Dismantling the "Expensive" Diversity: Perceptions of Disability, Social Inequality, and Cost in Higher Education

• In Event: College Student Class, Mobility, and Access

Abstract

In higher education the category of disability has remained an individualized mandate accommodated on a case-by-case basis. This practice has contributed to the perception that disability is more costly. While antidiscrimination statutes covering classifications like race and sex involve costs to the employer and changes to policies and practices that operate like an accommodation, the ADA obliges employers to respond to individual requests, supported by medical documentation, initiated by the students and employees themselves, thereby requiring a different kind of interaction (Emens, 2013). Here, situated among the landscape of diversity work, the individualized nature of accommodation makes the category of disability appear more costly and, as this study demonstrates, prohibitive among efforts to diversify higher education.

Author

• Lauren Shallish, The College of New Jersey