Mia Ives-Rublee: Disability Justice, Coalition Work and Environmental Futures

Recorded: February 2, 2022
Published: April 27, 2022 
Time: 54.32
Audio edited by: Anthony Albidrez
Music clips: “Happy Clappy Ukelele” by Shane Ivers (Creative Commons)

Welcome to Communicating Care: a podcast of the Just Transition Collaborative at the University of Colorado Boulder where we talk about the ways environmental and climate justice advocacy are motivated by, express, and foster care. On this podcast we listen more deeply to people who have made headlines for making a difference to learn from their insights for successful creative climate communication and behavior change. 

Today’s podcast is unusual because we are recording live as part of an event at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Our featured guest is Mia Ives-Rublee, is a disabled transracial adoptee who has dedicated her life’s work to civil rights activism. Ives-Rublee holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in social work from UNC Chapel Hill. She currently is the director for the Disability Justice Initiative at American Progress. Mia probably is best known for founding the Women’s March Disability Caucus and co-organizing the original Women’s March on Washington in 2017. She was awarded by Glamour Magazine as one of 2017’s Women of the Year. Mia was also recognized by She the People as one of 20 Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020. 

Mia Ives-Rublee has gone on to work with many more non-profit organizations and businesses, such as Families Belong Together, DC Action Lab, Adoptees for Justice, Fair Fight, People’s Collective for Justice and Liberation, and Lonely Whale. As a North Carolina community regional organizing director for the Elizabeth Warren Campaign for President, she communicated policies and organized events around specific issues affecting the disability and Asian American communities. Ives-Rublee also worked as the field director for Down Home NC to encourage rural residents to vote. She further organized with the Asian American Advocacy Fund and the Georgia Disability Vote Partnership to help elect Senator Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Senator Raphael Warnock during the 2021 election.