The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation
With seven years of impact at Loyola Marymount University, The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation advances the lives of people with disabilities through interdisciplinary education and advocacy, with university-wide influence and engagement. Thanks to the leadership and generosity of The Honorable Anthony “Tony” Coelho, former Congressman and primary author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Center has established itself as a beacon in advancing conversations and cultivating leadership that will shape the future of disability law and policy while increasing participation and access.
Our Vision
The Coelho Center envisions a world in which people with disabilities live free from oppression and have the same opportunities as people without disabilities to live fulfilling lives.
Our Mission
The Coelho Center collaborates with the disability community to cultivate leadership and advocate for disability rights and justice through systemic change.
Our Four Areas of Focus
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Convening & Coalitions
With an emphasis on centering disabled voices, we bring together and join thought leaders, advocates, and policymakers to discuss and craft agendas that seek positive change for the disability community. We also develop opportunities and create space for new members to engage in these discussions.
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Policy & Research
As a Center embedded at an R2 University, we join our colleagues in engaging in cutting edge research. We join our colleagues in across the university using disability studies, disability rights, and disability justice frameworks to ensure that we reject the medical model of disability and engage with the disability community represented in our studies. As scholar pracitioners at the Center, we put our research into practice informing our policy agenda and visa versa.
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Increasing Pathways
No organization in America is creating a pathway of lawyers with disabilities to populate the bar and bench and hold elected office. The Coelho Center works to bring attention and solutions to the barriers that exist for people with disabilities interested in entering the legal field, becoming public policy experts, and holding political office.
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Campus-Wide Efforts
The Coelho Center works on local, state, national, and international levels. Yet, our work is both external and internal to our home at Loyola Marymount University. The Coelho Center works across LMU to help foster a scholarly community dedicated to studying disability studies, fosters students and practitioners interested in working with the disability community, and provides training to enhance campus-wide efforts to improve a positive climate at LMU for people with disabilities.
Our Guiding Principles
The following seven principles reflect our core identity and serve as a guide and touchstone for our programs and relationships.
Nothing (About Us) Without Us
Decisions about disabled people should not be made without disabled people. Drawing on a disability rights movement slogan originating in the 1990s, "Nothing about us without us," means that no decisions about the disability community should be made without the participation of members from our community. Stated in short, "nothing without us" acknowledges that all facets of policy decisions affect the disability community. As such, our first guiding principle asks, "Is the construction of our programming driven by the ideas and decisions of the disability population we seek to serve?"
Intersectional Justice
Disability justice cannot be achieved without addressing how ableism intersects with other forms of discrimination such as sexism, racism, and transphobia. Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. Crenshaw, a Black feminist legal scholar, used the principle to describe discrimination that Black women face in employment. Crenshaw noted that investigating workplace racism and sexism separately did not take into account the unique experiences Black women faced. Since then, "intersectionality" has been widely used to address multiple social justice issues, including how ableism, or discrimination against disabled people, intersects with other oppressions. For example, a Black disabled undocumented immigrant in the U.S. does not benefit when we only address ableism. Our second guiding principle asks, "Does our work take into account the intersecting systems of oppression that the individuals we serve experience?"
The Whole Person
Every disabled individual is a complex human being with a distinct lived experience and is worthy of understanding. The phrase "the whole person" has been used in various contexts including spiritual, health, and philosophical discussions. The idea of "the whole person" is often used to support treatment and understanding of individuals that take into account the many factors that make someone unique. This includes an individual's physical, emotional, social, and spiritual self. Disabled people are often treated as one-dimensional in media portrayals, policy discussions, and service delivery, which reinforces stereotypes, bias, and inadequate treatment. As such, our guiding principle asks, "Do we approach the the individuals we work with and serve as 'whole people' and do the policies and programs we support do so as well?"
Diversity in Disability Leadership
Our disability rights movement is stronger when we promote leadership representative of our community. Our movement is stronger when we promote leadership representative of our community. Just as is the case in other professional areas, institutional racism and White privilege have created disadvantages for Black, Indigenous, and people of color to advance in leadership roles in Disability Rights law, policy, and academia. In support of the essential goals of equity and diversity, our fourth guiding principle asks, "Are we providing space for Disabled Black, Indigenous, and people of color to lead?"
Representation of All People with Disabilities
Disability justice cannot be achieved without policies that include people whose access needs often go unmet or require more structural change.
Universal Design
Designing with the intention to eliminate as many barriers as possible on the front end is preferable to ad hoc accommodations. Variation is the rule, not the exception! Federal, state and local disability rights laws support a "reasonable accommodation" approach that
Language and Ableism
Language that upholds systems and beliefs that disabled people are less worthy than non-disabled people should be critiqued. Language addressing disability is not neutral. It carries a historical context and politics that can be used, whether consciously or unconsciously, to uphold ableist beliefs and systems. Ableism refers to the belief that disabled people are less worthy than non-disabled people. Language is always shifting, and individuals in the disability community have the right to identify themselves with the language they choose. We must strive to honor the language disabled people choose to identify themselves, acknowledge when we make mistakes in our use of ableist language, and use opportunities to learn about our own experiences and how this impacts our communities.
Our History
The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation launched in the summer of 2018, housed at Loyola Law School in Downtown Los Angeles. The Coelho Center's Founder, the Honorable Anthony "Tony" Coelho, is an alumnus of Loyola Marymount University from the class of 1964, and became a U.S. Congressman and the author and original sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The following captures milestones and historical moments that are part of our history.
1960-1964
Anthony “Tony” Coelho attended Loyola University of Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount University) and went on to graduate with honors with a Bachelor of Arts in 1964. Among other leadership roles, he was elected Student Body President during his senior year.
1978-1989
Tony served as a U.S. Congressman and the author and original sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
2015
LMU commemorated the 25th anniversary of the ADA with a global summit. The two-day Global Summit kicked off on March 13 with the Honorable Tony Coelho receiving the inaugural LMU President’s Award for his dedication to improving the lives of individuals with disabilities and enabling them to live the American Dream.
2017
Tony worked with LMU leadership to establish The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation as a center representative of all the schools and colleges of the university and housed at Loyola Law School ("LLS"). Then-LLS Dean Michael Waterstone hired Eve Hill, one of the nation's leading civil rights lawyers, to conduct an accessibility and disability climate assessment of LLS, which led to improvements at the law school.
2018
The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation launched in the summer of 2018, housed at Loyola Law School in Downtown Los Angeles. Katherine Perez was hired as the inaugural Director of the Center.
2019-2020
The first Coelho Law Fellowship cohort of 15 fellows from across the nation participated in The Coelho Center's one-of-a-kind pre-law program designed to increase representation of people with disabilities in the legal profession, including on the bar and bench.
2024
The Coelho Center moves from its location at LLS to LMU's Westchester campus. An office suite in LMU's University Hall was constructed to meet the needs of the expanding Center. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined over 200 members of the LMU community participated in a dedication and ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of the office.
2025
The Coelho Center welcomed two new Assistant Directors, Monique Lemus Ramirez and Sister Trish Doan, CSJ. Together with Director Katherine Perez, the newly-minted team of three conducted an assessment our the work at The Coelho Center and created a new strategic plan for the Center's future.