The ADA Blind Spot in Higher Ed

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education piece explores the increasing number of students claiming to have disabilities and if the number is reflective of real disabilities. According to the article, the proportion of colleges where more than 10 percent of students are registered as disabled has quintupled in a decade. At schools like Brown and Harvard, more than 20 percent of undergraduates are now registered as disabled, and at Amherst it's 34 percent. The causes, conditions and validity of the increase should continue be explored, but I'll suggest that we expand the conversation to include the staff and faculty who consistently under-claim the accommodations they're legally entitled to.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the disability rate among U.S. workers at roughly 19 percent. Faculty and staff on any campus in the US are covered under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations unless doing so creates undue hardship. But according to EDUCAUSE research, faculty at major research universities report disabilities at rates of just 1.5 to 4 percent and some private universities put that number even lower. Campus employees are as likely to have disabilities as anyone else in the workforce, but where students face relatively little social stigma for disclosing a disability, faculty and staff face career risks, as disclosure can feel like painting a target on yourself. Pre-tenure faculty worry that asking for an accommodation signals they can't keep up with their colleagues. Adjuncts, who already lack job security, don't raise the issue at all. Professional staff, including advisors, coordinators, and program managers, know their positions are frequently at-will or on renewable contracts.

The more troubling issue we should be talking about is the documented recurring pattern of employees on our campuses with ADA accommodations whose positions are being eliminated due to "reorganization." The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has held explicitly that using disability-related accommodations as a factor in reduction-in-force decisions constitutes illegal retaliation. But proving it is hard, and most employees don't try. In higher education, where budget pressures are making reorganizations routine, staff and faculty who've formalized an accommodation become visible in a way they weren't before. When the next round of cuts comes, institutions point to a legitimate-sounding budget rationale. 

Using a reorganization as cover for disability discrimination is illegal, yet no one in higher ed is talking about it. As we ask whether too many of our students are registered as disabled, it's imperative to start asking ourselves why our staff and faculty are remaining silent about their disabilities.