I’ve been dancing around this blog for awhile. I’m really trying to write something a bit more formal on the subject, but I’m having trouble getting my thoughts in order. We are pressured as teachers to push college as hard as we can. In a way, I can see why. It seems like any job you take today requires a university degree. I’ve never been a big believer in doing that. I always tell my students to find what they want to do in life and follow the path to get there. It may or may not include college, and that’s okay. The truth is, college is not designed for everyone. Everyone seems to be expected to go there, but college is built on high expectations and intense competition. If you’re disabled, these high expectations can immediately exclude you, even if you have a high IQ. I had fantastic and supportive professors, and I hope they feel no insult if they read this. However, universities as a whole fall well short of full inclusion of the disabled population, no matter how fantastic the professors.
The advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act made our lives easier, but here’s the catch: most universities see the ADA as the EXTENT of their legal obligations. They provide access to all facilities by design. Most even step a bit further out and provide a well meaning but minimally effective department for students with disabilities that suggest accommodations to help students in their studies. Professors are not legally obligated to provide those accommodations. Universities seem to pride themselves on diversity and inclusion, but that doesn’t seem to always consider the disabled community.
The very concept of universities is built upon exclusion. Only the brightest get into the best universities. If you can’t keep up, you don’t graduate. The very “best” universities are insanely hard to get into, and that is lauded in academia. I hid my disabilities for years, afraid that I would look weak and incompetent in this extremely competitive environment. I’m not advocating for universities to give everyone degrees that cannot or will not do the work. It should challenge your mind and abilities, or the degree is worthless. Instead, I challenge universities to examine their claims to inclusion, and ensure that everyone who is intellectually capable of completing a degree is afforded all opportunities to obtain that degree. I also hope that by telling you of my challenges to earn my degrees, I can encourage others to examine their internalized ableism and fix the challenges that kept me from getting a graduate degree, and almost kept me from my bachelor’s degrees. I don’t believe that universities are purposely excluding the disabled community anymore. I do believe that they don’t understand the roadblocks they are throwing in front of us, and we must speak out to correct this.
I began college in 2005, studying biology and mathematics at a small private university in north Georgia. I was about five years into having RD, and still in denial about my mental health issues. My RD was largely invisible. I didn’t walk well, but my own internalized ableism caused me to be too embarrassed to use mobility devices. I hid my disabilities. This soon changed, as the VA would only give me Aleve to treat RD and they deployed the military rheumatologist I was seeing. I found myself without medical care, and I went downhill rapidly. Within a few months, I gave into the cane and was in the worst pain I’ve ever been in. I was given a disabled pass and allowed to park on campus, where students were expected to park about a quarter mile away. I was yelled at by someone at least once a week. My car was blocked in so I had to wait on others to leave, sometimes hours. The librarian refused to allow me elevator access, as that was saved for “wheelchairs only.” I had to use stairs to get around. My fantastic advisor and his wife went to bat for me every time an issue came up, or I would have never succeeded. (Including the librarian.) Despite my challenges, I earned my degree in five years.
My math degree was a bit more difficult to obtain. Math classes were on the 4th floor, so I was constantly battling broken elevators. Broken elevators are not considered an emergency, and usually take awhile to be fixed. I would have to climb up to the fourth floor to attend classes, exhausted by the time I got there. Even when the elevators were working, I would have to fight crowds to get in, and I’m slower than the general population. While everything was accessible around campus, many times I had to walk twice as far to ensure elevators and ramps, causing me to be more tired than had I used the stairs. There were many places on campus that had stairs going a shorter route outside, but no handrails for balance. The university provided a department that aided students with disabilities, but their numbers were limited and they had no legal standing. If one of my professors wanted to deny me accommodations, there was no legal recourse to force them. Had any of them been the only professor to teach a given subject, I would have been in a world of hurt.
In general, there seems to be some academic confusion on what it means to be physically disabled. People have a tendency to equate the physical and mental health disabilities with what I would term “intellectual” disability. Just because a disability occurs does not mean that one’s IQ is affected. It seems like common sense, but if you’re reading this and you’re a wheelchair user, you have probably had the dehumanizing experience of someone treating you like a child because they assume that the chair means you aren’t capable of making your own decisions. There’s also a significant difference between mental and intellectual disabilities. I have mental health issues. They do not affect my IQ in the slightest, and I am more than capable of completing higher education. My uncle was intellectually disabled. He had the mental functioning of a child because of a high fever and brain damage in childhood. He was not capable of college. The two are vastly different.
