Networking Reception

Welcome & Event Overview

Keynote – Samuel Bagenstos, General Counsel, Department of Health & Human Services

Award Presentation

Acceptance Remarks

Honoree Toast

Closing Remarks

Kelly Bagby is the Vice President at AARP Foundation Litigation (AFL) managing the office’s work related to health, hunger, housing and human services. Kelly specializes in civil rights, disability rights, health law with an emphasis on litigation. Kelly was co-counsel in several cases in which nursing facility residents were administered psychotropic medications without informed consent. She has also litigated against many states under the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide people in nursing facilities with the opportunity to move back to their own communities. Kelly works to ensure that no person with a disability is unnecessarily placed or forced to live in institutional settings.

Samuel Bagenstos was appointed by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate to serve as General Counsel to the Department of Health and Human Services. From Inauguration Day until June 2022, he served in the White House as General Counsel to the Office of Management and Budget. Sam is on an unpaid leave from his position as the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. During the Obama Administration, he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice. He served from 2019 to 2021 as the Chair of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, which adjudicates unfair labor practice and representation claims involving public-sector workers in the state.

Outside of his government service, Sam has taught at four law schools and litigated significant civil rights, health, and employment law matters. Among other notable litigation, he assisted in the defense of the Affordable Care Act in the NFIB case, participated in Administrative Procedure Act litigation involving various major regulatory efforts, and represented state legislators and workers’ rights groups defending Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency orders responding to COVID-19. He has argued four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Young v. United Parcel Service, 135 S. Ct 1338 (2015), which established new protections for pregnant workers.

Bagenstos served as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court and for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and the Harvard Law School.

James W. Conroy, Ph.D. is president of the Center for Outcome Analysis, co-chair of the Steering Committee for the establishment of a National Museum of Disability History and Culture, and co-chair of the Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance. Dr. Conroy is the leading national research scholar of quality of life outcomes for persons with disabilities in different service settings, including institutions, community living arrangements, supported living, single-person homes and self-determination.

Judith A Gran, Esq. practiced law at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia from 1984 to 2009. She served as Director of Disability Projects from 1998 to 2009. She has conducted class action litigation to obtain community services for institutionalized persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Montana, California, Illinois and Tennessee. Her work as counsel for the Arc of Pennsylvania and the plaintiff class during the implementation phase of the consent decree in Halderman v. Pennhurst from 1986 through 1998 led to significant improvements in community service systems in Philadelphia and other counties. Ms. Gran represents special education students in administrative and judicial proceedings in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states, including the class action suit Gaskin v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a case brought to enforce the least restrictive environment mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that is now in the implementation phase. She is a currently a partner at Reisman Carolla Gran & Zuba LLP.

Kate Jirik, Ph.D. is a historian, scholar, author and university lecturer. Dr. Jirik spent the first eight years of her life in an institution for children with profound cognitive impairment. Her doctorate is in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine from the University of Minnesota. She has taught classes in bioethics, medical humanities and law.

Regina “Gina” Kline is the Founder and Managing Partner of Enable Ventures, the first impact venture fund dedicated to closing the disability wealth gap by investing in early-stage companies working at the nexus of technology and disability. Enable is a leader and pathfinder in a highly innovative sector whose potential has been largely untapped by venture investors until now.

Investor, entrepreneur, civil rights lawyer, and thought leader, Gina has dedicated 15 years of her career to building the future of work by advancing the rights and interests of people with disabilities as innovators, entrepreneurs, workers, and consumers. Prior to founding Enable in 2022, Gina spent more than two years developing a pipeline of investible opportunities at the nexus of tech and disability. Gina previously served in the Obama Administration and litigated landmark ADA cases and is nationally recognized for her legal and policy work in advancing the rights of people with disabilities. Gina is also the founder of SmartJob, an impact consultant and early-stage scout for the disability tech sector.

Melanie Reeves Miller has over 30 years of experience as a disabilities expert, human services professional, administrator, case manager, and direct support provider. Miller has been involved in implementation and monitoring of class action litigation ensuring the rights of people with disabilities to leave institutions and congregate, long-term care settings for meaningful lives in the most integrated settings possible. In addition to monitoring, Miller’s experience includes developing supports and services designed to promote development of meaningful relationships, attainment of productive work, retirement and volunteer opportunities, participation in community life, personal decision-making, and becoming valued and contributing members of the community.

