“Many of us who are disabled are not particularly likeable or popular in general or amid the abled. Ableism means that we–with our panic attacks, our trauma, our triggers, our nagging need for fat seating or wheelchair access, our crankiness at inaccessibility, again, our staying home–are seen as pains in the ass, not particularly cool or sexy or interesting. Ableism, again, insists on either the supercrip (able to keep up with abled-bodied club spaces, meetings, and jobs with little or no access needs) or the pathetic cripple. Ableism and poverty and racism mean that many of us are indeed in bad moods. Psychic difference and neurodivergence also mean that we may be blunt, depressed, or ‘hard to deal with’ by the tenants of an ableist world.”
A short excerpt from Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s essay, “Making Space Accessible is an Act of Love for our Communities,” these words speak to a common experience among philosophers who identify as disabled–which I am using as an inclusive term to additionally capture those who identify as crip, Deaf, chronically ill, sick, or Mad. The conception that we are a burden, a drain on resources, or somehow ungrateful for the intentions of abled-bodied philosophers to accommodate our needs is a familiar story, shared by so many friends and colleagues, and present in each of these real-life examples: a wheelchair-bound graduate student worried about the fact that the only accessible bathroom requires taking an elevator 10 floors below, Deaf and Hard of Hearing faculty members, ostracized by audism and the lack of captionists and interpreters at a conference in which they were invited to speak, and neurodivergent undergraduate students, trying to focus and participate in their summer program with few, short breaks and a long week of demanding intellectual discussions.
Each member of my community faces at least two sets of barriers. Firstly, there are the obvious physical or environmental barriers which might complicate or altogether impede participation in some event. Secondly, there is the social-emotional energy drain which stems from the constant worries about inaccessibility, needing to plan ahead, having to write so many extra emails to inquire about the dimensions of the hallways, the minutiae of transportation to and from locations, the acoustics of a room, the scents and perfumes worn by other participants, chronic flare ups of pain, or the unanticipated content which might trigger a trauma-based panic attack. These two sets of barriers, then, always exist in tandem to complicate our ability to teach, attend seminars, participate in conferences and workshops, or perform any number of the expected duties within the profession. This blogpost stands as one attempt to bridge this conversation from the perspective of someone who is directly and permanently affected by both sets of barriers.
Before I go any further, however, I would like to make clear what I am not saying. I am not saying that material conditions which make physical spaces inaccessible are less important than the social-emotional barriers. I am not saying that all disabled people experience inaccessibility and ableism in the same way. I am not saying that all members of the disabled community have the same resources and support available. I am not saying that disability justice is an easy commitment for anyone, disabled or otherwise.
What I am saying is that the current approach is inadequate. The point is simple: we need to redirect our focus from accommodations to accessibility in order to support philosophers who identify as disabled, crip, Deaf, chronically ill, sick, or Mad. Put simply, we need to stop talking about accommodations and start talking about access.
Let’s contextualize this claim. Often used interchangeably, the primary distinction between accommodations and accessibility originates from the different chains of priority underlying each concept. When spaces and events are oriented by the concept of accommodation, such spaces and events prioritize abled-bodied experiences, and disabled bodies are accommodated after the fact. With an accommodations-based approach, the able-bodied experiences, wants, and desires always maintain both practical and symbolic priority. This priority can be expressed in one of two ways. Firstly, the no-line approach which omits any disability concerns when advertising events via flyers, websites, posts, etc. Following this, we have the one-line approach which asks individuals to apply or reach out for any necessary accommodations. Usually justified on the grounds of respecting individual experiences and difference, the one-line approach requires that accommodations be specified on a case-by-case basis. But if we consider the one-line approach in light of the dual barrier set described above, then it is clear how this organizational approach amplifies the social-emotional barrier. However honourably motivated, this approach puts the burden on disabled individuals to constantly reach out to organizers, follow up to ensure their accommodations are understood, reconfirm that the accommodations are in place prior to the event, ensure that their privacy about their bodily conditions is protected, and so on. As you can imagine, this is rarely just one email.
Moreover, an accommodations-based approach also might inhibit individuals still grappling with their disabilities from securing their accommodations. It also might preclude individuals who must keep their disabilities quiet for a host of reasons, including but not limited to weaker letters of reference, difficulties securing jobs, and even just basic likability as Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha notes so eloquently in the opening quote. The increasingly popular one-line approach turns access to philosophical spaces into a privilege, compromising privacy and enforcing unequal power dynamics between disabled and abled-bodied philosophers. In other words, the accommodations-based approach, in either form, reinforces the social-emotional barrier even as it tries to minimize the physical or environmental barrier.
Consider this example to better understand the pitfalls of the one-line approach: A promising young undergraduate student studying philosophy is interested in pursuing graduate studies. Upon expressing such wishes to a faculty mentor, she is encouraged to apply to a diversity institute. Our young student happens to be a woman of color living with muscular dystrophy, so she is overjoyed to find “people with disabilities” included in the list of students who are urged to apply, nestled in with other historically marginalized groups on the APA Undergraduate Diversity Institutes in Philosophy page. She excitedly follows the link to seek further information.
And she finds nothing.
No accessibility page. No information about the physical demands of the program. No description of the space. No mention of large font printing, captions, or interpreters.
