Opening Doors: Disability, Accessibility, and Accommodation

 [1]

When I started my PhD at Rutgers, I expected some surprise, misunderstanding, and unwanted help regarding my disability. Yet I was caught off-guard by a simple, but substantial obstacle I found myself facing every day: doors. No joke: doors. Entering my department required opening three heavy sets of doors, none of which were automatic. Because I experience muscle weakness, this task was formidable. I prepared every morning by strapping on my TENS unit, grabbing my cane, and arriving at the building 30 minutes before seminar. Sometimes, I would wait, hoping to slip inside behind a colleague. Most days, I had to inch open the first door, before taking a breather and repeating the minutes-long process on the next two doors.

I could (and sometimes did) “call in the cavalry” – city parking authority or campus police. But between the pile of paperwork the hour-long wait, and the interrogation it was rarely worth it. “Why can’t you open the door? What happened to you?” they would ask. “Barfight” I usually responded, cane in one hand and support cushion in the other. Demands from the cavalry to carry my backpack followed the questioning, despite my insistence otherwise. The demands only stopped when I expressed worry about their ability to handle it – carrying the backpack was, as they had repeatedly pointed out, a very challenging task. Either way, by the time I finally arrived in class, I felt like I’d gone several rounds in a sparring match – either against a door, a well-meaning city employee, or both. (As of July 2018, automatic door openers have been installed on the two main doors to the Gateway building. The door to the Rutgers philosophy department is, as of October 2018, not automatic.)

Nearly three decades after the passage of the American Disabilities Act, I found myself somewhat surprised that my building – which houses Rutgers’ career services and two academic departments, among others – would be so blatantly inaccessible. Pushing for automatic doors on our building connected me with other students and faculty who shared their experiences of Rutgers’ inaccessibility: university cars parked in front of ramps, buildings with hallways too narrow for mobility devices, inaccessible LGBTQ+ housing. The more I thought about these problems, the more I realized I had encountered few truly accessible buildings at Rutgers.  And Rutgers’ lack of access is not an anomaly. Inaccessibility is the status quo for many public and private universities across the United States.

(For a list of some of the recent lawsuits that have been brought against US universities for ADA non-compliance, see here. For a general overview of the problem of inaccessibility in higher education, see here, here, and here.)

What is Accessibility?

Reflect on your favorite pub, your apartment, or your regional philosophy conference. You might be surprised by their inaccessibility. They might have had stairs at its entrances, or exclusively high-top seating. Perhaps, there’s no elevator, or disability parking nearby. Perhaps the building was more subtly inaccessible – you couldn’t reach the light switches from a chair or there weren’t any grab bars in the bathroom.

My friends who don’t use mobility devices often don’t recognize these as poorly designed spaces; such design features aren’t integral to their daily routine. However, for a person who uses a wheelchair, scooter, cane, forearm crutches, or a walker, looking for such features is a regular part of everyday life.

Fundamentally, accessibility is not limited in scope to installing automatic doors and constructing wheelchair-width hallways. Fundamentally, accessibility requires designing products, devices, services, or environments so that all people with disabilities can access them. An individual accommodation is any modification that is required to enable a disabled person to engage with that environment, product, device or service. Though individual accommodations are important for attending to people’s unique needs, universal design aims to minimize the number of individual accommodations needed. Accessibility is essential to universal design – the goal of designing “products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design”. (For a full explanation of the original principles of universal design see: “The Principles of Universal Design” The Center for Universal Design, NC State University, 1997.)

Spaces that aim for universal design can reduce the amount of modification people with disabilities must request via accommodation. Still, figuring out how to make spaces, services, and products accessible to all is often challenging. If we experience something as maximally accessible for ourselves, it can be hard to see how that thing is inaccessible for someone else. Still, it is something that we should strive to provide for all people with disabilities, be they visible or invisible, or physical, cognitive, or mental. [2]

Expanding the Notion

Accessibility should not be merely mobility-focused. More and different design features are needed for people who have sensory impairments, mental illnesses, cognitive disabilities, chronic illnesses, and other less well-defined disabilities. [3]

For example: making an event accessible requires knowing your institution’s policies on service animals, knowing the procedure for hiring an interpreter and/or transliterator, methods for making handouts and lectures accessible, and providing CART services and/or hearing loops. Making your department environment accessible can mean adding missing braille on signs or improving mislabeled signs, and having dimmers installed on the light switches (Bright lights can be painful for those with sensory processing disorders and other disabled or neurodiverse people).

