Student leaders continue to demand action from the American University administration by implementing a Disabled Student Bill of Rights with the help of the Disabled Student Union.
The Student Government Undergraduate Senate unanimously voted to pass Resolution 19-021, implementing the Disabled Student Bill of Rights at a Senate meeting on Oct. 6.
The bill includes nine articles that cover a variety of issues ranging from housing and healthcare to digital and academic accessibility. Senator-at-Large Kasey Bernat, sponsor of the bill and a sophomore in the School of International Service, told The Eagle that the DSU was integral to the development process.
“All of this comes from DSU, comes from people that actually understand. I came into this knowing nothing,” Bernat said. “They’re really the people that I think deserve the most applause for this. I just wrote it.”
The resolution calls on the University to hire a 504 coordinator, which Bernat said is one of SG and DSU’s top priorities. The University’s Academic Support and Access Center currently employs operations and accommodations coordinators.
A 504 coordinator, also called an Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator, is primarily responsible for organizing and facilitating accommodation and grievance services. By law, all universities receiving federal financial assistance with at least 15 employees must designate at least one employee to coordinate efforts to comply with and carry out 504 responsibilities.
The resolution also asks the University to establish an independent Disability Accommodations Office to handle accommodation requests and related grievances within one week of their filing. The new focus of ASAC, according to the bill, would then be the “execution and enforcement of all accommodations that are given.”
Ultimately, the resolution demands a response from the University “as soon as possible” to address the University’s interpretation and willingness to work with SG on the identified issues.
“I would love to see the administration put out an email saying that [they] are going to work with AUSG to make the University more accessible in compliance with the Disabled Student Bill of Rights,” Bernat said.
The bill also makes demands in relation to the physical accessibility of the campus, highlighting student difficulties with, amongst others, Hurst Hall, the East Quad Building and the Battelle-Tompkins Building, which are “notoriously inaccessible.” The resolution asks that these buildings be made “completely physically accessible, through elevators, lifts, door actuators, and other means.”
Bernat also highlighted that the resolution calls for the development of a disability rights training session for all faculty members. It also encourages clubs on campus to expand their efforts to create an accessible environment for all students and sets new standards for SG itself.
“There’s a lot of requirements [in the resolution] for AUSG specifically,” Bernat said. “So, having meetings in rooms that are actually accessible, putting closed captioning in our videos, not just automatic closed captioning.”
Additionally, the resolution advocates for the creation of a Disability Studies Minor and an American Sign Language Course following Resolution 19-011, which Bernat also sponsored. The bill specifies that both would ideally be taught by instructors within the disabled and Deaf communities.
The final article of the resolution provides that the Undergraduate Senate must review the resolution annually and make adjustments as they see fit, which Bernat highlighted as a key point in continuing this work.
“We’re not just doing this and then just stopping,” Bernat said. “We’re building resolutions off of this.”
This article was edited by Payton Anderson, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Ella Rousseau, Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Ariana Kavoossi.
