Session Number: R12
Name of Session: “Back to the Future”
Presenters: Colleen Lewis and Christopher Rosa
Notetaker: Cate Weir
This session is dedicated to looking at how student movements shaped the way that disability services are provided at colleges.
Chris is the director of DSS at Queens College; Colleen is director of DSS at CUNY Manhattan. Both are on the faculty of Queens College in Sociology Dept, where they teach a course in the sociology of disability. Recommends reading Paul Longmore’s books to really learn a lot about this topic.
The group in attendance then introduced themselves.
A student from their class engaged in some civil disobedience as a result of his participation in their class. Colleen told the story, which is also included with their handouts—an article from the NY Daily News that told about Anthony’s action of sitting in front of a bus that could not board him because the wheelchair lift was broken. Anthony was participating in a legacy of action, reminiscent of the bus movements of ADAPT. Colleges and universities represent the cradle of the disability rights movements such as Ed Roberts and the Independent Living Movement at Cal State Berkeley.
Colleges are social institutions, and they reflect the social mores of the larger culture. Historians talk about the invisibility of persons with disabilities in the 19th century, and this absence is mirrored in the settings of that time. Only way people with disabilities are referenced are as social problems. As social Darwinism and eugenics became a popular social movement, eugenics grabbed hold as a progressive ideology and universities were the main places that this movement was being discusses. The president of Harvard Univ. was one of the leading proponents of eugenics movement.
At the same time, colleges have also been catalysts for social change, giving birth to many social movements such as women’s movement, civil rights movement, disability movement. Each movement learns from the previous ones, and Anthony sitting in front of the bus in NYC borrows from the civil rights lunch counter sit-ins of the 1960’s.
Speakers discussed four prominent stories of the disability rights movement. These stories shape our work in DSS.
1. University of Illinois had the first services for student with disabilities. In 1945 they started a satellite campus at the local VA hospital, allowing WW2 veterans to return to school. The program was scheduled to close in 1948, and students revolted. The satellite was closed, but the students then demanded that if it was closed, they ought to be able to go to the main campus. They visited the campus, suggested modifications, and then they attended the main campus. They established a social fraternity for students with disabilities. They held an annual awards banquet, and one year they invited the governor to attend and speak. The governor gave a rousing speech of the importance of rehabilitation, and of the program at Univ. of Illinois. Validity of this program on the campus was never again questioned.
2. Rolling quads at UC Berkeley. When Ed Roberts first attended in the 1960’s, and swd (Students with Disabilities) lived in a hospital setting at the campus. Over time, as more students moved in, they began to see themselves as empowered persons rather than patients, and began movements toward protecting the rights to swd on campus. Ed Roberts started a program on campus to provide mentors to swd, and other assistance. The philosophy was that people with disabilities are the best people to serve other people with disabilities, and that all people should be included in their communities. In 1971 the rolling quads received a grant, and started the first Independent living center in the US. Later on, this movement also set the stage for the TRIO programs that we have today.
3. Gallaudet’s Deaf President Now movement. Of four candidates for presidents, only one was hearing. When the only hearing candidate was announced as the president, students were outrages, and marched to Mayflower Hotel. They had four demands on a deaf presidents, more deaf board members, Board Pres. Spillman should resign, and no consequences for the students in the march. The board president denied all demands. The students continued to march, and demanded a meeting with their legislator. The legislator asked that the student’s demands be met, and a week later, I. King Jordan was named president of Gallaudet. The students other demands were also met. This movement got great coverage in the press, and the postal union actually supported the movement with money to support the movement.
4. Boston University Movement: the role of students during this time. July 1995, provost of BU makes a speech about “Samantha”, and this fictitious student disabilities needs. Gets a lot of attention, and people became to think that BU was providing too many supports for swd. Some services were changed and the students filed a class action suit against the university. In many respects the students won, as the decision did affirm the legitimacy of learning disabilities and the need to determine services on a case-by-case basis.
These bold movements have led to many local movements. Case in point is a movement at CUNY. At Queens College, swd began to mobilize, started the underground newspaper Disability Rag. Students realized that to change the culture of their college, they needed to become a school funded student organization, and started a movement that resulted in $1.50 per registered student set aside for disability center, which remains a very vibrant center to this day. Also had a great impact in the other 19 CUNY system colleges.
Stories of student activism from the campuses of folks in the audience were solicited… some stories were told of the early 1980’s, but some felt that this energy has waned to some extent, and that we need to reenergize the students toward self determination and activism.
So…where do we go from here? We find ourselves in an environment that is increasingly hostile to the ADA. Although troubling, this is also a catalyst for activism. Disabled Student Union created a national student walk out in 1999 as a result of the Garrett decision and the watering down of the ADA that this decision seemed to represent. This movement also shows the power of the electronic community, as ths walkout was organized via email and websites.
Another sign of the times is the reluctance of colleges to enter into Interagency Agreements with Vocational Rehab. Only two states in the Northeast – VT and ME – have established agreements as of this date. These agreements were mandated by the 1998 Reauthorization of the Rehab Act.
Participant says that we still do not do a good job of engaging students to become activists for their own rights, rather than assuming that others will do this for them. States that DSS offices have a responsibility to encourage students to become active in this social movement.
Comment: often as movements go on in years, people seem to get less engaged, as it seems as if things are accomplished, maybe should not ask for more…need to be organized in the approach in knowing what it is the movement is asking for, what it wants.
A glaring omission at this AHEAD conference is the obvious lack of students presenting and participating at the conference. Our professional organization needs to do a better job of encouraging students, and offering opportunities to be at this table.
Thanks to all for participating in this conversation. Go back to your campus and share this history, learn your student’s history. As a disability community, we may have been better able to effect the Garrett decision if we could have made a compelling argument of the history of discrimination that people with disabilities have faced. So our charge is to share the history and keep the movement going.