Ableism at Cal Poly

January 31, 2021 by Sydney Skow

Roughly 10 percent of Cal Poly students used services offered by the  Disability Resource Center (DRC) during the 2019-2020 school year and,  of that 10 percent of students, 90 percent had invisible disabilities, meaning ones which are not observable. Invisible disabilities can include psychological and learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and some chronic illnesses. 

Ableism is discrimination in favor of able-bodied people, and is a system of oppression, like racism or sexism, which benefits able-bodied people at the expense of those with disabilities. This system is built on the belief that individuals with disabilities need to be “fixed” or cannot function as full members of society. 

Ableism is primarily exhibited through ableist language or actions and systems which are inaccessible, such as technology without accommodations or architectural designs without alternate, accessible entrances. Ableist language includes words or phrases that devalue people who have disabilities. There’s no particular identification that fits for everyone in this community; some people prefer to use identity-first language (‘disabled person’) and others prefer to use person-first language (‘person with a disability’).

Ableism presents itself every day in many ways, including choosing inaccessible meeting venues, framing disability as either tragic or inspirational, touching a service animal without asking, offering unsolicited treatment advice and using the accessible bathroom stall even when able to use the non-accessible ones. Including people with disabilities in event planning, using venues with elevators, ramps and accessible bathrooms and adding captions to videos are some ways to improve accessibility. 

The DRC works to help students with disabilities at Cal Poly “have an equal opportunity to participate in all aspects of campus life,” according to their mission statement. Historically low funding and understaffing, however, has caused much of the accessibility and anti-ableism activism work to be done by students involved with the DRC, including Hannah Heath and Regina Hockert. 

These students have worked on multiple activism projects across campus in hopes of explaining ableism and the importance of accessibility to more of the Cal Poly community. Heath and Hockert even led a session on accessibility, ableism and the DRC’s resources during Orientation Leader Spring Training. The opportunity to lead this training made both activists feel like their work and knowledge truly impacted others.  

Heath founded the DRC Student Advisory Committee in fall 2020. 

“We work on improving accessibility both within the DRC and outside of the DRC,” Heath said. “Right now, we are working on an outreach project to raise general awareness about accessibility on campus and doing different accessibility training for multiple entities on campus.” 

Heath and Hockert serve as student liaisons on the committee between the community of students with disabilities and DRC faculty. They gauge which programs are effective and useful for students as well as communicate any questions and offer new ideas in hopes of creating a more inclusive and smooth experience for those with disabilities at Cal Poly.. 

The DRC sponsors social support programming and currently offers two groups: the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Student Group and the Chronic Pain, Illness and Invisible Disability Support Group. Hockert serves as the facilitator for the latter, which serves as a space for group members to share their accommodations and resources.

Hockert schedules out the group’s weekly virtual meetings and, bringing specific resources and discussion topics to the group each week and discussion topics. “The goal of that group, ultimately, is to build a community of people with similar experiences to have a support network … to have a group of people who understand what they’re going through, who can offer their advice that comes from a very educated place,” 

Heath and Hockert have both become passionate about allyship between students with and without disabilities through their activism. 

“[Able-bodied] students are going about their day-to-day lives without any concept of what their disabled classmates are going through — they are missing out on all of these incredible opportunities to be allies,” Heath explained. “They are also missing out on opportunities to learn about the disabled culture.”

Hockert provided some general advice on beginning the process of becoming an ally 

“Listen to disabled people, trust and believe them,” she said. “Don’t be scared to ask questions from a place of wanting to learn more and connect with them.” 

Another important first step is to learn about the history surrounding people with disabilities in the United States. The DRC’s “Disability Tapas” series provides more information on disability-related topics, like supporting students with specific types of disabilities, creating more physically accessible campus spaces and addressing everyday ableism. Several campus partners are also currently working to develop an allyship training program. 

“Educating others about ableism isn’t about the future application of what you learned when you do meet someone who is disabled, it’s about the here and now,” said Hockert. “The words that you use, the way that you run meetings, the way that you do classes and study groups and your views of people — all of those are either contributing to ableism, intentionally or unintentionally, or they are helping make a more accessible space.” 

For resources and more information on ableism and allyship, check out the DRC Study Advisory Database: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r0Ed3-A2yxQsMEucBXVI863SYVuFFkR9cq6PffQCt0s/edit?usp=sharing.