Haben Girma: The First Deafblind Harvard Law Graduate

Haben Girma is an American disability rights lawyer, author and speaker who in 2013 became the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School. She has very limited sight and hearing. People type to her on a wireless keyboard, and she reads their words on a braille display (her website, Harvard Law School). Her 2019 memoir is Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, and since 2016 she has taught organizations about accessibility (her website).

Below: who she is, what she has said about her sight and hearing, Harvard, how she communicates, braille, her memoir and her advocacy. Pages were checked on October 31, 2026. Where sources disagree, we say so.

Key points

• First deafblind Harvard Law graduate, 2013. She then worked as a civil rights lawyer (Harvard Law School).
• Deafblind, with some sight and hearing. She has some hearing in the high frequencies, and both senses dimmed over the years (her website, Harvard Gazette).
• A keyboard and a braille display. "I read as the person types," she writes (her website).
• From lawsuits to teaching. She left litigation in 2016 to teach organizations about accessibility (her website).

Haben Girma at a glance

Each row is sourced in the sections below.

Who is Haben Girma?

Haben Girma was born in 1988 in the San Francisco Bay Area (Publishers Weekly, NPR). Her father grew up in Ethiopia and her mother in Eritrea. "I identify as an American with Eritrean and Ethiopian heritage," she writes. Her site explains how to say her name: Ha as in ha-ha, ben as in Benjamin, Gir as in girl and ma as in karma (her website).

Her mother, Saba Gebreyesus, left Eritrea in the winter of 1983, during its war of independence with Ethiopia, and walked to Sudan. NPR says the trek took two weeks; Haben told the BBC her mother was 16 and walked for three weeks (NPR, BBC transcript on her site). Her older brother, Mussie Gebre, was also born deaf and blind and couldn't go to school in Eritrea. "He started to get an education finally at age 12," she told NPR.

In Oakland's public schools, she left her regular classes for an hour a day to learn braille, and she also learned sign language (NPR, Harvard Law School). "My parents tried very hard to make sure I had access to everything," she said. She tried rock climbing, kayaking, skiing and dance, and at 15 she went to Mali to help build a school. "If I can go build a school in West Africa," she said, she could go to law school (Harvard Law School).

The cafeteria story. At Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, she couldn't tell what each cafeteria station was serving. "What if there was chocolate cake at Station Four?" she asked. The manager agreed to email the menu, which she could read in braille, but it came only about half the time, and he told her to be more appreciative. She explained that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires reasonable accommodations and that she would sue. He apologized the next day, and the menus came as promised (Harvard Law School, NPR). She says reading about lawyers who used the ADA gave her the courage to push (her website).

Is Haben Girma blind and deaf?

Yes. She is deafblind: she has both vision loss and hearing loss, but not a total absence of either. Harvard Law School described "very limited sight and hearing" (Harvard Law School), and NPR says she was born deaf and blind (NPR).

• Hearing. "I have some hearing in the high frequencies, which helped me develop speech" (her website).
• Change over time. At 22, she writes, "every year my hearing and vision have dimmed" (Harvard Gazette).
• Sight. Walking into a crowded bar near Harvard, she writes: "Through the dim light I see a crowd of people" (Harvard Gazette).

She doesn't name a medical cause in these sources, and we don't either. "My disability is not something I've had to overcome," she writes. "I'm still Deafblind." The biggest barrier, she says, is ableism (her website). Many blind people keep some light or shape perception, as she does: see what do blind people see.

Harvard Law School

"I'm the first Deafblind student at Harvard Law School," she writes, noting that Harvard once refused Helen Keller, who graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904 (Harvard Gazette). More in Helen Keller facts.

• Reading. Her readings came in digital form, to listen to or read on a braille display (Harvard Law School). "The written word serves as my lifeline," she writes (Harvard Gazette).
• Classes. Voice transliterators at the back of the room narrated the discussion into her earphones, a system she called "absolutely critical" (Harvard Law School).
• Exams. "The law school provides me the exams in braille," she writes, with a laptop that had a screen reader and a braille display (Harvard Gazette). See screen readers for the blind.
• Getting around. Her guide dog, Maxine, led her to classes, restaurants and salsa dances (Harvard Law School), and she competed on the Harvard Ballroom Dance Team (NPR).

She passed all her classes, with several honors, and won a Skadden Fellowship (Harvard Gazette). On February 26, 2013, the White House named her a Champion of Change, and at a White House reception Stevie Wonder applauded her work (Harvard Law School, 2013). She chatted with him by typing and braille (Harvard Law School); his story is in Is Stevie Wonder blind? After graduating in 2013, she spent two years at Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley, working to make digital reading materials accessible to disabled college students. "A lawyer's job is always an educator," she said (Harvard Law School).

How Haben Girma communicates

"Written English is my strongest form of communication," she writes. The other person types on a wireless keyboard connected to a braille display. "I read as the person types." If the person understands spoken English, she answers aloud. Otherwise she may sign, type, speak another language or use an interpreter (her website).

How it started. She used to avoid noisy places, until she paired a Bluetooth keyboard with her braille display. "This system has let me communicate everywhere," she said, "from the loudest dance club to HLS receptions" (Harvard Law School).

The display, in her words. When someone types, "pins pop up to form braille letters." Her device is "basically a computer with a tactile screen instead of a visual screen" (Harvard Gazette). How these devices work is in refreshable braille display.

