March 11 Webinar: Disability Rights, Youth Voting, and the Future of Civic Participation

Emerging America and the Keene State College Teaching Disability History Program co-host a March 11, 2026, webinar on voting access for people with disabilities and young voters. Researchers Lisa Schur and Doug Kruse from Rutgers University, Ashleigh McKenna from New Voters, and Noorya Hayat from CIRCLE at Tufts University will explore historical barriers, current trends, and strategies for supporting student voter registration and participation. The session provides resources for developing programs that prepare students with disabilities to vote and address how disability intersects with democratic participation. It connects historical understanding of voting rights struggles with contemporary practice, demonstrating how civic learning can address equity gaps by attending to access needs, legal protections, and practical strategies for navigating voting systems. This National Civic Learning Week event advances NCDD’s mission by equipping educators with tools to support all students in exercising democratic rights, addressing structural obstacles to civic engagement, and strengthening inclusive democratic participation through accessible civic education and youth voter mobilization.

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Emerging America and the Keene State College Teaching Disability History Program are co-hosting a webinar on March 11, 2026, examining voting access for people with disabilities and young voters as part of National Civic Learning Week. The session brings together researchers and practitioners to explore the history of voting by people with disabilities, including barriers, efforts to overcome those barriers, and current trends, while providing perspectives on youth voting and resources to support developing programs that prepare and support students with disabilities to register and vote. Panelists include Lisa Schur and Doug Kruse, co-directors of the Program for Disability Research at Rutgers University; Ashleigh McKenna, Chief of Staff at New Voters; and Noorya Hayat, Senior Researcher at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University's Tisch College, with Rich Cairn of Emerging America serving as moderator.

The webinar is designed for teachers, student leaders, school administrators, and community leaders working to increase civic participation among students with disabilities and all young people. Participants will gain access to resources supporting the development of programs that help students successfully plan to vote, discuss the most important strategies for supporting disabled youth voting going forward, and learn about historical and contemporary dimensions of voting access. The session addresses urgent questions about how educational institutions can support democratic participation for populations that have historically faced barriers to civic engagement, including both structural obstacles limiting physical access to voting and systemic challenges related to voter registration, information accessibility, and mobilization.

This webinar reflects growing recognition that civic education must address how disability intersects with democratic participation and that preparing students to vote requires more than general civics instruction—it demands attention to specific access needs, legal protections, and practical strategies for navigating voting systems. By bringing together disability research expertise, youth civic engagement practitioners, and educators implementing disability history curriculum, the program connects historical understanding of voting rights struggles with contemporary practice supporting student civic participation. The collaboration between Emerging America's work teaching disability history through primary sources and organizations focused on youth voter mobilization demonstrates how civic learning can address equity gaps in democratic participation while equipping educators with tools to support all students in exercising their democratic rights.
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To register for the March 11, 2026, webinar on disability and young voters, visit https://emergingamerica.org/workshops/disability-and-young-voters-access-legislation-and-mobilizing-young-voters-a-national-civic-learning-week-discussion/