Recent reporting in The Tufts Daily indicates that Tufts places a huge burden on disabled students to self-advocate by, for example, requiring students to submit reports to Facilities Services when they encounter barriers on campus instead of the administration proactively conducting campus-wide accessibility audits. Students registered for accommodations, a population that is increasing on campuses across the United States, are also encountering increasing hostility from faculty and staff. One student commented in The Tufts Daily that students with physical disabilities are taken more seriously than students with invisible disabilities, "which can be seen in the Tufts resource centers as well as in professors’ responses."
Since 2020, disabled students at Tufts have been leading efforts on campus to improve accessibility and build a sense of disability community, but their efforts have been hampered by a lack of funding. Student groups worked with the StAAR Center to make the list of available disability services and accommodations more transparent, and in 2023 students successfully lobbied to get a Disability Community representative added to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate. However, "limited budget and space on campus have been their primary obstacles to petitioning for a disability center thus far," reports The Tufts Daily.
Overall, activism, advocacy, and community building at Tufts have been challenging, because of the lack of a consistent, accessible meeting space, notes a student in The Tufts Daily, and "especially because in general Tufts is so inaccessible." One student, who transferred out of Tufts because of the constant challenges navigating an inaccessible campus, told The Tufts Daily, "The underlying reason I decided to leave Tufts was because of the difficulty I had with the accommodation services and just the toll that [that difficulty] was taking on me, not only physically … but also the toll that [it] was taking on my mental health."
In 2018, Tufts’ Counseling and Mental Health Service (CMHS) started partnering with BetterHelp to offer remote therapy services for students. Prior to that, The Tufts Daily reported widespread dissatisfaction with "[CMHS'] focus on short-term care, inconvenient hours and long wait times for appointments." While teletherapy may help provide students with more options in a pinch, however, it's important to keep in mind the risks of using these services. This year, BetterHelp paid $7.8 million as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for selling personal user data to companies like Meta.
Tufts is currently ranked 37th among national universities by U.S. News, an improvement from 40th place last year.
Webb was put in a single in Lewis Hall at one point which was not the best location, though their first-floor room was accessible. However, the next summer, Webb was put in one of the only rooms in Sophia Gordon Hall that required stairs to access.
Webb asked the Office of Residential Life & Learning to change their dorm to one more accessible, but the response was disheartening.
Webb said that ORLL asked them, “‘Well, why would you need that? What are you, disabled or something?’”
While Webb was immediately apologized to after stating their disability and had many lovely interactions with other ORLL workers after explaining this situation, it is important to note the common thread of students being treated as though they are burdens by certain members of Tufts organizations.
“This is not just about people like me, this is about everybody. If you don’t get the support you need when you’re healing, your healing takes longer,” Webb said.
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Hanley explained that they felt their overall experience at Tufts was marked by continuous self-advocacy in order to acquire the accommodations they needed to succeed academically.
“Everyone’s accommodations and situation looks different, but to me there isn’t that: ‘Oh, we hear you when we’re going to try to make change, and this is what we’re doing,’” Hanley said. “Of course, in a university setting, change can take a long time, and I understand that, but this is what I need to be a successful student and to show up every day.”
Ultimately, Hanley decided to transfer schools, citing Tufts’ accommodations services as a primary factor. When Hanley spoke with the Daily, they were in the midst of officially transferring colleges while taking courses at their local community college.
“The underlying reason I decided to leave Tufts was because of the difficulty I had with the accommodation services and just the toll that [that difficulty] was taking on me, not only physically … but also the toll that [it] was taking on my mental health,” Hanley said. “A lot of these issues are unfortunately in other colleges as well … [but] I felt like I did deserve a better environment.”
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