilities, is the second report in the Center's Barbara Waxman Fiduccia Papers on Women and Girls with Disabilities.

As Barbara and I noted in the Introduction to Women and Girls with Disabilities: Defining the Issues -- An Overview:

"Disabled women and girls are of all ages, all racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds and sexual orientations; they live in rural, urban and suburban communities....Disabled women and girls live at ...