In honor of the approaching end-of-the-year exams, I'm going to talk about exam accommodations at the higher education (community college/college/university) level.
This was eye-opening, Teri - especially since college is so far in my rear view, so I don’t think about this stuff much of the time. Do most colleges and universities have a disabilities office? Is it required?
Faculty pushback must feel slimy sometimes, no? Very ableist. Maybe not every time, but I have to imagine it’s not infrequent for their pushback to be ableist.
All colleges and universities are legally mandated to provide disability-related accommodations by federal law. Whether or not they have a dedicated office, and how big, etc., depends on how the institution chooses to administer these services, which are based on the civil rights protections for people with disabilities so they can attend college free from discrimination.
Put more, some schools have only one person who tries to do everything (a mind-bending prospect to me), and others maintain a larger office with specialty teams dedicated to different aspects of accessibility. One team for alternate formats (creating Braille materials, obtaining or creating digital text), disability advising, web accessibility, deaf services, housing accommodations, policy, and accommodations for public events.
Faculty pushback rooted in ableism comes from a hardy minority. But the level of tolerance for that ableism is shocking. We were having the same arguments 27 YEARS later as we had when I started at the school. If the things that are said were based on another type of bigotry—racism or sexism, for example—the ensuing scandal would be epic.
This is also reflected in the lack of comprehensive policies, procedures, and services for staff and faculty with disabilities in 2024. This is true for the vast majority of employers.
It is all of a piece. The idea—that making post-secondary education accessible will create a workforce of qualified people with disabilities—gets bogged down the higher up the educational food chain you go—Ditto human resources offices.
I used to have a more comforting belief in incremental change. It seems to take so little—and so few people—to stop that change and even roll it back.
Sometimes, it comes down to a lack of imagination. The “we’ve always done it this way” holds a strong sway at many levels.
This was eye-opening, Teri - especially since college is so far in my rear view, so I don’t think about this stuff much of the time. Do most colleges and universities have a disabilities office? Is it required?
Faculty pushback must feel slimy sometimes, no? Very ableist. Maybe not every time, but I have to imagine it’s not infrequent for their pushback to be ableist.
All colleges and universities are legally mandated to provide disability-related accommodations by federal law. Whether or not they have a dedicated office, and how big, etc., depends on how the institution chooses to administer these services, which are based on the civil rights protections for people with disabilities so they can attend college free from discrimination.
Put more, some schools have only one person who tries to do everything (a mind-bending prospect to me), and others maintain a larger office with specialty teams dedicated to different aspects of accessibility. One team for alternate formats (creating Braille materials, obtaining or creating digital text), disability advising, web accessibility, deaf services, housing accommodations, policy, and accommodations for public events.
Faculty pushback rooted in ableism comes from a hardy minority. But the level of tolerance for that ableism is shocking. We were having the same arguments 27 YEARS later as we had when I started at the school. If the things that are said were based on another type of bigotry—racism or sexism, for example—the ensuing scandal would be epic.
This is also reflected in the lack of comprehensive policies, procedures, and services for staff and faculty with disabilities in 2024. This is true for the vast majority of employers.
It is all of a piece. The idea—that making post-secondary education accessible will create a workforce of qualified people with disabilities—gets bogged down the higher up the educational food chain you go—Ditto human resources offices.
I used to have a more comforting belief in incremental change. It seems to take so little—and so few people—to stop that change and even roll it back.
Sometimes, it comes down to a lack of imagination. The “we’ve always done it this way” holds a strong sway at many levels.