Every disabled individual has their own unique needs. Being aware of and responsive to those needs is the cornerstone of improving access. Making spaces and services accessible is challenging though, because needs can and do conflict. For example, the needs of someone with a severe dog allergy and someone with a service dog directly clash. In Things are Different Here, Rob Michalko points out that curb cuts which are designed to facilitate sidewalk use for people using mobility devices can be disorienting for some blind people. Figuring out how to cultivate an environment that is adequately accessible for both parties is hard. Nevertheless, acknowledging these very real difficulties shouldn’t prevent us from striving for universal access. Rather, it should remind us of the importance of listening to people’s needs and recognizing our differences. Fortunately, there are many excellent resources for learning about ways to improve access and work to balance conflicting needs. Often universities will have an office that can aid you in answering these questions, such as an Office of Disability Services.

The Why of Accessibility

Why even attempt to make environments, services, devices, and products accessible? Some reasons are obvious: because excluding people with disabilities from spaces is discriminatory (and often violates federal, state, and/or local laws), because we have the capacity to improve access, and, moreover, it is the right thing to do. Another pragmatic reason that philosophers should keep in mind is that unless we are conscientious about accessibility, there will be fewer disabled people in philosophy (For detailed statistics and a discussion of discrimination in philosophy see Shelley Tremain’s Introducing Feminist Philosophy of Disability). And as a discipline, we should want disabled philosophers. The experiences disabled people bring to philosophy challenge long-standing orthodoxies and hold us accountable to a wider range of lived experiences, making the discipline better.

In my personal experience, participating in philosophical spaces that aren’t accessible is a never-ending battle. Spending my life in a discipline that isn’t conscientious of the need for accessibility is hard to justify, no matter how deep my love of philosophy. The norms, stigmas, and barriers to access that exist aren’t just frustrating and discouraging for current disabled philosophers; they can alienate students from the discipline in the first place. By promoting accessibility, we can begin to mitigate the wrongful exclusion of disabled people from philosophy caused by a history of structural discrimination and barriers to access.

Implementing Accessibility

When our institutions and services are inaccessible, it is often because we approach accessibility as a willingness rather than a prerogative. In other words, we think making a space accessible requires being merely receptive to make single accommodations or retrofitting when asked rather than proactively planning for universal design. Mere willingness puts the burden of improving access on those who currently lack it. By having an ongoing, active commitment to accessibility, we can help eliminate many of the accommodations disabled people currently must request. For example, if all lecture halls on a campus were accessible, disabled students wouldn’t have to request their classes be moved to accessible buildings. (Much has been written on the issue of being proactive in conference calls, workshops, etc. For more on these issues see Zara Bain’s “PhDisabled”.)

Even when we proactively attempt to make a space accessible, though, we must be open to the need for ongoing improvements. We shouldn’t be discouraged if the current access doesn’t meet everyone’s needs right away. A good faith effort can help change people’s attitudes and lay the groundwork for future change.

Social Burdens

Accessibility isn’t the only difficulty disabled people face. Environments are also made unwelcoming by the social burdens we place on people. Disability is shrouded in stereotypes and misunderstanding that can make social engagement difficult. One common assumption is that all disabilities are visible – that people with disabilities will be marked by white canes, crutches, and splints – that they look different than non-disabled people. This assumption can cause us to conceptualize disability too narrowly, tempting us to neglect how disabling some people’s experiences with mental illness, chronic illness, and genetic disorders can be.

Additionally, we sometimes forget that disability comes in degrees. A person with chronic fatigue may need to use disability parking without also needing a mobility device. Disability also isn’t static – someone can have lifelong major depressive disorder while seeming outgoing and social for a semester. And walking autonomously on most days doesn’t negate someone sometimes needing to use a mobility device on others. Some disabilities are episodic and how people’s disabilities manifest can change – someone’s invisible disability could become visible or vice versa.

Further, people have expectations about how disabled people should engage socially. Some expect disabled people to be willing to disclose their disability, and to discuss it as a difficulty to overcome. [4] These expectations overlook that there are a variety of valid ways to conceptualize your disability; to decide whether you want to disclose your disability; and to decide how to talk about your disability should you disclose it. How we talk and think about ourselves and our disabilities is personal. Somebody’s approach to their disability is not something they are required to share, and one’s approach can and does change.

Stigmas

Still, perhaps the one of the most oppressive social burdens that disabled people face is the stigma we, as a culture, associate with disability. Disabled people are categorically viewed as broken, inadequate, and incapable. [5] Society still conceptualizes some disabilities as personal failings, and stigmatizes frank, public discussion of mental illness, suicide, and pain. Disabled folks are unilaterally treated as lacking autonomy, unable to take care of themselves and always in need of help. Not only are these stigmas pervasive in society, they have been defended throughout the history of philosophy – for instance, in claims about moral worth. We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking we know best about the needs of disabled people, criticizing how people handle their own disabilities. For someone with a mental illness an unsolicited suggestion to “exercise more” is often not novel or helpful. It can be exhausting to plagued by constant offers of assistance and subsequent demands as to why one doesn’t want or need help.