Our young student is subsequently forced to make a choice. Either spend some of her precious spoons applying, hoping she is accepted, hoping the organizers of the institute will be committed to supporting her needs, hoping the accommodations enacted on her behalf will actually function as intended, and hoping that the diversity institute doesn’t inadvertently cost more time, energy, and resources than she can afford to give. Hope, hope, and more hope is the name of the game.
So she doesn’t apply to the diversity institute.
Maybe she is accepted to a graduate program, maybe she isn’t. Regardless of whether her applications to graduate school are successful, the facts remain the same—the no-line or one line commitment to accommodations is simply inadequate.
If we shift our focus from accommodations to accessibility, however, we find events and spaces which prioritize disabled, crip, Deaf, chronically ill, sick, and Mad-identifying bodies. This doesn’t mean that abled-body individuals are forgotten, but merely that the organizing committee relies on the flexibility of able-bodiedness when structuring the event. We find websites, flyers, and posts that do not merely court applications from the disabled, but offer relevant details prior to any commitment to the event. There might be notices of large font printing, captioning available throughout the event, hardcopies of talks available in advance, room specs made clear, distances to accessible bathrooms detailed on the website, commitments to frequent breaks, accessibility restraints on PowerPoint formatting, and so on. Besides being pragmatically helpful, these details express a symbolic priority and minimize the onus put on disabled community members. Events are organized with accessibility in mind even before the application notice or call for presentations has been publicized. There is no claim to perfection here, and individuals might still need to reach out concerning more localized access needs, but the respect communicated for bodily differences rendered tangible through the dedication of resources, time, and preparation makes the process that much easier.
Of course, this might mean that some of the accessibility features which are prepared in advance will go unused. Maybe no one needs large font prints of the conference agenda, or maybe only one person needs an accessible bathroom. It might also require some extra time planning, more emails reminding participants to minimize scents, and sending out a schedule months in advance—labour which might fall on already marginalized members of our community. This is not to ignore the additional work and energies required, but it is to say that this burden is already being borne by those of us who need it most. I am therefore advocating for this labour to be distributed more evenly by encouraging able-bodied members of our community to develop a habit of accessibility and in doing so, resist ableism and a history of injustice.
It should also go without saying that a commitment to anti-blackness and increased racial diversity in the discipline entails a commitment to accessibility. As Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha highlights, being multiply situated across racial and low socio-economic lines further complicates an already complicated experience. Racism, classism, and ableism are tightly interwoven and to address one of these issues often involves addressing these counterparts. According to the CDC, 1 out of 4 African or African American and 3 out of 10 indigenous people live with a disability, as compared to white identifying individuals where the percentage lowers to 1 out of 5. It would be foolish not to assume that these statistics don’t also play out in the academy. Is the seeming timidity of female-identifying women of color in discussions the result of a lesser philosophical ability or the consequence of undiagnosed anxiety? Are black male-presenting students sporadically attending lectures because they don’t care or because they suffer from chronic pain that makes sitting difficult?
The manner in which racism, classism, and ableism perpetuate one another is yet another reason why we must move away from accommodation to accessibility. Disabled students of color generally face the most difficulties securing formal accommodations from a university’s disability office, since the necessary paperwork requires having money to see specialists, being believed or heard when you outline your symptoms, getting time off work to complete medical tests, and so on. Racial norms about behaviour and capacities are always at play, and those of us who must navigate inaccessible environments as people of color often have even fewer resources than our white, disabled counterparts. If we want the discipline to be more inclusive to black students, indigenous students, and other students of color, then we need to start recognizing how disability, race, and poverty work in tandem to keep students of color further marginalized in the discipline.
So what does an access-based approach look like for philosophers and the discipline? Well, it usually involves a lot of emails, advanced planning, and organization. It’s taking the epistemic authority of disabled people seriously and respectfully engaging with their guidance regarding the best accessibility practices. It requires an extraordinary humility on the part of disabled and abled-bodied people alike as we labour to make spaces with disabled people for disabled people. It’s recognizing that disabled people don’t owe details about their body or their needs to justify access. It involves resisting assumptions about bodies that don’t look disabled and resisting inspiration-porn for bodies that do. It’s about having conversations in the philosophy that foregrounds and respects disabled experiences instead of using them as counterexamples and thought-experiments.
It’s the continued efforts by Teresa Blankmeyer-Burke, Adam Cureton, Eva Feder Kittay among others, to create the APA Committee on the Status of Disabled People in the Profession, the inclusion of a session dedicated to “Disabled Philosophers: Equity and Accessibility in the Philosophy Classroom” during the APA Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy (CTP) and the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) Teaching Hub sessions at the 2022 Eastern Division meeting, and other initiatives. It’s recognizing that Audre Lord and Gloria Anzaldúa are both philosophers of colors as well as disabled and embracing their positionality as such. It’s an opportunity for philosophers to rethink classrooms, conferences, workshops, and summer schools that embrace everyone, even those of us who can hardly leave our bed some days. It’s the understanding that making spaces accessible is a duty we all share equally.
But mostly, it’s writing those godforsaken emails.
Bianca Waked
Bianca Waked (she/hers) is an Oral Deaf/Hard of Hearing, MAD-identifying Ph.D. Student at Cornell University's Sage School of Philosophy and the founder and program director of PLUSS (Philosophy of Law Undergraduate Summer School). She studies the intersection of the philosophy of law, language, and critical social philosophies, in addition to dabbling in Arab feminist philosophies, the philosophy of art, and the history of analytic philosophy.
