As a student with academic accommodations, I found The Hullabaloo’s attempt to raise alarm about rising accommodation statistics presents a misleading and harmful narrative.
By depicting academic accommodations as an unfair advantage, we are ignoring the structural barriers that accompany disabilities as well as the arduous process to even obtain accommodations in the first place. Reading the article made me wonder what the Tulane community envisions when they think of disabilities. Whether a disability is visible or not should not determine how a student is treated.
The Goldman Center evaluates academic, dining and housing accommodations. Virtually all facets of university life fall under one of these categories, and as such, so do the barriers certain conditions present towards equitably accessing them. For example, your friend gaining access to the gluten free area in The Commons is likely less stigmatized than the guy sitting across from you in econ who gets to take the exam someplace ‘special.’…