Centre for Law and Social Justice co-hosts annual Caroline Gooding Memorial Disability Law Lecture 2020

“Disability Rights and the Pandemic: A Story of Survival?”

On Friday 11 December 2020 Baroness Jane Campbell spoke on the subject of “Disability Rights and the Pandemic: A Story of Survival?” for the Caroline Gooding Memorial Disability Law Lecture.

Baroness Campbell is a pioneering campaigner and adviser on disability rights, with a particular focus on independent living and equality. In this lecture she reflected on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on disabled people in the UK and on implications for disability rights.

The lecture series is in memory of the role of Caroline Gooding (1959-2014) in conceptualising a rights-based framework of disability equality legislation in Britain, in pursuing the development of that framework into legislation and in developing and leading work to help ensure its enforcement. It is funded by the School of Law at the University of Leeds and hosted jointly by the University’s Centre for Disability Studies and the School of Law’s Centre for Law and Social Justice.

Over 230 people attended the lecture, which – due to the Covid pandemic – was delivered over Zoom.

Professor Anna Lawson told us, “this lecture series gives us the chance to invite leading lawyers, scholars and activists to reflect on how well law is or isn’t working for disabled people. At the end of 2020, I don’t think there could possibly be a more appropriate speaker than Jane, a friend of Caroline’s who has done so much to fight for and secure disability rights – nor a more compelling topic than the impact of Covid on disabled people and their legal rights”.

The event concluded with the awarding of a number of Disability Law student prizes linked to the Caroline Gooding Memorial Fund.

Prize winners

2019