10 Practices by individual institutions
“Students can request and explore disability-related accommodations even without medical or disability documentation” (The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of The University of Arizona, 2024).Notably, our web search findings reveal that some institutions are de-prioritizing medical documentation as a mandatory step in the academic accommodation application process (Johnson et al., forthcoming). These institutions prioritize lived experiences of disability and barriers over and, in some places, instead of medical documentation. We suggest that these institutions can be used as models or, at the very least, inspiration to make changes to existing accommodation policy and practice, and to pave more equitable pathways to academic access for students.
At three of these institutions – Portland State University (PSU), the University of Arizona, and Syracuse University – the academic accommodation process outlined on the institutional website de-emphasizes medical documentation at the point of registering with the disability office and setting accommodations. For instance, according to their websites, at Arizona and PSU, students are not required to have medical documentation to access the accessibility office. All three institutional websites communicate to students that their lived experience is central to the accommodation process, specifically in determining and setting accommodations. However, all three websites inform students that documentation may still be required in some cases; a practice which undermines the potential for meaningful change (Johnson et al., forthcoming).
“We recognize that not everyone has the privilege of documentation or a formal diagnosis. We use information about your lived experience when determining accommodations” (Cornell University, n.d.).
We identified 1 institution where the requirement for documentation seems to be altogether removed or eliminated. Cornell University (n.d.) articulates a promise to work with “every student”, regardless of whether they have medical documentation or not on its website. Thus, non-documentation pathways to academic accommodation do exist, and such institutions can be used as models.
Promising Practices
Did you know that, according to their website, students at Cornell University are not required to have medical documentation in order to seek academic accommodations? Like the University of Arizona, Portland State University, and Syracuse University, students’ own experience is prioritized in place of medical documentation. On their website, Cornell makes a promise to creatively work with students with or without medical documentation to determine accommodations. This promise is articulated as part of a commitment to putting Disability Justice principles into practice. Cornell can be used as a model to support ongoing work to reimagine more equitable processes that refuse to leave behind racialized, international, working class, and other students who, due to medical racism and overlapping structural barriers, cannot obtain medical documentation. Guidelines modeled off the Cornell system must reflect real changes in accommodation processes, namely the elimination of medical documentation as a mandatory step in the process.