Student Inspires Mother's ADA Work at Iowa

PHOTO: JASON SMITH University of Iowa ADA coordinator Tiffini Stevenson Earl (pictured on left at Dancer's Garden outside Halsey Hall) says one of her proudest moments was seeing her daughter Keonna (pictured on right), who has cerebral palsy, compete at high school cross-country meets. Says Stevenson Earl, “Even though we’re a basketball family, that was the best time of my life to be there watching her do something that none of us had ever done.”

Keonna Earl was afraid to go to college.

Born with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects her body movement and coordination, the Iowa City native found daily tasks like fixing her hair or getting dressed difficult. “It’s gotten better over the years,” says Earl, “but when I was younger, I was like, ‘I can’t open a water bottle; how can I live by myself?’”

Her mother, Tiffini Stevenson Earl (93BA, 98MA, 02JD), had similar concerns. “Will she be able to do it on her own at the University of Iowa? This is a little Black girl with cerebral palsy who’s gone through cancer.”

Earl had already overcome cancer at age 14. (Children with cerebral palsy are five times more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a young age, according to a recent Preventive Medicine Reports study.) In 2017, Earl became one of the first patients at the newly built UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital to peer out the windows into Kinnick Stadium. Now she was ready for her next big challenge: starting college at Iowa in fall 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stevenson Earl raised each of her five children—Kendra, Kenya, Keonna, Kacie, and Kareem—to be independent, but college would be Keonna’s first time without the presence of her family. It would also be an education for Stevenson Earl. As the UI’s Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator and director of equity investigations, Stevenson Earl would receive deeper, more personal insight into what campus life is like for the students, faculty, and staff she’s served for more than 15 years.

“Keonna’s disability has given me a new outlook,” says Stevenson Earl, who earned a law degree from Iowa as a young mother. “When individuals look at our campus and see an accessibility issue, it’s going to fall on my shoulders. I don’t want to be the barrier or the reason why someone couldn’t achieve something.”

Earl says college took some adjustment, but UI Student Disabilities Services has supported her need for accommodations, including additional time to finish assignments. Now a fourth-year criminology and sociology major, the 21-year-old lives in her own apartment downtown and works at the front desk of Mary Louise Petersen Residence Hall. As Stevenson Earl puts it, Earl is “doing it all.”

This past summer, Earl held an internship at Centro, a plastics manufacturing company in North Liberty, which inspired her to consider a career in human resources. “It’s just so rewarding to see my paycheck, because there are some people [with disabilities] who don’t have the confidence to work, or they’re scared. They’re like, ‘Oh, what if someone makes fun of me, or what if I do this wrong?’” says Earl, who jokes about her income, “I think I spent it all at Lululemon.”

Stevenson Earl says passion for her work has only grown with her daughter’s college experience, and she hopes more people with disabilities will find belonging at Iowa. “One of my goals would be to have a community where, when people are on our campus, they see others who look like them,” she says. “For the University of Iowa, we want to be the school of choice, the employer of choice. And I think the way you achieve that is that you make sure you’re providing a welcoming, inclusive campus for all.”