Beyond stigmas about disability, there are broader cultural norms in philosophy that harm disabled people. The focus on productivity and quick-thinking as prized traits in an academic philosopher can be immensely difficult for some disabled people. For some, being disabled means that there are stretches of time when work is impossible, that on-the-spot replies are more difficult than delayed questions and suggestions, or that verbal responses are more challenging than written ones. Condemning anything less than maximal productivity and polished public speaking means setting a standard that immediately disadvantages some philosophers who, if provided an inclusive environment, would make valuable contributions to the profession. Buying into these norms, even implicitly, marginalizes people within our community. [6]

Be accessible!

So, the next time you enter your department, organize a conference, write a paper, or give a presentation, consider whether the space you are cultivating is accessible for disabled people. Consider whether your department is endorsing negative stigmas about disability. Help to make philosophy an environment in which all people can thrive!

When we commit to providing a disability-friendly environment, we will start to more easily identify how pervasive certain stigmas are and how difficult it can be to make spaces and services sufficiently accessible. Ultimately, however, we will be removing one small piece of an undue burden from the shoulders of disabled people; a responsibility that, as a discipline, we are long overdue in fulfilling.

For presentation accessibility resources see: here, here, here, here, and here.

For accessibility resources developed by disabled philosophers and academics see: here, here, and here, as well as “Seeing Philosophy: Deaf Students and Deaf Philosophers” by Teresa Blankmeyer Burke; Mad at School, Chapter 3 by Margaret Price.

For accessibility resources developed by disability activist groups see: here; though geared at political campaigns, this piece by NCIL has good general access advice here, here, here and here.

For universal design resources see: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

For website accessibility resources see: here, here, here, here, here, and here.

[1] Special thanks to Elisabeth Camp, Elizabeth Barnes, Amy Bayliss, Nick Foil, C. Dalrymple-Fraser, Meagan Phillips, Dee Payton, Carolina Flores, Adam Gibbons, Austin Baker, Jimmy Goodrich, and Frank Wu who have helped me transform this piece from its first draft to its final incarnation by providing me with insightful feedback and important challenges. This could not have emerged without the support and critical examination provided by many friends and colleagues, though the mistakes are all my own. My heartfelt gratitude to the student activists in Rutgers Disabled Students for Justice who have shaped my understanding of disability rights activism and are continually teaching me to be a better and more thoughtful and advocate for disability rights and my own lived experience.

[2] There is debate as to whether ‘person-first’ language, ‘people with disabilities’, is better than “identity-first” language, ‘disabled person’ (and some prefer different terminology entirely). Many disabled activists and academics reject person-first language. For an introduction to the debate see: here and here. See also, Jim Sinclair’s poignant criticism of person-first language. For the purposes of this piece, I use the terms interchangeably, but I recognize the importance of this issue.

[3] I will not address how to conceptualize disability here; however, there is a plethora of work on issues in conceptualizing disability. A (sorely) incomplete list of this excellent work includes: Elizabeth Barnes The Minority Body, Shelley Tremain’s Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability, Anita Silver’s “Feminism and Disability”. For more first-personal narrative introductions please read this article.

(For a collection of interviews with disabled philosophers on their work and experience in philosophy see: Discrimination and Disadvantage’s “Dialogues on Disability” – testimonials by disabled philosophers can also be found at Disabled Philosophers.)

[4] Disclosure can be forced for people who have to ask for accommodations due to an inaccessible environment. Making environments accessible and striving for universal design can be a way to eliminate the need for disclosure. For a discussion of the burden of disclosure see a variety of essays in Negotiating Disability: Disclosure in Higher Education edited by Kerschbaum, Eisenman, and Jones.

[5]  In chapter 2 of The Minority Body, Elizabeth Barnes makes a distinction between “mere-difference” and “bad-difference” noting that it is not obvious that views that characterize disability as an essentially bad kind of difference are far from obvious.

[6] For work on disability and time/productivity, see Margaret Price’s Mad at School, particularly chapters 2 & 3, and Alison Kafer’s Feminist, Queer, Crip. Further, for many of the stigmas academic associates with disability see Academic Ableism by Jay Timothy Dolmage.

Image used with permission of Robot Hugs, “Accessibility Intervention.”

Callan Howland

Callan Howland is a PhD student in philosophy at Rutgers University. Callan attended Norther Illinois University for a Masters in Philosophy and Furman University for a BA in Music and Philosophy. Callan's current philosophical interests are in semantics and pragmatics, social philosophy, and working on improving accessibility in New Jersey (particularly at Rutgers).