{"id":238,"date":"2018-04-22T12:36:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T12:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/?p=238"},"modified":"2018-04-22T12:36:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T12:36:02","slug":"dis-ability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/dis-ability\/","title":{"rendered":"Dis\/ability"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 19, Philip Gaines posted a letter<\/a>\u00a0from a concerned student to the column \u2018Social Qs\u2019 at the NYTimes:<\/p>\n

I am a student at a small liberal arts college. My friend takes a required psychology class with me. But she has acute autism, so when we take exams, she goes into another room, by herself, to take them. She recently told me that when she takes these tests, she uses her notes to do better. This hardly seems fair to everyone who actually studied. I also don\u2019t understand how this situation is supposed to help her issues. Should I tell the professor?<\/p>\n

ANONYMOUS<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gaines replied that it didn\u2019t seem that the friend was cheating, and that the writer should talk to her friend as<\/em> a friend about what was going on.<\/p>\n

But that missed the point(s) entirely.<\/p>\n

First \u2013 nothing is going on. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that colleges and universities that receive federal money cannot discriminate against students with disabilities. Title II of the act says that<\/a>:<\/p>\n

No qualified individual with a disability shall, on the basis of disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any public entity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The law requires that colleges and universities (as well as many other entities) \u201cmake reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures,\u201d to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not discriminated against. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve come to know on college campuses as accommodations \u2013 changes to \u201cpolicies, practices, or procedures\u201d both in and out of the classroom to ensure that individuals with disabilities have access to the same quality education as people who aren\u2019t disabled.<\/p>\n

For someone to qualify for accommodations, their disability has to be documented. This means turning in testing or medical information to the office of disability services (called by different names on different campuses) where someone (hopefully an expert) decides which accommodations a student should receive. That decision is communicated out to faculty and staff and it is the law that they follow that directive. This means Anonymous\u2019 friend didn\u2019t just up and decide to go to a quiet room and take their notes with them \u2013 those are the terms of the accommodations that the friend has been judged legally entitled to under the ADA.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a matter of manners or friendship, it\u2019s a matter of law.<\/p>\n

But behind Anonymous\u2019 words lurks an even more insidious idea \u2013 the idea that if someone cannot do what many other people do (take an exam, without notes, in an environment that may be noisy or distracting, for example) they\u2019re gaming the system; getting away with something that they shouldn\u2019t get away with. The implicit assumption in Anonymous\u2019 letter is that there\u2019s a right way to do college, and it\u2019s the way they<\/em> do college.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s simply not the case.<\/p>\n

The way that many (even most) people do college is predicated upon physical and mental ability \u2013 the liberty to move around easily, to have a reasonable supply of energy each day, to be free from lasting pain, to be able to easily organize one\u2019s thoughts, to moderate sensory input, to distinguish between real threats to the self and threats that seem real because of psychological conditioning, for example. But that is not the case for everyone, and to think that it is marginalizes people who need assistive devices, or experience serious medical side-effects, or who are autistic, or have PTSD (to name a handful of the many, many reasons someone might qualify for accommodations).<\/p>\n

Presuming that what\u2019s good for people without disabilities is also good for people with them is a weighted assumption that creates an unjust system. People with disabilities are no less smart, creative, thoughtful, gifted, analytical, or talented than anyone else \u2013 but insisting that they communicate, act, move, and think as if they are not disabled impedes them in their college life, and relegates them to a second-class position on campus.* Many people know this \u2013 many people would agree that having ramps to get into campus buildings is a fair accommodation for someone who is in a wheelchair, for example. But when it comes to other accommodations, people lose the clarity they might have about ramps, and become suspicious that someone has an unfair advantage. That\u2019s not the case, but it\u2019s sometimes a tough proposition to get individuals without disabilities to see it.<\/p>\n

To give a concrete example: some students have cognitive disabilities that mean when they look at a page of text, they are quickly overwhelmed a crowded jumble of words. A simple<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>
A reading tool<\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

device \u2013 a piece of plastic with a window \u2013 can help those students isolate one line of text at a time and process the page of reading in a way they couldn\u2019t before. It\u2019s not an advantage for students to have that device; it\u2019s an advantage for someone to not<\/em> see a crowded jumble when they look at the page. The assistive device levels the playing field, much like a quiet room and notes do for Anonymous\u2019 friend.<\/p>\n

Gaines should have told Anonymous that accommodations are the law, but he should also have pointed out that Anonymous\u2019 presumptions about what\u2019s just on campus were unjust. Anonymous likely has the privilege of not needing a quiet room or their notes to do well on an exam if they\u2019ve studied. Anonymous\u2019 friend needs something different, and that difference speaks to a more complex world than Anonymous seems to have considered.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Full disclosure: I am someone who has ADA accommodations at my place of work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 19, Philip Gaines posted a letter\u00a0from a concerned student to the column \u2018Social Qs\u2019 at the NYTimes: I am a student at a small liberal arts college. My friend takes a required psychology class with me. But she has acute autism, so when we take exams, she goes into another room, by herself, to take them. She recently told me that when she takes these tests, she uses her notes to do better. This hardly seems fair to…<\/p>\n

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