Marcia Rioux: A Voice for Impact

This chapter spans the career of Marcia Rioux who was a profound voice for impact and change in the field of critical disability and human rights. Internationally and nationally, Marcia Hampton Rioux was regarded as a leading legal scholar and pioneer in the field of human rights and equity. She was a driving force in the promotion of disability rights and the enhancement of opportunities for marginalized people. She played a leadership role in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and published widely in the area of disability and human rights. Editing a number of collected volumes, she wrote more than 70 book chapters and articles on human rights. Holding a Ph.D. in jurisprudence and social policy from the University of California, Berkeley, she was the director of the Roeher Institute in Toronto, Canada, whose purpose was to secure the inclusion, citizenship, human rights, and equality of people with disabilities. She was the director at York University’s Institute for Health Research as well as the cofounder and first chair of the School of Health Policy and Management and the founder of the Critical Disabilities Studies Program. She was a co-founder of Disability Rights Promotion International, which now monitors rights for people with disabilities in more than 62 countries. She held the positions of Distinguished Research Professor and Professor Emerita in the School of Health Policy and Management in York University’s Faculty of Health in Canada, and was a Fellow of the Institutes of Advanced Studies in the United Kingdom and Australia. Professor Rioux was the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Community Volunteer Award in recognition of her contributions to Ontario communities. In 2014, she was invested into the Order of Canada for her scholarship in the field of social justice and for her advancement of the rights of persons with disabilities.