Justin MH Salisbury’s work focuses on the relationships between educational institutions and power, privilege, and oppression. Educational institutions can act on power, privilege, and oppression, and vice versa. Sometimes, social hierarchies are reproduced through education. Justin is interested in studying the awareness of social justice affecting people with disabilities in general education teachers, special education teachers, and disability service providers. This can include epistemological violence, where knowledge production is managed by the privileged majority researching down on a group with lower social standing—in this case, people with disabilities.
As Vermont and the nation begin to reconcile with eugenics, another critical part of reconciliation is public education. Eugenics involves organized efforts to erase disability, and the knowledge of eugenics must not be erased. Disability advocacy organizations continue to work on policy initiatives, and those policy debates need research. Vermont was the first state to eliminate the payment of disability-based subminimum wages, and a national advocacy movement continues to expand the transition to competitive and integrated employment. Justin hopes to help document the perspectives and lived experiences of people with disabilities to help inform policy discussions.
He is also interested in how minority group memberships—especially disability status— relate to the evaluation of professional capacity and identity in academia. He hopes to become a tenured faculty member in a school of education and/or University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD).
He previously served as Coordinator of Educational Programs at Associated Services for the Blind, in Philadelphia, PA, Orientation and Mobility Therapist at Ho‘opono Services for the Blind in Honolulu, HI, and Legislative Aide in the Hawai‘i State Senate in Honolulu, HI.
