The Pepperdine Graphic notes that Pepperdine University's campus is relatively new and modern. Unfortunately, construction started on the campus in 1971, just two years before Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which established rudimentary accessibility standards for the country. "While time has changed much about Pepperdine since 1973," notes the Pepperdine Graphic, "the architecture remains mostly the same, and with it, the problems of access." Some of the chronic accessibility issues raised by students and faculty include steep ramps, heavy doors, broken push buttons, and unreliable paratransit service.
Since 2020, Pepperdine has been hosting an annual Disability Awareness Week (DAW), a student-led initiative that is a collaboration with the Seaver College Student Government Association, Office of Student Accessibility, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of Community Engagement and Service. However, students point out that DAW was "created specifically in response to the lack of attention that disabled students were getting from campus administration."
Mackenzie Mazen, the founder of DAW, explains in a letter in the Pepperdine Graphic that in 2021, when students presented the administration with a litany of accessibility problems on campus that needed immediate resolution, the university rejected all of them, citing costs. Mazen describes interactions with the administration straight out of the gaslighting playbook. When students pointed out to administrators that a ramp connecting Tyler Campus Center to Mullin Town Square did not meet ADA requirements, the administration claimed that it wasn’t actually a ramp and therefore not a violation.
"As it currently stands," wrote Mazen, "I would never recommend attending or visiting Pepperdine to anyone with a disability."
One student observed that Pepperdine may be more accommodating to disabled students without mobility issues. "There’s a reason why we don’t see people with different physical disabilities, because they don’t come here," said the student. "Like if they thought about it, they can’t, it’s just not possible."
Pepperdine University is ranked 80th among national universities by U.S. News. It was ranked 76th last year.
08.18.2025: Pillar III was updated. Added new information about ableist language and changed answer from "No" to "Yes."
Lake said she requested a room change spring 2022, after her hip surgery, because she had safety concerns in her first-year residence hall. The dorm did not have an elevator or handrails in the shower, which made her worried about falling.
HRL said it could not move Lake, but it would waive her residency requirement so she could move off-campus.
“Coming back I felt very unsafe,” Lake said. “I was terrified to shower, like it was not a good place for me and then to have Housing be like, ‘We’re not going to help you, you can move off campus, it’s not our issue anymore,’ that was kind of a punch to the face, you know, when I’m already down.”
Lake said it took the help of alumna Mackenzie Mazen (’21) to receive a new living assignment, and she moved into the Villa hotels in Drescher campus before an accessible room opened in Seaside, where she finished the spring 2022 semester.
Source:Link