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Let Professor Hawking’s Legacy be for Disabled People
With the death of Professor Stephen Hawking, the world has lost a true light from our universe. His life was one of astonishment which all of us felt we shared in, whether our eyes were opened by his pioneering work as a physicist, his tireless campaigning as an activist, or his astounding longevity following a diagnosis of ALS that many thought would take his life while he was still a young man.
It is apt, then, that in his sad death he is still able to reveal to us the inner workings of our society, and the great strides we still need to make in supporting disabled people to live their lives to the fullest, and undo ableist prejudices that suggest we can’t succeed on our own merit.
It would be tempting to believe that Professor Hawking’s success has already rid us of these harmful notions, but his death has shown us that, sadly, this isn’t the case.
In an interview with Brian Cox, John Humphrys asked whether he believed that Professor Hawking had been “cut a bit of slack” by other scientists because he was disabled. The implication in that question, of course, is that Professor Hawking’s disability shielded him from critique, and that perhaps he wasn’t as pioneering a physicist as everyone thought.
