By Laurel Maury, BMC ’93
July 26 marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I was saddened, but not surprised, to read that disabled students at Bryn Mawr believe the college still doesn’t give them the support they need. I was probably the first Bryn Mawr student to ask for accommodations under the ADA.
It didn’t go well.
The head of the Russian department wrote to my dean that she suspected I was lying to get an easier way through my classes. My dean, who was my only ally, showed me the letter in tears. When I requested testing for learning disabilities through the Bryn Mawr School of Social Work, they told me—incorrectly—that tests for people my age didn’t exist. I never received disability accommodations, nor any help from Bryn Mawr.
Worse, the school tried to make an example of me. My request for disability accommodations was shared widely among administrators and professors with neither my foreknowledge, nor consent. Even some of my peers learned of it; I still don’t know how. But they were unanimous in demanding that I should do my work under the same conditions as everyone else. I lost a lot of friends. Then Admissions told me they were looking into whether it was an Honor Code violation that I hadn’t mentioned disability on my college application. They wondered if I should be expelled.
I spent my senior year avoiding every administrator I saw. I ate alone in my room. I didn’t participate in senior traditions and barely spoke to anyone. I made myself a ghost.
In 2020, I still have no friends from Bryn Mawr College.
The college’s response so frightened me that I took years to get the help I needed. In my late 20s, I was diagnosed with ADHD. In my 40s, I discovered I had congenital hearing loss from birth.
Had Bryn Mawr screened me (or helped me get screened), respected my privacy, and provided accommodations in accordance with the ADA—or even treated me with common decency—I believe I would have attended graduate school earlier, not suffered for decades without hearing aids, and had a better life.
When I read how disabled students still struggle there, I wept.
I’ve compiled a list of what any college can do to help disabled students:
- Track the graduation rates and average GPAs of disabled students compared to those of their non-disabled peers. Publish the results every year.
- Twice a year, use a third party to survey all disabled students confidentially about their experience at the college, both in the classroom and out. Publish summaries of the findings, and use this information to inform school policy.
Every college should do this for all protected minority groups.
- Employ experts to advocate for disabled students, and thus teach students to advocate for themselves by example. Hire social workers, registered nurses, psychologists, lawyers, and specialists in adaptive technology, design, and architecture to run the disability program—specialists that are hired by large corporations for disability access. Most should hold state accreditations or licenses (the state bar, medical licenses) and have disability experience outside of academia.
Have these experts advocate for students and teach them their rights in the classroom and workplace. Involve them in all policy-making.
Many professors dislike giving accommodations. Having disabled students “advocate for themselves” and personally provide accommodation letters is impractical and unfair. Students may be as young as seventeen, while professors may be decades older, tenured, well-published, friendly with the administration, bringing in grants, and prominent in a field the student wishes to enter. The power differential is far too great.
- If a professor or staff member fails to implement disability accommodations or discriminates against a disabled person, treat them the same as if they discriminated against someone due to race, religion, age, sexual orientation, or gender expression.
Publish these policies and follow them.
- Lobby state and federal legislatures for laws requiring all institutions of higher learning to do the same. Involve disabled and non-disabled students in this fight.
In light of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, it is increasingly important to recognize how race and disability intersect to further disadvantage minority groups. People of color are more likely to be diagnosed with disabilities than people of European descent, probably due to income and healthcare disparities. Full rights for people of color require disability rights. Any institution that doesn’t support people with disabilities is functionally racist, no matter their public face.
Laurel Maury graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1993 and also holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her work has previously appeared in The New Yorker, the LA Times, and on NPR.
Pictured: entrance to old library, Bryn Mawr College, summertime. Image credit: The Philadelphia Inquirer