Ruby Moore is CEO of the Georgia Advocacy Office, the Protection and Advocacy System for People with Disabilities in Georgia. Ruby has family members with disabilities and mental health histories. She’s nationally known for her work in disability and mental health for over 45 years, particularly regarding employment, AAC,  protections from harm, and design/ implementation of supports for people with disabilities to be fully included in community life. Ruby has served as an expert for US  Department of Labor,  Department of Justice, Equal Opportunity Commission and Civil Rights Commission. She assisted Department of Veteran’s Affairs to help 50,000 homeless veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress, access employment. She has testified before the US Congress, and Senate Health,  Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Ruby has served as an expert in dozens of systems reform class actions, including landmark cases in the field. She is past President of TASH, a Founding Ambassador of SmartJob, LLC, and Vice President of the Global Leadership Exchange for Mental Health and Disability.

Tia Nelis is the Self-advocacy Coordinator for TASH. She comes to TASH after serving as a Self-Advocacy Specialist at the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center within the Institute on Disability and Human Development at University of Illinois at Chicago. She also is one of the past chairperson of the National Organization of Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE). She founded and successfully promoted People First of Illinois, where she served as president. Tia, a long-time member of TASH, has received the Burton Blatt Award, awarded by the Illinois TASH chapter, as well as the Elizabeth Boggs award from the President’s Committee. Tia has drawn on experiences relating to her own disability in promoting and demonstrating the benefits of empowerment for people with disabilities. She has wide experience in conducting training and advocating for progressive polices with legislators and public officials.

Katherine Ott, Ph.D. (invited) is the Fellowship Advisor to the staff of the National Museum of American History. Her work has focused on the history of the body, disability, ethnic and folk medicine, integrative and alternative medicine, medical technology, prosthetics and rehabilitation, visual and material culture, and other topics.

Laura Owens, Ph.D., CESP is the President of TransCen and a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Exceptional Education Department where she teaches courses focusing on high school inclusion and transition from school to work. She is also the founder and President of Creative Employment Opportunities, Inc. (CEO), in Milwaukee, which she founded in 1991. Prior to joining TransCen, Laura served as the Executive Director of APSE (the Association of People Supporting Employment First), a national organization focusing on the advancement of integrated employment for citizens with disabilities. She is an internationally known speaker having presented to businesses, organizations, schools, and at conferences in Israel, Ireland, Croatia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Chile, and Portugal.

Steven J. Schwartz is currently the Special Counsel of the Center for Public Representation, after founding the Center in 1976 and then serving as its Executive Director for 38 years. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971, he represented thousands of people with disabilities over the past fifty years. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, successfully resolved a number of damage cases for institutionalized individuals with disabilities, and litigated dozens of class action cases that challenge the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities in psychiatric hospitals, developmental disability institutions, nursing facilities, and juvenile justice settings. He has provided training and technical assistance to disability rights programs in more than 40 states, authored a number of law review articles, and served on the faculty of the Harvard and Western New England Law Schools.

Hezzy Smith, Esq. is a trilingual attorney, a proud sibling, and Director of Advocacy Initiatives. He’s responsible for much of HPOD’s self-advocacy programming. He has worked closely with self-advocacy and disabled peoples’ organizations both in the United States and abroad to advocate, research, and produce awareness-raising materials. His Spanish, English, and Bangla language materials have shaped disability rights strategic litigation and important decisions by national and regional courts, and his disability rights scholarship has appeared in collections published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, as well as both U.S. and international law reviews.

Benjamin (“Bo”) Tayloe, Jr. is a Deputy Chief in the Special Litigation Section, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, where he has worked since 2001. Directly or in a supervisory role, he has conducted systemic investigations and litigated cases upholding the rights of people with disabilities under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to receive services in the most integrated settings appropriate to their needs. He also has conducted systemic investigations and litigation protecting the federal rights of people who are involuntarily institutionalized. Much of this work has involved people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and people with serious mental illness living in congregate settings, including state institutions and private nursing facilities. Tayloe was in private practice for several years before joining the Civil Rights Division. He also has worked as a residential direct support professional serving people with IDD.