08/12/2026
Disability Inclusion as an Essential Part of Democracy
Those of us who work in community engagement and deliberative democracy frequently ask a simple but important question:
Who is not at the table?
It is a question that goes to the heart of democracy itself. If we want communities to make better decisions, we need to hear from more than the people who traditionally show up. We need different experiences, different perspectives and, sometimes, strongly different opinions.
Over the years, those of us involved in community engagement have become much better at recognizing the barriers that keep people from participating.
We go where people are rather than expecting them always to come to us. We hold conversations at different times of the day. We provide meals. We sometimes offer childcare. We translate materials and provide interpreters. We work hard to reach people whose voices historically have been missing from public conversations.
We have even become remarkably good at asking about dietary restrictions before ordering lunch. But there is another question we need to become just as accustomed to asking:
What are we doing to ensure that people with disabilities can fully participate?
Holding a meeting in a physically accessible facility is an important beginning. But it is only a beginning.
• What about the person who cannot hear the conversation?
• What about the person who cannot see the presentation or read the materials we distribute?
• What about someone with an intellectual, developmental, sensory or cognitive disability for whom the traditional format of a public meeting creates barriers?
• What about someone who communicates differently, needs additional time to process information or requires technology or other accommodations to participate?
• And what about disabilities that aren't readily apparent to us?
If our answer is simply that "everyone was invited," we may be confusing invitation with inclusion. That distinction matters.
Accessibility, Inclusion and Belonging
My involvement with Disability Belongs, a national, disability-led organization working to advance accessibility, inclusion and genuine representation, has caused me to think much more deeply about these questions. Accessibility, inclusion and belonging are related, but they are not the same thing.
Accessibility asks: Can I get in?
Inclusion asks: Can I participate?
Belonging asks: Am I truly part of this? Does my presence, experience and perspective matter?
That progression has profound implications for those of us working to strengthen democracy. We can hold a community conversation in an ADA-accessible building and still conduct an inaccessible conversation. A ramp does little for someone who cannot hear what is being said. A microphone does little for someone who cannot see the information projected on the screen. A printed issue guide does little for someone who cannot read it in the format we have provided. And simply providing an accommodation does not necessarily create an environment in which a person feels comfortable speaking, disagreeing and influencing the outcome.
Physical access gets someone through the door. Democratic access gives them a voice. Belonging assures them that their voice matters.
Better Inclusion Produces Better Decisions
This is not simply a matter of courtesy or compliance. It goes directly to the quality of our democratic decision-making. The fundamental premise of deliberative democracy is that communities make better decisions when people with different experiences and perspectives reason together about difficult choices.
People with disabilities bring experiences that others simply do not have. We encounter our transportation systems differently. We experience sidewalks, downtowns, public buildings, healthcare systems, schools, workplaces, technology and government services differently. We often recognize barriers that people without disabilities never notice.
When those experiences are absent from the conversation, we aren't merely excluding people. We are excluding knowledge. And when knowledge is missing from a public decision, the quality of that decision suffers.
The curb cut provides a familiar example. Originally associated primarily with wheelchair accessibility, curb cuts also benefit parents pushing strollers, travelers pulling luggage, workers moving equipment, older adults and countless others.
Designing for people who encounter the greatest barriers frequently results in communities that work better for everyone.
The same principle can apply to democracy.
A public conversation designed to include people who hear, see, communicate, move and process information differently may ultimately become a better conversation for everybody.
• Clearer language helps everyone.
• Better sound helps everyone.
• More readable materials help everyone.
• Multiple ways of participating help everyone.
• Allowing people sufficient time to understand complicated choices helps everyone.
• And intentionally creating an atmosphere in which people know their experiences are valued strengthens the entire community.
We Need to Ask a Better Question
Perhaps those of us working in community engagement need to expand our traditional question. Instead of asking only:
Who is not at the table? We should also ask:
Who cannot get to the table? Who can get there but cannot fully participate? Whose way of communicating have we failed to accommodate? Whose experience have we unintentionally overlooked? And ultimately: Who is at the table but still does not feel that they belong?
Those questions require us to think about accessibility before the meeting is scheduled, not after someone requests an accommodation. They require us to involve people with disabilities in designing community engagement rather than simply designing accommodations for them. And they require something especially important in democracy: humility.
We cannot assume we know what someone else needs in order to participate. We have to ask. We have to listen. And we have to be willing to change the way we conduct our work based upon what we hear.
Democracy Requires More Than an Open Door
There is a tendency to measure democratic participation by the openness of the invitation: Everyone was welcome. But an open invitation is meaningful only if people have a genuine opportunity to participate once they arrive. Democracy is not strengthened simply because we opened the door. It is strengthened when people can enter that door, understand the choices before them, communicate their experiences and ideas, listen to others, wrestle together with difficult tradeoffs and know that their contribution has been taken seriously. That is where community engagement and the principles of accessibility, inclusion and belonging intersect.
Those of us working to strengthen civic life spend a great deal of time talking about rebuilding trust, strengthening civic infrastructure and creating a greater sense of belonging in our communities. We cannot accomplish those things while unintentionally leaving millions of people on the sidelines. If the purpose of deliberative democracy is to bring people together across differences to make better decisions about their common future, disability inclusion cannot be something we add to the process afterward. It must be part of how we design democracy in the first place. So the next time we gather a community around a table, perhaps the first question should still be:
Who is not at the table?
But we shouldn't stop there. We should keep asking questions until we can confidently say that everyone has not only been invited to the conversation, but has been given a genuine opportunity to participate, to contribute and to belong. Because we cannot build a stronger democracy without hearing the voices of the people who make up that democracy.
And democracy belongs to everyone.
HERMAN LEHMAN
Keys to the City Community Coaching
For more information on how to support Disability Belongs and how you can help to bring more people to the table go to: www.DisabilityBelongs.org.
