She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco in the McLaren School of Business Executive Master of Management and Disability Services Program.
Her first jobs included being a psychiatric state worker and working for an employment opportunity program that served the low-income population in Chicago.
[9] There is often a lack of disability awareness among MCO's and providers regarding physical and programmatic accommodations; advocates and federal policy makers are finding new pathways to improve access and raise disability cultural awareness through means of provider education and new training requirements[10] Mary Lou Breslin also worked with feminist policies and creating a more inclusive space.
[11] Mary Lou Breslin served as a researcher, trainer, and policy consultant in addition to lecturing on disability and related civil rights topics.
Earlier in her career, Breslin taught graduate courses at the University of San Francisco and was an editor and researcher for Disability Rights and the Independent Living Project stemming in Berkeley, California.
[6] In 1978, Breslin began running trainings about Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a law which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in federally funded programs.
[3] In 1996–2004, 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.
[7] Mary Lou Breslin received the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Award from the University of California, San Francisco in 2015 which acknowledged DREDF's advocacy on behalf of people with developmental disabilities.