Compliance or Culture? The Americans With Disabilities Act, Disability Studies, and Diversity in Higher Education

• In Event: 14.033 - Disability Studies in Education: Promoting Justice in the Postsecondary World

Abstract

As Section 504 and the ADA regulate disability access, many colleges' compliance practices eclipse opportunities for disability-affirming cultural programming and awareness. Institutions of higher education have before been required to make structural and organizational modifications to include diverse groups (e.g. women's restrooms in a formerly all-make workplace) yet accommodations for persons with disabilities continue to be the most scrutinized and are often not seen as part of the landscape of diversity. This study investigates how 23 participants including college presidents, senior administrators, faculty, staff and students from six divergent college campuses understood disability as a form of diversity.

Author

• Lauren Shallish, The College of New Jersey