ABSTRACT
This chapter adopts positions from the study of leadership and insights from the trade union activism of impaired professionals in order to interrogate the organisational learning difficulties, sectoral impairments, and avoidance that disable the academy. It analysis the professional agency of impaired staff in the academy in promoting disability equality. The chapter highlights the extent to which disabled employees may be categorised as deeply problematic. It suggests the authority of people who are disabled can be profoundly challenging and disruptive for institutional policy makers who are not disabled. The chapter proposes a counter narrative in which disability metaphors may expose organisational learning difficulties, furnish disabled employees and activists with a framework to contest disability inequality, and counter the academy's avoidance of meaningful engagement with disabled people and equality legislation. It examines the extent to which the equality legislation that required a distribution of leadership within the college genuinely impacted on the active participation and agency of disabled staff.
