To the Editor:
On Alan Levinovitz’s “Are Colleges Getting Disability Accommodations All Wrong?” (The Chronicle Review, September 25): I grew up with inherited hearing loss progressing to deafness. It has affected me both as a student and as a faculty member, and, yes, I have used the accommodations systems (with documentation!) at various institutes of higher education in the US.
What I take exception to about the piece is that its core argument is based on a number of straw men or flimsy assertions.
1. Disability accommodation requests are increasing, and it’s implied that this is because “a significant minority” of students and parents are gaming the system. Yes, requests are increasing. But what are the exact numbers, and why are they increasing? A greater incidence of disability? Better diagnostic tools? Covid? Or, as the author is determined is the case, people paying for diagnoses? My own (very large) university only has about 7 percent of students registered for accommodations at last check, which suggests that disability may be being underreported.
2. The disabilities the author focuses on to make their case are learning disabilities and DSM diagnoses, not traditional physical disabilities. But the case based on learning disabilities and DSM diagnoses is used to tar all disabilities alike.
3. Disability is tied to socioeconomic class and diagnoses tend to be produced by upper- and middle-class students because they can afford them. This is actually a condemnation of the affordability of health care in the United States, not the college disability accommodations system.
4. “Students and instructors are rightfully concerned about fairness and compromised rigor.” Anyone with a disability will recognize this for the old ableist canard it is. I still hear it at work for my own accommodations. Today, the most commonly given grade on US college campuses is an A. We lost academic rigor long ago, and it wasn’t because of too many disability accommodations.
5. The University of Arizona and Ohio State University, two universities that have striven to be access models, are singled out for criticism and permissiveness about disability documentation. In the case of the University of Arizona, of which I have some knowledge, the author apparently didn’t bother to ask how they deal with what should be (according to him) an overflow of accommodations requests. The answer appears to be generous funding, staffing, and truly personalizing accommodations to student and course. And isn’t that what the author claims to want? Accommodations that work? (I do agree with the author’s argument that the menu of accommodations offered at most schools takes the approach of using a saw where a scalpel would be better.)
I’ve spent the last couple years on my campus advocating for a better employee accommodations system and a more inclusive culture around disability. Disability isn’t just asking for accommodations: It’s asking for acceptance too. Tarring with a broad brush the idea of accommodations will not help the situation.
Sarah Bolmarcich
Teaching Professor of Classics
The Arizona State University
