Anita Silvers
{{Short description|American philosopher (1940–2019)}}
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Anita Silvers (1 November 1940 – 14 March 2019){{cite web |title=Dr. Anita Silvers (1940-2019) |url=https://philosophy.sfsu.edu/news-announce/dr-anita-silvers-november-1-1940-march-14-2019 |website=SFSU Philosophy Department |accessdate=March 14, 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.apaonline.org/news/442158/In-Memoriam-Anita-Silvers.htm|title=In Memoriam: Anita Silvers - The American Philosophical Association|website=www.apaonline.org|language=en|access-date=2019-03-16}} was an American philosopher, focusing on medical ethics, bioethics, feminism, disability studies, philosophy of law, and social and political philosophy.{{Cite web|url=http://dailynous.com/2019/03/14/anita-silvers-1940-2019/|title=Anita Silvers (1940-2019)|last=Weinberg|first=Justin|date=2019-03-14|website=Daily Nous|language=en-US|access-date=2019-03-16}} She "was a leading voice in the interpretation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, arguing that disability rights should be viewed the same as other civil rights and not as an accommodation or as a social safety net issue".{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/obituaries/anita-silvers-dead.html|title=Anita Silvers, an Authority on Disability Rights, Dies at 78|newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 March 2019 |language=en|access-date=2019-03-31|last1=Genzlinger |first1=Neil }}
Biography
As a child, Silvers contracted polio and spent a year in an iron lung, leaving her with partial quadriplegia.{{cite news |last=Genzlinger |first=Neil |date=March 22, 2019 |title= Anita Silvers, an Authority on Disability Rights, Dies at 78|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/obituaries/anita-silvers-dead.html |work=The New York Times |location=NY, NY |access-date=January 6, 2020 }} She attended The Wheatley School, Old Westbury, NY and was in 1958 salutatorian of the new school’s first graduating class. Silvers received her B.A. in 1962 from Sarah Lawrence College, and her PhD in Philosophy in 1967 from Johns Hopkins University.{{cite journal | year = 2008 | first = Leslie Pickering | last = Francis |author2=Anita Silvers | title = No Disability Standpoint Here!: Law School Faculties and the Invisibility Problem | journal = University of Pittsburgh Law Review | volume = 69 | issue = 3 | pages = 499–508| doi = 10.5195/LAWREVIEW.2008.104 | doi-access = free }}
Silvers was a professor in, and former chair of, the Department of Philosophy at San Francisco State University, having been on the faculty from 1967. In 1980, she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve on the National Council for the Humanities, the governing board of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2009, she was awarded the Quinn Prize for her service to the profession from the American Philosophical Association (APA){{Cite web|url=https://www.apaonline.org/general/custom.asp?page=quinn|title=APA List of Quinn Prize winners}} the first time this award was granted to a faculty member of a non-research-intensive university. In 2013, she was awarded the Lebowitz Prize by the American Philosophical Association and Phi Beta Kappa society.{{cite web | url=http://news.sfsu.edu/philosophy-chair-honored-academic-contributions | title=Philosophy chair honored for academic contributions | SF State News }} In 2017, she was awarded the California State University (CSU) Wang Family Excellence Award.{{Cite web|url=https://www2.calstate.edu/csu-system/faculty-staff/wang-award/past-years/2017-awardees/Pages/dr-anita-silvers.aspx|title=2017 Wang Family Excellence Award}}
Her 1988 book Disability. Difference. Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in Bioethics and Public Policy (co-authored with David Wasserman and Mary Mahowald){{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/disabil_sil_1998_00_4032|url-access=registration|quote=Disability. Difference. Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in Bioethics and Public Policy (1988).|title=Disability, Difference, Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in Bioethics and Public Policy|last1=Silvers|first1=Anita|last2=Wasserman|first2=David T.|last3=Mahowald|first3=Mary|last4=Mahowald|first4=Mary Briody|date=1998|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9780847692231|language=en}} is widely cited in legal affairs.
References
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External links
- Anita Silver's memorial page on SFSU's Philosophy Department website. [https://philosophy.sfsu.edu/anita-silvers]
- [https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Anita-Silvers-an-SF-State-philosophy-professor-13707077.php Anita Silvers, an SF State philosophy professor and advocate for the disabled, dies at 78] obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle by Steve Rubenstein (21 March 2019)
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Category:Philosophers from California
Category:Disability studies academics
Category:Feminist studies scholars
Category:Sarah Lawrence College alumni
Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni
Category:San Francisco State University faculty
Category:American women non-fiction writers