Diversity Inc has just posted its top ten list of the best and boldest corporate employers of people with disabilities. There are some stellar names: IBM; Aetna;Proctor & Gamble (whose animal experimentation programs still cause great concern for many); and still one is pleased to see that strong efforts are underway at V.I.P. corporations to hire and celebrate people with disabilities.
Its interesting to observe that there are no educational institutions listed. With their multi-billion dollar endowments why aren’t we seeing Harvard University or Brown? Or at least some compiled nominative like “the Ivy League” or the “Big 10”.
The sad truth I’m afraid is that we’re still in the era of rehabilitation modeling in the higher education arena. The model says that students “Must” be accommodated in order to get an education. The model isn’t very interested in seeing a seamless bridge between the academic accommodations that are provided in a classroom and the rich opportunity to put that accommodation process into a new model both of pedagogy and of employment possibilities.
OH but we can dream yes?
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
You’re right. A lot of universities have policies to help students with disabilities but have no person or policy to go to for employees with disabilities. It’s no one’s responsibility, and when something doesn’t get done, people play a highly complicated board game of pass-the-buck, entertaining for them but not for the person sending email after email and finally copying all of them on it basically saying, “it’s required; you sort it out.”
I have seen job ads requiring standing and walking for teaching at a college. Yes I have. Also specifying normal speech, sight, and hearing. And normal ways of typing for the admin jobs. I wrote to HR and asked why they bothered to be so accessible for students while excluding these students from future employment. No response. I asked about teaching from a wheelchair and mentioned a number of people who have done it. No response.
I’ve seen the standing and walking a lot lately on a huge variety of job applications in all areas. The functional requirements, often overwritten, keep people with disabilities out of jobs they could do.
LikeLike