Class of 1974 establishes Marca Bristo Disability Fund leading up to reunion

Marca Bristo’74Shortly after graduating from Beloit, Bristo was paralyzed in a diving accident in Lake Michigan. Before the accident, she was working as a registered nurse with plans to become a nurse midwife. She went on to become an advocate for disability rights, improving the lives of millions of people. She founded Access Living, one of the first organizations in the independent living movement, and was a key figure in the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which she helped draft and amend.

Bristo was the first person with a disability to serve as chair of the National Council on Disability when President Bill Clinton appointed her to that role in 1994. As the vice president of North America for Rehabilitation International, she participated in the negotiations for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was adopted in 2006.

When Bristo died in 2019 at the age of 66, among many tributes was one from Edward M. Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator and chair of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Kennedy, who lost his leg to cancer at age 12, told The New York Times that Bristo had “reframed the disability experience as a civil rights issue, as opposed to a medical issue.”

The Marca Bristo Disability Fund will provide disability resources for faculty, staff, and students at the college, in honor of her passion for social justice and her significant achievements.