"Just How Much Diversity Will the Law Permit?": The Americans with Disabilities Act, Diversity and Disability in Higher Education

Abstract

<p><span>Civil rights laws including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 worked to protect classes and individuals for whom discrimination had been documented. In an effort to further remedy educational inequality, colleges and universities increasingly used identity categories to enable access and participation in postsecondary life. In addition to anti-discrimination statutes, attention to marginalized groups evolved to include larger networks of academic and co-curricular support such as formations of identity centers, cultural events, fields of study and scholarships yet disability is largely absent from this work as much of higher education maintains a singular focus on legal compliance. This study investigates how disability law is conceived and enacted on five divergent campuses and how participants understood both the function of disability law and other cultural, social and political aspects of disability-related identities.</span></p>

Determining Academic Success in Students with Disabilities in Higher Education

“…However, because students with disabilities are personally required to take a greater role in advocating for themselves, and perhaps because parents are not there to assist them like they were in high school, many of these students do not register with their campus disability office (Shallish, 2015). Specifically, 54.9% of the participants were currently registered with the office of disabilities with 48.4% of them registering previously.…”

“…Due to the pressure on institutions of higher education to increase rates of retention and on-time graduation, research on how to support student success is multiplying exponentially. This has had a positive effect on research focusing on students with disabilities, which is also being conducted at an accelerated rate (Shallish, 2015). This research study provided quantitative data to determine if student support system usage predicts student academic success.…”

“…It is a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) violation to ask a student if he or she has a disability. However, because students with disabilities are personally required to take a greater role in advocating for themselves, and perhaps because parents are not there to assist them like they were in high school, many of these students do not register with their campus disability office (Shallish, 2015).…”

Dis/abled Student Campusmaking: Sites of New Possibility

“…Shallish argued that the university's focus on compliance "eclipse[s] an understanding of disability history, social collectives, culture and emerging disciplines that transcend biomedical interpretation" [61] (para. 6).…”

“…Moreover, Shallish noted, "the general campus population" is unfamiliar with relevant federal regulations, and the framing of legal compliance is single-identity focused. As such, it "leaves little opportunity for intersectional understanding of experiences related to dis/ability and minimal realization that there exist benefits to the inclusion of disability on campus" [61] (para. 28).…”