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 [place] doesn’t want to give you anything… It’s a bit humiliating.” – (Student B)
Many students shared feeling humiliated and exhausted by academic accommodation processes. These academic accommodation processes require students to raise medical evidence of disability and functional limitations, coordinate their access needs with multiple individuals, attend meetings — which means taking time off work or organizing childcare and transit to get to meetings, clinical appointments, and so on. 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.
Many students also described finding ways to support one another throughout the administrative and other processes of getting accommodations (discussed more in the practices section; see also Johnson et al., forthcoming). Students doing this work – which involved helping peers get to and from appointments, filling out forms from SAS, or sharing tips about the process – 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 due to structural oppression (e.g., ableism) pushes them to continue this advocacy work at their own expense.
“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…. [I]t took a lot of sacrifices in terms of like my ability to do, like to do like other things, to rest.” – (Student C)
“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.” – Noelle* (Student)
Many access leaders stressed that there are simply too many hoops students have to jump through to get accommodations – at the same time, many of these students do not have their basic security needs met. Students are further 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. The demand that students navigate hurdles and barriers means that for many students, getting access is a struggle and a “battle”.
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.” – (Student D)