# Disability Inclusion Is a Design-Authority Question ## Claim Real disability inclusion means handing disabled people authority over how a space or program gets designed, not adding accommodations to a space that was already fully decided without them. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds for church, workplace, and product/design contexts alike — the underlying pattern isn't domain-specific. - Breaks down as a slogan if "co-creation" gets implemented as advisory-only input with no actual decision authority — the distinction only does real work if power moves, not just process. - Doesn't claim hospitality (invitation into existing space) is worthless — only that it's a different, lesser thing than belonging, and institutions that stop at hospitality haven't done the harder work. ## Evidence A friend's distinction, relayed by a disability-ministry content director: "hospitality is when I invite people to my table, belonging is when I co-create a table with somebody else." The concrete institutional critique that follows from it: churches are legally exempt from ADA compliance and, per this account, often use that exemption as a ceiling rather than a floor — even though an estimated quarter of Americans identify as disabled. The working counter-examples offered are a camp built with disabled co-creators from the architecture up, and an interability-staffed coffee shop designed accessibility-first rather than retrofitted. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Format Choice Is an Accessibility Control Exercised Before Remediation]] — because extends; both claims locate the real accessibility decision at the design stage, not the fix-it-after stage, in different domains (church space vs. content format). - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Universalizing Disability Language Risks Erasing Specific Hardship]] — because contrasts on risk; this note argues for handing over real authority, the linked note flags a way well-meaning inclusion language can undercut that same goal. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Spiritual Formation and Discipleship MOC]] — because applies-in the vault's formation-as-practiced-transformation thread. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Accessibility & Disability Inclusion MOC]] — the root claim this map is built on — access is decided by who holds design authority, not by what is added afterward - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Revert by Authority Needs a Stated Technical Reason Before It Reads as Technical]] — applied in: treat a revert as technical only if the person with authority states a technical reason on the record (The Repository, Rae Morey). ## Tests / falsifiers - If a congregation or organization adds a disabled advisory seat with no budget or hiring authority and sees the same outcomes as one that gives disabled people actual decision authority, the "power must move, not just process" scope condition fails. - Compare disabled-member retention/engagement between organizations that co-design from inception and organizations that only add accommodations to an existing program — no measurable difference would weaken this claim. ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Toward a Theology of Disability - with Alex Wolf]] — the hospitality-vs-belonging distinction and the ADA-exemption critique.