UC Berkeley is the most storied campus in U.S. disability history, being the birthplace of the independent living and disability rights movements. The Disabled Students' Program (formerly the Physically Disabled Students' Program), founded by Ed Roberts and other disabled Berkeley students in 1970, still operates on campus today under the Division of Equity & Inclusion and serves as the primary office for disabled students.
In 2022, Berkeley opened its long-awaited Disability Cultural Community Center, "a place where students can explore their intersectional identities together and mobilize." UC Berkeley established its Disability Studies program, which offers a minor, in 2003, making it one of the oldest in the nation.
UC Berkeley University Health Services and the Disabled Students Program have also been organizing the UC Berkeley Neurodiversity Initiative for a few years. Earlier this year, UC Berkeley held its inaugural Neurodiversity Symposium.
This year, in a huge win for disabled students, all lectures taught in Course Capture-equipped rooms are automatically recorded for students. This remote access allows students who are experiencing illness to miss class without being penalized, and -- demonstrative of the curb cut effect -- also helps nondisabled students who either want to review lecture content or "need to miss class for bereavement or family emergencies," reports The Daily Californian.
Not all is rosy at Berkeley, however. For years, Berkeley students have been complaining about the cumbersomeness and lack of timeliness in the process of obtaining accommodations. In 2023, CalMatters reported that disability specialists at Berkeley were each working with about 470 students although the ideal ratio is one disability specialist for 250 students. In The Daily Californian, a student wrote that "By the time I got a meeting with an advisor from DSP to discuss accommodations — through the advocacy of a College of Letters and Sciences academic advisor — it was February of my second semester. I had navigated my first two rounds of enrollment, my first semester of classes and my first round of finals at UC Berkeley, all sans accommodations."
In 2022, these widespread grievances among disabled students at Berkeley prompted the campus organization, Berkeley Disabled Students (BDS), to proclaim that "DSP has become adversarial to disabled students, rather than a safe source of support." Last year, in response to these complaints, the new executive director of DSP implemented reforms "to remedy staffing shortages and overwhelming caseloads."
However, lack of adequate staffing and services is only part of the problem, reports The Daily Californian. Professors often choose to disregard the accommodations recommended for students in their DSP letters. "The cherry-picking of when to take accommodations into account and when to disregard them reflects both a lack of instruction on how teachers should implement DSP requirements and the absence of a clear disciplinary response that students feel they can pursue when this occurs," notes The Daily Californian.
UC Berkeley is ranked 17th among national universities by U.S. News. It was ranked 15th last year. It is currently the 2nd highest ranked public university in the country, behind UCLA.
UC Berkeley has long angered tribal nations with its handling of thousands of ancestral remains amassed during the university’s centurylong campaign of excavating Indigenous burial grounds.
More than three decades ago, Congress ordered museums, universities and government agencies that receive federal funding to publicly report any human remains in their collections that they believed to be Native American and then return them to tribal nations.
UC Berkeley has been slow to do so. The university estimates that it still holds the remains of 9,000 Indigenous people in the campus’ Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology — more than any other U.S. institution bound by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal data.
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Having an invisible disability means that oftentimes people won’t believe you or believe the severity of your pain, doubling the time it takes to get diagnosed. After a few weeks, and a lot of help from my family, I found a doctor and received the diagnosis I needed to fill out the intake form. After submitting it, I was told I would have to wait a month for my official appointment. This meant another month where I would have no help from the school.
During that month, I got in contact with all of my professors and reluctantly detailed my disabling condition because I had to coordinate workarounds and extensions. Even though they were all helpful and courteous, in many cases I was still penalized for late assignments and absences. I had nothing to prevent this since I had no DSP accommodations and therefore my professors could lower my grade for absence. I was often too tired to continually contest my grades.
If I had a professor that was not-so-accommodating, what then? Truthfully, my grades didn’t suffer too badly. I was still able to get work done and do readings and assignments, but I had no energy or physical ability to get to my classes in person. I had been told that I should consider taking time off of school, but the reality is, I will never be able to attend school in a "normal" way again. What would be the point of putting it off?
I love learning, and I love class. I just need help figuring out how to be a student in a sustainable way that won't cause my health to deteriorate. I know this school has the ability to make programs accessible as the creative solutions seemed endless during the pandemic when all schools were forced to create ample virtual methods during the lockdown to keep their students enrolled. When I finally was seen and talked to, I was given some accommodation but nothing extraordinarily helpful or different from what I had worked out with my professors.
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“Hi, this is the 10th voicemail I have left for your office. I am looking to join the Disabled Students’ Program. All of my paperwork verifying the conditions that I need support for has been submitted for more than a month now, and I’d like to speak to someone about getting help. Call me back as soon as possible please. Thank you.”
During my first year at UC Berkeley, this became a routine. I scheduled time for myself between classes to campaign the Disabled Students’ Program, or DSP, for the accommodations it claims to make accessible to all disabled students.
By the time I got a meeting with an advisor from DSP to discuss accommodations — through the advocacy of a College of Letters and Sciences academic advisor — it was February of my second semester. I had navigated my first two rounds of enrollment, my first semester of classes and my first round of finals at UC Berkeley, all sans accommodations.
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