Last week, the undergraduate senate approved a draft version of the Student Bill of Rights, the seminal document designed to protect students and ensure university accountability. The third section of the bill, Health and Safety, includes one provision to assist disabled students on campus: "Students with disabilities have the right to equal educational opportunities and accessible and adequate facilities."
A cursory glance at AU, however, underscores how important this promise truly is. As we've editorialized in the past, certain handicap ramps across campus are difficult to maneuver. Although there is a lift in the McDowell Formal Lounge, it often malfunctions, and once disabled students are inside the building they can't reach the upper floors. The McKinley Building is also partially inaccessible, and the School of International Service Building, one of the most populated schools at AU, has no amenity whatsoever to assist disabled students. In sum, there's much room for improvement in AU's accessibility.
Of course, we admit reform has its limits. Adding an elevator to Hurst, for example, no matter how much AU needs it, is immensely difficult, if not architecturally impossible. And while it may take quite some time, the new SIS building will be wheelchair-friendly in compliance with the 1990 American Disabilities Act.
But there are small changes the university can make today to assist students who are physically disabled. As The Eagle's special report elicits, there is no reason classroom numbers should not have Braille signage posted on the signs. Although Disability Support Services says it adds such signage when students request it, there's little reason for the university to wait until students complain to make such a small change.
Similarly, the lifts on campus should be in better working order, and students and staff should be trained in how to use them. For example, many of us have witnessed students who are disabled struggle to make it onto the AU shuttle either because bus drivers do not know how to use the lifts or are somewhat unsupportive. Nor is the problem confined to transportation: On-campus lifts seem just as shoddy, and students and staff seem equally uncertain of how to operate them.
This is not to say, however, that the university treats students who are disabled poorly; it's certainly the contrary. DSS, among other campus organizations, has done a fantastic job advocating on behalf of disabled students across campus, whether they have physical or invisible disabilities. But there is certainly room for improvement - space for change partly made possible by the forthcoming Student Bill of Rights - all of which the university should pursue as soon as it can.
