![]() ![]() To the extent that ableism is understood as the appraisal of able-bodiedness-invisibilizing disability while reinforcing able-bodied supremacy-academic institutions have a long history of excluding body-minds marked as ‘other.’ Dolmge, moreover, suggests that disability is still a tense battleground in the world of education in part because of the original design and purpose of North American universities-a deeper history that illuminates the many contradictions of education as a site for progress and equity.ĭolmage additionally uses three spatial metaphors to discuss changes in the modern world of higher education. Dolmage doesn’t flinch away from discussing the university’s eugenic past of experimentation on communities of color and the mentally ill, many of whom were warehoused in those lower-order institutions like the prison and the asylum. Dolmage argues that disability has always been constructed as the inverse, or opposite, of higher education in large part because the college campus was always designed as a training ground for the most capable, hyper-able students. In his book, Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education (2017), disability studies scholar Jay T. Confronted with the stubborn resistance of an ableist academic culture, I realized the extent to which universities would go to marginalize issues of access and inclusion for those with disabilities. It was particularly when I tried to petition for much-needed accommodations as an academic employee that would learn I’d find manifold obstacles set in my way-obstacles institutionalized within and guarded by a variety of legal and bureaucratic bodies that could not see me as anything other than a liability, an implacable agitator, or just a threat to the academic status quo. Sadly, the reality of higher education in North America would indicate otherwise. After all, isn’t higher education where new knowledges and perspectives are developed? Academia would seem to be the kind of place where one could turn an appreciation of critical thinking, writing, and research into flexible forms of labor. ![]() Living with Multiple Sclerosis (a progressive, neurodegenerative condition in which the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord), I thought it would make sense for me to pursue an advanced degree that would allow me to find more work flexibility, should the time arise when I’d no longer be able to rely on the functional capacities of my youth. From the higher-than-average growth of student loan debt, to the ‘epidemic’ of depression and mental illness, to the precarity of adjuncts and the growing power of university administrators.Īgainst all these trends, and perhaps against my better judgment, I still chose grad school for a number of reasons, including my own misgivings about the non-profit industrial complex and its promise of meaningful (if less remunerated) work. ![]() Six years ago, when I first started applying to graduate school programs as someone with a chronic illness, I was aware of many of the somber stories then coming from an exodus of disillusioned academics. Academic Ableism: Fighting for Accommodations and Access in Higher Education ![]()
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