For years, disabled students have been fighting to gain accommodations within higher education. Even after the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, universities have been failing these students by offering limited accessibility options or never fulfilling promised assistance (even if meager). Some requests for accommodations have been met with universities saying that they aren’t feasible. With the outbreak of COVID-19, resulting in school closures across the country, universities have had to make significant changes. These changes reveal just how poorly higher education institutions have worked to accommodate disabled students by showing that solutions described as not feasible or impossible, were and can be made.
As one of these students with disabilities, I have personally felt the frustration of limited accommodations provided by universities. Having the ability to go back and watch lectures online, even do labs online, would have been a fantastic resource for days where my disability made it difficult to leave my home. Being able to do work I would otherwise miss due to an absence, even just the ability to be counted for doing my work instead of taking an absence, would have made the three years I’ve been in college better. In the past, however, such accommodations were among those considered infeasible. COVID-19 has made it clear to me, and every other disabled person denied accommodations to work on things from home or ones that would have made their school experience better, that these things COULD have been done, with effort. We COULD have received help like this from the beginning, making it a requirement for professors to record their lectures for accessibility, enabling and encouraging telecommunications and video calls, and offering more online instruction options for a larger variety of, if not all, courses- but we were denied.
Such accessibility options are now the standard for schools in the US-even around the world. Suddenly, nonviable has become viable. Now I ask: what happens once the spread of COVID-19 dies down and schools reopen?”
The previous standard was not good enough. It has been proven that courses going online, remote assignments, and virtual communication can work. It is extremely important for schools everywhere, from the public to private, to continue to make the accommodations made for the COVID-19 pandemic available after they are able to reopen. Any less shows a blatant disregard for the struggles of disabled people everywhere.
