Mary Lou Breslin has been a disability rights law and policy advocate for over thirty-five years. In 1979 she co-founded the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), a leading national disability rights law and policy center, and presently serves as senior policy advisor with DREDF directing the organization's special projects.
During her career she has served as a policy consultant, trainer and lecturer on disability and related civil rights topics. Ms. Breslin taught graduate courses at the University of San Francisco, McLaren School of Business, and the University of California at Berkeley. For eight years she served as editor and researcher with the Disability Rights and Independent Living Project of the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. She has written and published on various disability rights topics, most recently on health care and disability.
In 2007 Ms. Breslin was honored for her work to improve healthcare access for people with disabilities by the Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco and the San Francisco Mayor s Office on Disability. She received the prestigious Henry B. Betts award in 2002 for improving the lives of people with disabilities and the Paul A. Hearne Award from the Physical and Mental Disability Rights Committee of the American Bar Association in 2000.
