Disabled Students Press Colleges for Accommodation

Numbers jumble in her head. When she reads, her mind slices words in half. Even penciling in a bubble on a multiple-choice test is a challenge for Pam Kazem.

The UC Irvine social ecology student believes dyslexia and other learning disabilities shouldn’t keep her from getting a college education, because under federal law, universities must accommodate disabled students so they can learn and compete on an even basis with their classmates.

But Kazem and some other students insist that colleges and universities must do more to help them overcome the barriers posed by their disabilities. Kazem, for one, has asked an advocacy group to file a complaint on her behalf with the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, seeking improved conditions at UCI.

She is one of a gradually increasing number of disabled students nationwide who are becoming advocates for disability rights and awareness on campuses. Through activism, formal complaints and occasional lawsuits, students are claiming rights under laws for disabled people, including the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Services for the disabled vary considerably from campus to campus, but many students are forming an informal network to demand the accommodations that they say they need at their own colleges.

“What I found here,” said Kazem, a 26-year-old New Jersey native, “is that people don’t go out of their way to do anything until they’re forced to.”

UCI officials say they are in full compliance with federal law, but educators and administrators acknowledge that shrinking budgets mean universities cannot offer exclusive services to a few students with highly specialized needs. Laws often are vague about how far universities must go to accommodate students, say officials in charge of services for the disabled.

“College campuses are not even required to have a disabled student services” center, said Ronald Blosser, director of disabled student services at UCI. Campuses must have interpreters if they have deaf students who need them, for example, but colleges are not required to install automatic doors or hire specialists in learning disabilities, he said.

Nevertheless, students nationwide who grew up reaping the benefits of the disability rights movement of the 1960s and ‘70s are demanding the educational help they began receiving as children, experts said.

At Cal State Fullerton, students have started the Disabled Student Assn. to support each other and identify areas of the campus they say are inaccessible. They are led by 21-year-old student Jennifer Lawrence, who has cerebral palsy.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement (on campus), but people are trying hard to improve it,” said Lawrence, who uses a wheelchair. Her group is pushing the administration to make the campus’ computer science and engineering buildings easier to get to and enter, she said.

Paul Miller, director of Cal State Fullerton’s disabled student services program, meets with the student association once a month. He said some buildings can be difficult to reach, but campus officials plan to move an often-used computer lab to a more accessible location within a year.

Miller said officials are trying to help disabled students find ways to maneuver around construction. Workers also will install 14 automatic doors in campus buildings during the summer, he said.

Larry Singer, a 1991 UCI graduate who is now a counselor at the Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled in Anaheim, became active in disability rights work when a car accident left him quadriplegic during the summer after his sophomore year. He became the student body’s disabilities awareness advocate until he graduated.

“I’d get to campus at 7 or 8 in the morning when there weren’t many people on campus, and I’d have to wait five to 10 minutes outside a door . . . for someone to open it for me,” Singer said. The university installed automatic doors in a building after Singer campaigned for the changes, he noted.

And after a student protested in 1992, the Office of Civil Rights instructed Coastline Community College to make ramps at its Mesa Verde Center in Costa Mesa more accessible. Work was completed in February, 1993.

When it receives a complaint, the Office of Civil Rights requests documents and sends investigators to a college. If a university refuses to correct problems, the office may withhold federal funds or refer the case to a civil court, said U.S. Department of Education spokesman Rodger Murphey.

Students also may sue colleges in civil court without filing complaints with government agencies.

In the five years since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, awareness of disability rights has grown along with activism by the disabled and their advocates, Murphey said. About half of the nearly 5,300 discrimination complaints filed with the Office of Civil Rights in 1994 were based on disability issues.

“People with disabilities are much more aware of their civil rights now,” Murphey said.

Orange Coast College student Dawn Blodgett agreed. “After the ADA, for the first time, society had to acknowledge us and make things accessible,” said Blodgett, a past winner of the national Miss Wheelchair America pageant. “Now you can talk about being disabled, and be more involved in disabled issues.”

The laws mandate that disabled students have access to all parts of college life enjoyed by other students. They guarantee students access to buildings and require universities to provide “reasonable accommodations” so students can compete academically.

Requirements for ramps, handrails and other structures are specific, but other parts of the laws--aids for students in class, for example--are purposely vague so they can be applied to individual students, legal experts said.

The hazy wording makes it difficult for students to understand what they can expect from the university, said Perry Zirkel, a law and education professor at Lehigh University who studies civil rights protections for the disabled.

Zirkel said laws protecting disabled people have reminded schools and universities of their responsibilities. But “the bad part of that awareness is that it creates a false sense of expectation,” Zirkel said. “Life’s tough and there’s often not enough money to go around.”

At UCI, the number of students with documented learning disabilities grew from about 30 in 1990 to about 90 in 1995, Blosser said. The number of U.S. students who are granted extra time to take the Scholastic Assessment Test because of documented learning disabilities has increased by nearly 17% in the past two years.

Kazem, who suffered a brain hemorrhage at age 17 that partially paralyzed her left side, counts herself among the learning disabled. She was threatened with dismissal from the School of Social Ecology because of bad grades until the university’s affirmative action counselors stopped the process pending a medical evaluation.

She contends that the lack of certain aids, such as someone to read test questions to her, has contributed to her poor performance. Her difficulties led her to ask the nonprofit Handicapped Compliance Office in San Bernardino to file a civil rights complaint on her behalf.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights has asked the agency to submit a full report on the conditions of the campus’ facilities and services before it considers the complaint, said Kenneth Conner, district director of the Handicapped Compliance Office.

Because of her frustrations, Kazem has become a crusader for disabled student rights and awareness on campus.

“Yeah, people say I’m a rabble-rouser . . . because I’m asking for accommodations based on my brain injury,” Kazem said. “But I’m a rebel with a cause.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Student Services

Under federal law, colleges and universities must provide services to assist students with disabilities. A look at the services offered by UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton and their estimated costs for the 1994-95 school year:

UC Irvine Cal State Fullerton Students Students Service Cost Served Cost Served On-campus transportation $12,900 250 $0 0 Interpreter 0 0 19,661 10 Reader 15,000 8 4,335 18 Test-taking assistance 8,000 80 0 161 Note taking 25,000 100 50 15 Diagnostic assessment 0 0 0 0 Off-campus transportation 0 0 0 0 Disability-related counseling N/A 270 0 0 Transcription 500 5 0 9 Specialized tutoring 15,000 85 4,156 18 Equipment repair 5,000 N/A 0 0

Sources: Individual universities