“Looking at the Whole Student”: Identities and the Higher Education Accommodation Process

College students with disabilities are entitled to equal access under both the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973). Typically, equal access comes in the form of reasonable accommodations, or modifications to a program, service, or activity that address an environmental barrier (ADA, 1990). To access accommodations, students must disclose their disabilities to disability resource centers (DRCs), formally request them, and work with disability resource professionals (DRPs) to determine if the requested accommodations are reasonable (Lyman et al., 2016). Although guidance is available for DRPs on determining reasonableness (e.g., AHEAD n.d.; Gaddy, 2012; Laird-Metke, 2016; Meeks & Jain, 2015), it narrowly focuses on assessing factors related only to students’ disabilities.

Although compliant, this approach may be troublesome as disability is merely one identity among students’ other intersectional identities (Annamma et al., 2013; Krebs, 2019; Yull, 2015). Further, in some cases, DRPs select accommodations from a predetermined list, shedding light on the complicated nature of reasonableness and bringing into question for whom this threshold was designed (Krebs, 2019; Kurth & Mellard, 2006). As a result, DRPs need to acknowledge the intersectional identities of students with disabilities and individualize accommodations by considering their unique identities and experiences. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to explore DRPs’ perspectives on the role of student identities in the accommodation process and how identities are incorporated into accommodation decisions.

METHOD

The research team recruited DRPs using convenience sampling methods (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Researchers distributed an anonymous survey to all members of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) and the College Autism Network (CAN) and to followers of two researchers’ Twitter accounts who were eligible to participate in this research (i.e., DRPs). The survey included 22 questions regarding participants’ demographics, accommodation decision-making process, and perceptions of experiences and identities in relation to accommodation decision-making. At the survey’s conclusion, respondents could leave their contact information to participate in a follow-up interview. There were no incentives for participants to engage in either phase of this research.

A total of 38 DRPs completed the survey, and 13 agreed to participate in follow-up interviews. Most participants were White women. More than half identified as having a disability (n = 7), and all participants disclosed English as their primary language (n = 13). Participants’ geographical locations varied: One worked in the Midwest region of the US, four in the Southeast, two in the Northeast, four in the West, and two in the Southwest region. Institution types were primarily private 4-year (n = 6) or public 4-year (n = 6) universities. Interviews took place over Zoom. The first author began each interview by explaining the study’s purpose and obtaining consent for audio recording. Researchers followed a semi-structured interview protocol that included questions about how students’ identities related to the accommodation process (e.g., “. . . a new DRP has just started working in your office. They have approached you seeking advice on whether they should try to be mindful of other factors of students’ identities and experiences outside of disability . . . what would you tell them?”). The entire protocol is available upon request.

The first author transcribed, cleaned (e.g., removed filler words, shortened asides), and de-identified interview data. The research team then independently open-coded one transcript to identify initial categories in the data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). After open coding, the research team compared codes and developed an initial codebook. Next, researchers used this codebook to code another transcript individually. This iterative process resulted in a third and finalized codebook used to recode all transcripts with qualitative analysis software (Dedoose) and engage in thematic analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).

To ensure trustworthiness throughout the research process, the research team: (a) maintained an audit trail, (b) conducted verbal member- checking with participants during (e.g., “What I hear you saying is . . .) and at the end of interviews, (c) engaged in peer debriefing (e.g., reviewing researcher notes together), (d) recorded memos, (e) triangulated data (i.e., multiple investigators, multiple sources of data...