On 8/6/15, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all,Bob,
Here's an interesting piece from the chronical for Higher Education on how
colleges and universities have fought against the rights of persons with
disabilities. While higher education rightly fights for the rights of
African-Americans and other minorities, it seems to turn a deaf ear when it
comes to the rights of PWD.
I am ashamed to say that my own alma mater, Boston College, has perpetrated
new construction that has actually made life worse for PWD, students and
employees alike. BC uses the excuse that it is on very hilly terrain, but
that dog won't hunt in my book. Being a Catholic university, perhaps funds
to improve accessibility have been diverted to the defense of pedophile
priests?
Shame on you Boston College and shame on any of the rest of you thugs of
higher education who continue to disrespect the rights of PWD!
Bob Hachey
Subject: CHE Commentary on ADA in Higher Education
Chronicle on Higher Education
July 23, 2015
Where's the Outrage When Colleges Discriminate Against Students With
Disabilities?
- See more at:
http://chronicle.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/article/Where-s-the-Outrage-W
hen/231799/#sthash.R9FmSQQ6.dpuf
By Lennard J. Davis
.
o Today, many colleges pride themselves on being accommodating to all
students - but in fact, far from aiding the cause of Americans with
disabilities, colleges have been instrumental in blocking those rights.
July 26th marks the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities
Act.
As we celebrate the accomplishments of that law, let's not forget that
while
colleges have embraced efforts to promote diversity and the rights of
people
of color, women, and LGBTQ students and faculty, they have fought a less
noticed war against disability rights. In the past, a good deal of the
march
toward the Americans With Disabilities Act was driven by activism and
lawsuits brought by college students against their administrations - even
while administrators were lobbying to eviscerate such legislation.
There was a time when there were virtually no students with disabilities on
campuses. Blind and deaf people were sent to residential schools where they
learned trades. People with mobility impairments couldn't get out of the
house to commute to colleges, and dorms were inaccessible.
Learning-disabled
people often didn't make it to higher education.
But the polio epidemics of the 1950s and the returning disabled veterans
aided by the GI Bill began to increase the demand for accessibility on
campuses in the 1960s and 1970s. Legislation to give disabled public-school
students, who previously may not have had the skills to go to college,
individualized lesson plans created a flood of new students arriving on
campuses in the 1990s. It was then that the pressure from these students,
combined with the regulations of the ADA, created a situation that many
higher-education institutions found onerous.
Colleges feared that renovating their campuses, adding sign-language
interpreters, installing wheelchair-accessible facilities, and providing
accommodations in a wide variety of areas including learning disabilities
would be both difficult to achieve and costly. Private colleges and
universities were among the largest sectors affected by the first
legislation granting civil rights to people with disabilities, and, along
with the business community, they hired lobbyists and brought lawsuits to
prevent the ADA and other civil-rights legislation from taking effect.
In fact, paradoxically, one of the reasons the ADA came into existence was
to remedy the impact of a series of legal decisions involving students who
were pursuing their civil rights. In 1979, a Supreme Court ruling in
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/442/397> Southeastern
Community College v. Davis basically eviscerated early disability-rights
provisions. This was followed by the high court's ruling in
<http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1983/1983_82_792> Grove City College
v.
Bell in 1984, which established that the institution, if it was receiving
federal funding, would not be punished across the board if only one
department or office practiced discrimination.
Yet despite significant opposition by universities, the ADA was signed into
law on July 26, 1990. It would be comforting to say that colleges then
stopped placing obstacles on the road to disability rights, but in fact ADA
lawsuits brought by or against colleges continued. While many institutions
of higher education complied superficially, many more did not actively
develop plans for disabled students.
One of the major areas where higher education has resisted the law in
recent
years has been learning disabilities and mental illness. Jennifer Mathis,
who is the deputy legal director at the nonprofit Bazelon Center for Mental
Health Law, told me via email, "There has been a pretty widespread movement
among colleges and universities in the last eight years or so to exclude
many students with mental needs (particularly students who have had
suicidal
thoughts) from classes, student housing, and campus buildings." She added
that these students have often been forced to take long mandatory leaves
from college, even when their treating professionals say they are fine. The
Bazelon center has brought a number of such cases
<http://www.bazelon.org/Where-We-Stand/Community-Integration/Campus-Mental-H
ealth/Campus-Mental-Health-Legal-Action.aspx> to the Department of
Education, including ones involving Princeton, Georgetown, and Mount
Holyoke, while the Department of Justice has recently taken action against
the National Board of Medical Examiners over a similar issue involving Yale
University.
Colleges have fought against having alternate formats for testing and for
evaluation, including more time to take tests for some students. Many
students arrive on campus after being assured that their learning
disabilities will be taken into account. However, as Bradley Elmendorf
discovered at Duke University Divinity School, assurances are not
guarantees. Elmendorf says he was not provided with any accommodation for
his dyslexia although he had been promised audio versions of all his texts.
When he complained, he was told he would lose his fellowship if he didn't
withdraw his grievance. He filed suit, and the case is still in the courts.
<http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/north-carolina/ncmdce/1
:2014cv00697/66623/17/> Cases like this one abound.
As the Internet has developed, many universities have not made their own
websites accessible, failed to provide Internet access for deaf and
disabled
students, and been negligent in making their distance-learning programs
accessible. The Department of Education, as a result of lawsuits and
investigations, has had to caution California Community Colleges and San
Jose State University in this area.
More than 25 colleges,
<http://www.d.umn.edu/%7Elcarlson/atteam/lawsuits.html> including Harvard,
Princeton, Yale, MIT, Northwestern, Penn State, Ohio State University, and
the University of California at Berkeley, have been sued or have had a
complaint brought against them for not providing access or alternative
formats for disabled students or closed captioning for deaf students. If
such an abysmal record had been discovered for racial or gender
discrimination, the academic world would be in an uproar. But since this is
about disabled people, the abuses go unnoticed until lawsuits or complaints
are brought - and even then there is no public outcry.
This has been a long struggle, and even colleges that have traditionally
supported civil rights and antidiscrimination efforts have been implicated.
As recently as this past April, Howard University, a historically black
college, agreed to settle a suit
<http://www1.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/4-20-15b.cfm> based on
discrimination against a disabled person who applied for a job and was
rejected based on his disability. The university further agreed to
institute
disability awareness training for its employees.
On the occasion of the Americans With Disabilities Act's 25th anniversary,
we should honor the progress made by so many students and faculty with
disabilities, but we should also remember that colleges have a long way to
go toward providing accessible and barrier-free education to all.
Lennard J. Davis is a professor of English, disability studies, and medical
education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His most recent book,
published this month, is Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the
Americans With Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights
(Beacon Press, 2015).
- See more at:
http://chronicle.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/article/Where-s-the-Outrage-W
hen/231799/#sthash.R9FmSQQ6.dpuf
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