This special issue pushes for BIPOC communities and intersectional centered perspectives on disability and Deaf communities within higher education as a way to expand our understanding of disabled and Deaf communities’ lives. Keeping in mind, that race, disability and Deaf life in higher education are at the heart of this special issue, the articles provide a variety of topics and guiding questions to serve as a starting point for readers’ thinking.

Students with disabilities are continuously challenged in the classroom by educators’ lack of knowing and these moments can lead to academic trauma. Through restorative justice practices a hearing faculty member and a Deaf+ student find common ground to unpack a challenging semester together. Using scholarly personal narrative methodology and written in four vignettes, this piece focuses on the need to be vulnerable when you do not know, the complex web of intersectional privileged and oppressed identities in the classroom and addressing head on.