One device for eleven years. In 2021 she wrote that the braille computer she had used since 2010, her last year of college, had died. California's Department of Vocational Rehabilitation had bought it, for about $5,000, along with a backup. Almost no newer model could do what she needed: "work with an external keyboard." The one she had to switch to is bigger and heavier (her website, 2021).

Sign and touch. In 2018 she met Deaf actors after a Broadway play; she signed in the air and they typed back. That evening she made a point of asking each new person, "How do you want to communicate?" (her website, 2018). On a trip to China, which Harvard Law School reported in 2013, she showed how deafblind students can learn sign language by touching the signer's hands (Harvard Law School). Her guide dog will "nose-nudge my hand," salsa partners pass music and motion through their hands, and she follows movies by reading the screenplays (her website). Other methods, from touch signing to print on palm, are in how do deafblind people communicate.

Does Haben Girma read braille?

Yes. She learned it in Oakland's public schools (NPR), took her law exams in it, and reads every typed conversation in it.

She reads grade two, the contracted form, fastest. On some braille computers, text typed on an external keyboard comes out only in grade one, the uncontracted form. "That is a lot slower than grade two braille," she said. "I can read grade one, but it slows me down" (her website, 2021). Both grades are explained in Unified English Braille.

• World Braille Day. In 2019 she marked Louis Braille's 210th birthday, noting that "now we also have digital braille" for articles, websites and apps (her website, 2019). See World Braille Day.
• The bicentennial. Her site lists her as keynote speaker and godmother (marraine) of the Braille Bicentennial in Coupvray, France, in September 2025 (her website).
• Tactile maps. In October 2026 she showed a braille map at a pet relief area of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, the first US airport, she says, with tactile maps by every restroom (her website, 2026).

More on the ways blind people read is in how do blind people read.

Her memoir, Haben (2019)

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law came out on August 6, 2019, in hardcover, e-book and an audiobook she narrates (her website, 2019). The publisher is Twelve, and the hardcover runs 288 pages (Publishers Weekly).

It moves from summers in Asmara, where she faced a bull she couldn't see, to building a school in Mali, dancing salsa, climbing an iceberg in Alaska and meeting President Obama (her website, 2019). Publishers Weekly quotes her on a school built for sighted, hearing students: "In this environment, I'm disabled" (Publishers Weekly). Why write it? "Writing is also a form of advocacy," she said at Stanford in 2019 (Stanford Daily).

Her advocacy and work

The Scribd case. After law school she represented the National Federation of the Blind in a lawsuit to make the digital library Scribd accessible. Scribd argued that the ADA doesn't apply to websites and apps. The court disagreed, and "Scribd soon agreed to make its digital library accessible" (her website).

The White House, 2015. On July 20, 2015, at the ADA's 25th anniversary, she introduced President Obama and Vice President Biden (Harvard Law School, 2015). People with disabilities, she said, "succeed not by magic," but through opportunity and the ADA (NPR). When they met, Obama hugged her and then typed, "I couldn't type a hug." She answered, "I prefer real hugs to typed hugs!" (BBC transcript on her site).

Leaving litigation, 2016. In April 2016 she left Disability Rights Advocates for "education-based advocacy": training, workshops, consulting and speaking (her website, 2016). Her reason: "teaching people to build access reaches further than fixing one website at a time" (her website).

What she argues.

• Build access in from the start. "Accessibility is not the cherry on top of the sundae," she said in 2013 (Harvard Law School).
• Disability drives new ideas. "I define disability as an opportunity for innovation," she told graduates in 2019 (Cal State LA).
• Drop the word inspiration. "Challenge yourself to create a disability story without using the word inspiration," she tells journalists (her website).

Helen Keller. "People pressured me to adopt her as a role model and I resisted," she writes. (her website). On April 4, 2018, the American Foundation for the Blind gave her its Helen Keller Achievement Award (AFB). "I'm determined to devote my life to advocacy, just like Helen," she wrote (her website, 2018).

Guide dogs. After Maxine came Mylo, a German Shepherd she trained with at The Seeing Eye in 2018. "I'm the one who knows where we're going," she says (her website, 2018). More in guide dogs.

Honors. Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016 (Stanford Daily); TIME100 Talks in 2020; inaugural commissioner of the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Connection in 2023 (WHO); and Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters from France's Ministry of Culture in 2026 (her website). For careers other blind people have built, see jobs for blind people.

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

Nothing here means Haben Girma uses or endorses Braillito. If her story makes you want to learn braille yourself, the cells are where it starts, and the grade 2 braille she reads fastest is built on them. The translator on braillito.com shows how a word or short phrase looks in UEB, but it only applies the rules a program can apply, so it doesn't replace a transcriber. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

Is Haben Girma completely deaf and blind?

No. She is deafblind, with very limited sight and hearing (Harvard Law School). She has some hearing in the high frequencies (her website), and her memoir describes seeing a crowd through dim light (Harvard Gazette).

How does Haben Girma communicate?

Mostly in written English. People type on a wireless keyboard, she reads the words on a braille display, and she answers aloud. With others she signs, types or uses an interpreter (her website).

What is Haben Girma's book about?

Haben (2019) is her memoir: her Eritrean family, building a school in Mali, the college cafeteria fight, Harvard Law School and meeting President Obama (her website, 2019, Publishers Weekly).

What does Haben Girma do now?

She speaks, writes and consults on accessibility, and lives in California. The WHO calls her a "human rights lawyer advancing disability justice" (her website, WHO). More blind and deafblind people are in famous blind people.