Rabia Belt, assistant professor of law, was appointed in November 2016 to the National Council on Disability (NCD), an organization established in 1978 to “ensure the human, civil, and legal rights of the 57 million Americans with disabilities across the nation.” One of the last NCD council members appointed by the Obama administration, Belt is advising the independent federal agency in its recommendations to the president regarding disability policies.

Belt also was named the Richards Disability Scholar-in-Residence for 2017 at the University of Iowa Law School and as such on March 23 delivered the Richards Lecture, titled “Outcasts from the Vote: Women Suffrage and Disability Over the Long Nineteenth Century in the United States.”