Absentminded Ableism: Improving Accessibility on Our Campus

What does physical ableism look like on a college campus? Think about a walk around the University of Richmond. Look around you: Are there hills? Stairs? Elevators? Signs in braille? How long does it take you to get from North Court to Robins Stadium? Think about your dorm or apartment. How many elevators or accessible entrances are there? These are questions that members of our community who are able-bodied do not have to think about. Ableism is the stereotypes and practice that discriminate against people with disabilities by assuming that the bodies and minds of nondisabled people are the “default.”

The University of Richmond is dissuading prospective students with physical disabilities from attending the school. This is a major problem because without students who have physical disabilities, it is easier to ignore the issue of ableism. If that is hard to understand, think about if the university did not have people fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, people educating our community about issues that marginalized communities face, or people advocating for inclusive spaces; would you still want to come to the University of Richmond? What if there were no sports teams, no Business School, no community? As human beings, we focus on issues that affect us as individuals.

How long does it take you to get from North Court to Robins Stadium? This campus has so many hills and very few wheelchair accessible ramps. How is someone who is unable to walk expected to get around the campus? The answer is one that I am uncomfortable with. The most accessible paths on campus have no stairs; however, these paths are often inconvenient and time-consuming. Adding additional time onto the walk makes it difficult to get to classes, many of which are on opposite sides of the campus. The first experience most prospective students and their families will have with our campus is a walking tour. The lack of accessibility is immediately understood as soon as a prospective student arrives on campus. To many, arriving on campus is a wonderful, memorable experience with beautiful sights. For some, it is a harsh reminder that not all spaces are created for those who are not physically able.

Most dorms and apartments are equally inaccessible. Some dorms have elevators, but most are in bad locations or do not reach the top floor of the dorm. Marsh Hall has a wheelchair lift at the entrance of the dorm, but there are no elevators; Lora Robins Court is the only First Year dorm that has an elevator. Some apartments have elevators, but Gateway Buildings 155 and Building 151 are marked without them by Residence Life and Housing. Gateway Buildings 157 and 153 have elevator accessibility, but students who need those modifications are then confined to only those two apartment buildings, creating an inequitable lack of choice that is afforded to able-bodied students. Go outside of your room and see if there is braille to signify what room number is yours or walk to a building on campus and see which classrooms and offices are shown in braille. If the answer is not “all of them have braille,” I suggest thinking about why that is. How is a person with a visual disability supposed to find their way around the campus? Do we have tactile (touch based) maps? Crosswalks in some cities make use of noise making pedestrian signals so anyone can have an auditory signal to cross the road. Tactile maps and noise making signals for crosswalks or even directions could be a step in the right direction to make our campus more accessible.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was put in place to make guidelines for communities to follow in order to maintain an accessible environment. There are many rules about paths and buildings as standards for accessible design in ADA Title III. Universities, both public and private, are expected to uphold many of the ADA’s regulations and topics. The slope of paths, handrails depending on the steepness of walking surfaces, and passing spaces are just a few examples of the extent of the ADA’s requirements. However, private universities are given some leeway when it comes to accessibility clauses and without a clear message from the university on their implementations and plans for accessibility, it is hard to compile information. This alone reflects a deep moral failure within our society. Allowing private institutions to choose how much accessibility they give to prospective and current students demonstrates that in large part, people with disabilities are an afterthought.

The Humanities Building underwent an estimated $25 million renovation, but the fifth floor, made up of a classroom, is entirely inaccessible to anyone with difficulties going up stairs as it is not connected to the elevator. This is one example of how building planning and funding is not being used to promote accessibility, even in recent years. Over the course of this pandemic, the university’s endowment has grown exponentially —how much of this money will be allocated towards accessibility? Inclusivity and equity are some of our core values. So why have we decided as a university to exclude entire groups of people from our campus?

What can we do to make this campus more disability friendly and combat physical ableism? To start, I ask that every person who reads this takes a few minutes to think about what you have just read. If you can relate to this, think about ways that you can bring attention to this issue. The step you take can be as much as mentioning to other people that there is an issue, that there are few ways to get across campus without using stairs or going down hills, or even that there is a lack of accessibility on campus. Our community has to grow in order to welcome any person–no matter their gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, if they have a disability, or their ideas. The university has made progress in these spaces by including larger entryways for those who are in wheelchairs as well as lifts alongside stairs. However, there is still a long way to go until all of the dorms and apartments are equally accessible.

The best way to make this campus more disability friendly is to bring accessibility into the conversation. That is the only way to help our campus to become more inclusive and allow people who visit our campus to easily navigate through it without worrying about how accessible it is. To the University of Richmond, I ask that you hear the concerns I am bringing up and understand that by ignoring the inaccessible on this campus, this university is limiting its chances to welcome prospective students who have physical disabilities. By limiting possible students, we lose the representation of valuable contributors to our community without giving them a chance to have their voice heard. We have to give every person a voice and an equal opportunity to represent themselves at this school. For a university that prides itself on inclusivity, the University of Richmond still has a long way to go before it is accessible for all people.

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Disclaimer: I do not have any physical disabilities. I do not understand what it means to be unable to walk around campus. What it means to be unable to see around campus. What it means to be unable to hear around campus. I am writing this essay in the hope that we can focus on the issue of inclusivity on campus because without people bringing awareness to it, there will be no change..