Another point of contention is that universities (and the rest of the world) look on ADA laws as the end of their obligations to the disabled community. Legally, they are correct, but I would argue that the ADA laws should be a guideline only, and be considered the absolute BEGINNING of creating a campus that is friendly towards everyone, not just the able-bodied population. In fact, I would submit that unless you are willing to incorporate the disabled community in every way possible, you cannot brag about being inclusive. You have ONLY done the bare minimum to pretend that you care and to keep legal issues off of your back.
I don’t have all the answers to fixing all the universities so that they are as inclusive as possible. However, I do have suggestions that would have made it easier for me to focus on academics and not the exclusion I felt every time I walked on campus. Most university students are 20 year old unmarried adults with young healthy bodies and boundless energy. They have no jobs or part time jobs and few outside obligations. Because this constitutes the majority of students, it is the focus of the programs and the money. In order for a college to bring in all the talent it can, however, it must invest in the rest of the population.
Physically, there are a number of renovations that universities can invest in. Make sure the accessible routes don’t take you through half of the campus before you get there. Build low-angle wheelchair ramps that are located conveniently for wheelchair users to get around campus quickly. Ensure there are railings for staircases. Every building needs doors that can be push button. Broken elevators should absolutely be treated as emergencies that are fixed in less than 24 hours. All of these seem like small things, even trivial. However, if you are in the position of having to deal with them every day, they add up. When you don’t have the energy levels of the average healthy young adult, they add up even more quickly and affect your performance.
One of the biggest fixes occurred during the advent of COVID-19….online college. Many of us in the disabled community were outraged when we had been begging for online classes all along, and the universities didn’t have the resources. They got them rather quickly when COVID hit! I can’t emphasize how huge this would be for our community. I missed school many times because I simply couldn’t walk that morning, especially during my Biology degree when I was untreated. I could have attended via computer, gotten the notes at that time, and worked while my body healed. In my first year of my Mathematics degree, a professor actually did this for me. I was bitten in the lip by a spider, and developed MRSA. During the week I was hospitalized and the week I was recovering from an allergic reaction to my medicines, I went to this class online. I kept up with her class quite well and made a B in it. More online classes would have been a game changer for me, and more so for many.
Those are the easy fixes. Training of professors and other staff members in types of disabilities encountered is fully as important as tackling accessibility issues. In many universities, there are currently no policies in place that ensure professors are forced to accommodate disabled students, and this leads to the loss of an enormous amount of talent. For example, I had someone (student, thank God!) tell me that extra time on the exams was an unfair advantage, as I had extra time to think. I don’t, guys. I had extra time to write with badly damaged hands. I had to think just as quick. I knew a Deaf woman that was refused an interpreter, because the professor didn’t allow visitors in his room. One of my cousins is blind, and he was left on his own to get around campus. We need to train staff members to deal accordingly with various types of disabilities and how they can help that student succeed. They need to understand that accommodating these disabilities is not helping a student “give into” their disability, but rather adapting to it to aid in their success. It is also not the end of the world when a deadline for homework is not met because the student had a bad flare the night before. I understand the need for deadlines. After all, I’m a teacher. I hate grading papers. However, it cost me absolutely nothing for a student to be a day or two late. In reality, both I and the student gain by having kindness and mercy. Pressure is taken off of the student, and their chance of success is far greater. I’ve gained the respect of the student, and that makes our working relationship much easier and meaningful.
When you fail to accommodate the disabled community, you are leaving out nearly a quarter of the population. A quarter of the talent. A quarter of the future leaders of your fields that could bring a world of knowledge and discoveries. What universities MUST come to realize is that the inclusion of the disabled community is NOT a lowering of the standards of academia. Rather, inclusion and diversity makes all of us stronger as a whole. Historically speaking, universities were designed for the gaining of knowledge for any that sought it. I would challenge universities to go back to that standard. Not a lowering of the standards, but creating standards that are inclusive of those with the talent and drive to succeed but the challenges that make that more difficult.
I want to give credit where it is due, though. I had some of the most amazing professors throughout my degree programs, and I could not have succeeded without them. I wish for all disabled students to have the same. I urge universities to meet with the disabled community and listen to their needs. An able-bodied individual simply cannot fully anticipate their needs and cannot speak for them. Take their suggestions to heart and ensure that you haven’t just included them just as much as you are required legally. When you commit to full inclusion, your university can only benefit from it.
Unapologetically Disabled 