8 Harms students are experiencing

But if you’re struggling with depression, for example, and you combine the depression with you know, being from a working-class background and having to use a public transit system that is chronically underfunded… It’s basically like it’s all self-advocacy. Almost like this doesn’t want to give you anything… It’s a bit humiliating.” – PS (student)

Students feel humiliated and exhausted by academic accommodation processes. Multiply marginalized students who apply for academic accommodations are met with intrusive application processes that question the legitimacy of their lived experiences and self-expertise. These academic accommodation processes require students to raise medical evidence of disability and functional limitations, negotiate and coordinate their access needs with multiple individuals, and submit to surveillance. Instead of having their experiences of disability believed and their access needs acknowledged, students with disabilities and access needs are subjected to indignities and fatigue in pursuit of academic accommodations.

“We had to defend ourselves. We had to create our own systems to support one another. We already saw that if we didn’t do that people were going to get ejected from our school… But it’s not something that, like any of us, had time for it… it took a lot of sacrifices in terms of like my ability to do like to do like other things to rest.” –  MF (student)Student leaders advocating for themselves, and their peers, are fatigued because of the unpaid and under-resourced labor they take on. The burden to bridge the gap between students’ access needs and academic accommodations processes and outcomes falls on student advocacy and peer support groups. Members of these groups or doing this labour informally identified tensions between following through on commitments to their peers with unmet access needs while being overworked and uncompensated in this labor. Students made it clear that they often do not have the disposable time and energy to support others while struggling to support themselves. However, witnessing poor academic outcomes for their peers pushes them to continue student advocacy work at their own expense.

“…the hoops that you have to jump through to get remedy when this happens is a whole other unspeakable layer of…labor of devaluation, humiliation and all that goes with that” – Cynthia Bruce (faculty)The emphasis on self-advocacy for academic accommodations shifts the responsibility for access from the institution to individual students, many of whom do not have their basic security needs met. At the same time, students are exposed to ableist and sanist attitudes from instructors who do not believe them or who do not believe they belong in the university, adding additional “hoops” students must jump through to acquire a basic level of access.

The cost of applying for academic accommodations outweighs the benefits of the process for many students experiencing interlocking oppressions.

“I just decided it just wasn’t worth all the effort.” – MS (student)

“Why should I have to ask for that? It almost felt like I had to negotiate an accommodation when it shouldn’t be a negotiation. And the fact that it was just such a battle to even get that accommodation like it shouldn’t have been such a battle.” – N (student)