Photo courtesy of Grace Contreni Flynn ’25
The Connecticut College Student Handbook has a section titled “Student Bill of Rights.” In this section the various rights of students on campus are outlined. These include prominent examples, such as the “right to individual beliefs and expression,” “the right of governance and participation,” and “the right of inquiry and expression.” An important right that has become a topic of conversation amongst disabled students recently, is right five, “The right of academic pursuit.” This right reads, “Enrolled students have the right to an environment conducive to the pursuit of academic requirements and interests, and reasonable access to, and support of, faculty and staff.” In other words, all students should be able to access classrooms, offices, and resources necessary for their academic success.
As displayed on the College’s website, six of the thirteen academic buildings on campus are fully accessible. Blaustein Center, Shain Library, Fanning Hall, Olin Science Center, Hale Laboratory, and New London Hall. Four buildings, Bill Hall, Bolles House, Cummings Art Center, and Holmes Hall (more commonly known as the Lab School), are considered partially accessible as the ground floor can be accessed. These buildings house the Psychology, Neuroscience, Education, Human Development, and Arts departments, including offices of many professors, as well as other classes that may get placed in these locations. Three buildings are completely inaccessible, Winthrop Annex, Winthrop House, and Woodworth House. These buildings house offices of professors in the History, Government, Hispanic Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, East Asian Studies, and Economics departments. For students who use mobility aids, or are generally unable to climb stairs, this makes these departments and professors almost completely inaccessible.
Under Title III of the ADA most “public accommodations” had to be modified to meet 2010 ADA standards of accessibility. This includes things like elevators, curb cuts, wider doorways, and ramps to make buildings fully accessible. Although the College is considered a “public accommodation” under the law, there are loopholes in the legislation that allow the College to avoid meeting ADA compliance requirements. One such exception is that an institution can avoid accessibility if it would cause undue financial burden. Although it is commonly believed that the ADA has a grandfather clause, there is no such section in the ADA. There is an exception for buildings that are labeled historic, however Conn’s buildings do not fall into that category. This means that Conn has claimed that making buildings ADA compliant would be an undue financial burden on the College.
There are several buildings on campus which have been renovated recently, however, remain inaccessible. A building that has undergone renovations which impact its “primary function area” is required to meet current ADA standards, according to the ADA’s Archives, which is why buildings like Fanning are now accessible. A primary function area is defined as the space which addresses the primary purpose of the building such as dorm rooms in a dorm building. There are several older dorm buildings on campus, such as Katherine Blunt (KB) and Branford, that are in dire need of renovated bedrooms but have only seen adjustments made to select bathrooms. If the bedrooms were to be updated in any of these dorms the entire building would be legally required to be altered for ADA compliance. This means that the College is able to update some aspects of dorms and academic buildings while avoiding the ‘undue burden’ of making these spaces accessible.
It is clear that Conn is ashamed of it’s lack of accessibility as the “accessible tour” given to potential students with mobility aids simply excludes these buildings from the tour rather than actually representing the campus in its entirety, inaccessibility and all. We estimate that in order to make all academic buildings on campus fully accessible, it would cost the College upwards of 9.6 million dollars (measurement based on the cost of commercial elevators per floor). This rather large price tag is most likely one of the many reasons older buildings are not renovated at all, because if part of the “primary function area” is renovated, the building must also meet ADA standards that require an elevator.
A student who anonymously spoke at the SVE Testimonies on March 2, shared that they wanted to pursue a degree in Neuroscience and Psychology, but has a disability that inhibits them from climbing stairs in Bill Hall. When they approached the administration about this issue they were told that if they wanted to pursue this degree, they would need to transfer institutions, as neuroscience and psychology classes are inaccessible. By doing this, Conn violated its own Student Bill of Rights.
Beyond physical inaccessibility, “an environment conducive to pursuit of academic requirements” also includes academic accommodations that allow students to participate equitably in the classroom. Academic accommodations may include, but are not limited to, additional time on exams and written assignments, the ability to type rather than handwrite, recording devices for lectures, and an alternative location for exams. Accommodations like these help students with a variety of disabilities to fully participate and excel in the classroom. Although students who are granted formal accommodations through Student Accessibility Services (SAS) are protected under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, students still have to fight for their accommodations on a professor to professor basis, as some professors are not trained in providing accommodations or refuse to provide accommodations at all.
As a senior with multiple learning disabilities, Zoe Dubelier ‘23 (one of the authors of this article), has experienced a variety of faculty responses to requesting accommodations:
“My sophomore year, I had an incredible professor who went above and beyond when I met with them individually to discuss accommodations. I have a general processing disorder, which my professor asked me to explain further as they did not have background knowledge on the disability. Due to my processing disorder I receive additional time on exams, which were not a part of the class curriculum, but rather than not providing any accommodations the professor offered to exclude me from cold calling right after a question is asked, allowing me additional time to process and formulate an answer. On the flip side, the following semester I met with a professor who had to dig through their email’s trash folder to find my SAS accommodations request, a document they are legally required to abide by, that they had not even read. That same semester a professor told me that their quizzes were so straightforward that I would not need additional time, clearly demonstrating a lack of knowledge of learning disabilities.”
The denial of academic accommodations is a further violation of the Student Bill of Rights. Connecticut College is in the midst of a massive potential turning point. This past semester, students, faculty, and staff collectively demanded to be provided with the resources to live full and enriching lives on campus. Accessibility is a crucial element of collective wellbeing and must be included in the ongoing DIEI-oriented conversations. A school that claims to champion shared governance should live into that value. Disabled community members must have an empowered seat at the table and must be able to access campus activities just as their non-disabled do.
