Universities and Accessability pt. 1

The other day, I came across a document for counselors about advising high school students with disabilities about post-secondary options. The document, which was published by the Health Resource Center at George Washington University, can be found here. While it glosses over a number of issues and isn't particularly thorough, I am particularly interested in advice given for high school students with physical disabilities. This kind of information, or any consideration of accessibility, was just not part of my college counseling experience. Admittedly, had such information been available to me, I'm not sure whether I would have listened. I am stubborn when it comes to accommodations, and would probably viewed such advice as condescending and unnecessary. Six years later, having transferred from one college to another because of inaccessibility, I am no less stubborn, but perhaps a little more realistic.

I grew up in San Francisco, attended private schools, and spent much of my childhood and adolescence proving (much to my parents' chagrin) that I could do everything my friends did. It wasn't so much about "overcoming" the disability (a term I loathe--having been born with CP, I had nothing to overcome) as it was about proving my parents wrong and being the same as my friends. If they played basketball, so did I, etc. etc. Attempts at skiing, rollerblading, soccer, and ice-skating were also made, with little success (I can do an awesome snow plow though). The point being, whatever accommodations my parents tried to make were usually thwarted by a stubborn and determined Annie.

I remember when my orthopedic surgeon first proposed a surgery to correct my gait—he was just as hopeful as I was, and, apparently, just as clueless. The surgery entailed breaking the femur below the hip bone and then rotating my leg outward by seventy degrees so as to correct the “toed-in” appearance of my gait. Not only would I be walking straight, but according to Doctor Gamble, I could play soccer, run without tripping, ride a bike, even ice skate—activities that I had stubbornly tried but failed to master. It wasn’t until a year later, when, four weeks post-surgery, I was still dependent on Valium to stop the full body spasms, (the logical result of turning anything seventy degrees,) that I realized that neither of us had anticipated that it might not work. Yes, my legs appear straighter, but six years later, I still have muscle spasms, reduced balance, and bone pain. As good as my legs may look, to me having a surgery simply to straighten the appearance of my legs sounded eerily like cosmetic surgery. Indeed, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson makes this connection, referring to reconstructive surgery as “cosmetic surgery’s twin:”

Cosmetic surgery’s twin, reconstructive surgery, eliminates disability and enforces the ideals of what be thought of as the normalcy system. …The conception of what Susan Bordo terms ‘cultural plastic’ through surgical and medical interventions increasingly pressures people with disabilities or appearance impairments to become what Michel Foucault calls “docile bodies” (2002, 10).

Prior to this realization, I had known my body as something always on the way to something else—a physical state that was, at least in my opinion, impermanent. I remember waking up from my second surgery—my throat was raw from the breathing tube. My right leg felt like a lead weight, and even though I had gone through this surgery only six months before, I had forgotten the shock, pain, and disorientation that would bombard me upon waking. And there, at the end of the bed, was Doctor Gamble:

“It came out beautifully. Seventy degrees of rotation. It’s really too bad that we couldn’t get the same results on the left leg. Perhaps we could do something with the ankle”

Though it would take another two years, one unfortunate dive down the stairs (that required an ambulance ride to the emergency room and surgery to set my collarbone) and a broken hip before I was ready to make peace with my body, I view that statement as the breaking point. The body I had known for 18 years was gone, and suddenly I was left to negotiate a body that, despite my most stubborn attempts, required accommodation.

All of this is a rather long and circuitous route to talking about universities and accommodations, but the point being, I applied to and enrolled at university without ever really acknowledging whether or not they could accommodate my changing needs. Some of this had to do with growing up in California and having very limited experience with snow and ice, but most of it had to do with just not knowing what my body could and could not do. I wrongly assumed that the pain, the balance, and the falling would get better as I recovered from the surgeries.

Aside from a dance therapy class that I took when I was little, I had grown up with little contact with other disabled children—indeed, throughout grade school and high school, I was—to use Harriet McBride Johnson’s term—the “token cripple.” I didn't even know that schools had offices that dealt with accommodations, so I didn't know to ask. I didn't know who to talk to when stairs didn't have banisters, when I was placed in a dorm three blocks away from the laundry, when ice covered sidewalks made it impossible to get to class. At Wesleyan—where I spent my first two years of college—I was one of five, maybe ten, physically disabled students. All of us were relatively mobile, and for some reason, no one thought to ask where the “other” disabled students were. After I broke by hip in the fall of 2004 and became wheelchair-bound, I was told by the dean that it would be best if I was kept out of school until I was out of the wheelchair. Though I went back to Wesleyan with the help of my father, I began looking at other schools.

While I am forever thankful for the time I spent at Wesleyan--it was and is an amazing school--I wish I had been more aware of and more vocal about my needs. (At this time, the aforementioned dean has stepped down, and they are now considerably more accessible, so it is not my intention to single out Wesleyan at all). However, I do want to address the issue of accessibility at Universities, particularly when one is not used to asking for or needing accommodations. Since this post is rapidly becoming way too long (and I really want to enjoy the 80+ degree day we're having her in SF), I will be posting again later tonight about things to consider when looking at colleges and universities.

Johnson, H. M. (2003). Unspeakable conversations. New York Times Magazine, February 16, 2003, 50.

Thomson, R. G. (2002a). Integrating disability, transforming feminist theory. NWSA Journal, 14(3), 1-32.