Over-Accommodation is Not Allyship

Over-Accommodation is Not Allyship: Othering Versus Belonging in Educators’ Approach to Students with Mental Disabilities

by Kathleen A. Tarr, J.D.

Growing up with close family friends who lived with physical and mental disabilities instilled in me a sense that their challenges were just part of what life might provide any of us (see note 1). My childhood community also being comprised of people who spoke different languages, cooked different foods, and wore different garments, difference became what “normal” was to me. Everyone seemed part of a glorious palette I knew as artists and scientists, educators and retirees.

It may be no surprise, then, that when I awakened as an adult to the way the world oppresses and marginalizes disabled people and other groups that I invested in activism and advocacy. I represented veterans in disability claims before the Department of Veterans Affairs and later worked under the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Program (“PAIMI”)(2,3). The disturbing way people treated my clients with mental health issues created an even greater understanding of the challenges they endured in society at large. One particular experience of my own was most illuminating.

I checked into a hotel for one of the annual PAIMI conferences, and when my name did not pull up at registration, I let out a heavy sigh. The staff jumped into action, using calming words and gestures as if I were about to unleash a great fury or break down. It was not the reaction I understood that resulted from stereotypes of the “angry Black woman” (which are most often absent from any attempt to rectify a wrong or make amends). What I realized is that they presumed given my attendance at the conference that I was “mentally ill” and was going to react extremely poorly to having an issue with my room reservation. They were kind, yes, but overboard. I can only imagine how exhausted people with certain diagnoses become with the eggshells people walk on around them, with the way in which they are treated as a constant threat or “weird” or incompetent (4).

“Certainly, despite disability accommodations meaning to involve questions of reasonableness, the attitude of inconvenience remains a challenge.”

KATHLEEN A. TARR, J.D.

I no longer practice law so have not witnessed evolution – if any – in the field. Instead, I am now an educator. Still, I’m sure those same dynamics are part of the reason students with mental disabilities don’t always provide me their accommodation letters at the beginning of the quarter. Stigma from instructors still exists (5). Students have told me about professors who flat out refused to accommodate them, denied they were experiencing difficulties, lectured them about this generation’s faux anxiety, etc. Certainly, despite disability accommodations meaning to involve questions of reasonableness, the attitude of inconvenience remains a challenge (6). As a result of how problematic (and probably illegal) some instructors’ behaviors are, many students feel safer withholding their letters until they are sure they need a specific accommodation for a specific assignment (7).

As such, I try to design my courses at the onset to presume some students are contending with emotional challenges – whether clinical or otherwise – so that the schedule includes as much flexibility as reasonable already built in. I remind students that there is an office on campus dedicated to accessible education and that there is no shame in utilizing its services. Having an invisible disability myself, I don’t limit my reach to mental health concerns. I design my courses anticipating color blindness, dyslexia, and more. I no doubt haven’t thought of everything and thus welcome students’ accommodation letters, encouraging them to reach my desk day one of every course. Nevertheless, students are certainly correct that some educators disrespect the equity of their accommodations, especially for mental disabilities. There is an additional challenge. On the other end of the spectrum: educators who over-accommodate.

The typical accommodation letter for a student with a mental disability may include:

This student’s accommodations include brief assignment extensions (1-3 days), as necessary and feasible, initiated by the student before the original deadline.

I remind my students (and it’s in my syllabus) that I am not qualified to determine appropriate accommodations for them, but not all educators feel the same humility. Instead, they reflexively grant accommodations greater than delineated and after assignment deadlines have passed. In this blatant manner of othering, instructors shift a leveling of the playing field to privileging students with mental disabilities. Privileging runs counter to radical allyship as it excludes its subjects from ordinary ideals, preventing certain groups of people from belonging to inclusionary standards whether socially or institutionally constructed. It is clear that some of the most critical arenas in need of more belonging are our campuses.

Belonging is a radical form of allyship usually defined as “being respected at a basic level that includes the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political institutions” (8). Respecting that right, however, does not require untempered deference to a demographic’s contributions and demands. The latter is othering, “a set of dynamics, processes, and structures that engender marginality and persistent inequality across any of the full range of human differences based on group identities” (9). True belonging stands in direct opposition, and if students with mental disabilities are to actually belong, othering via over-accommodation must cease.

The dynamic isn’t new. Other demographics have experienced similarly frustrating paths in education. Notably at the 91st NAACP annual convention, President George W. Bush criticized the “soft bigotry of low expectations” in which “positive feedback bias” meant White teachers judging Black and Latinx students’ work less critically than that of White students (10,11). White teachers have far lower expectations for Black students than they do for similarly situated White students (12). The result is decreased performance (13). 

Likewise, over-accommodation of students with mental disabilities exists in practice because of a prolific belief that they cannot rise to the standard (14). Students’ decreased performance is baked in as not meeting a deadline inherently means falling short. Holding students to equitable expectations does not suggest denying reasonable accommodations that are meant to similarly situate a student with peers. Certainly the “deadline” in question must comply with formal accommodations. Nevertheless, instructors’ disparate expectations do not merely forecast student outcomes, they also influence outcomes (15). 

“The message is “you belong,”

a message students with mental disabilities deserve to hear just as much as any other.”

KATHLEEN A. TARR, J.D.

Educators who other students with mental disabilities by over-accommodating are setting them on a path of lowered performance and perhaps worse, self-stigma in which these students believe they are simply incapable of certain skills, believe their exclusion from instructors’ equitable expectations and demands is out of necessity because they are not good enough. What is true, of course, is that when educators straightforwardly tell students they are “tough graders who will give marks solely based on performance,” students’ motivation increases (16). The message is “you belong,” a message students with mental disabilities deserve to hear just as much as any other.

Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, john a. powell, notes there is no neutral when it comes to othering and belonging (17).

Either we reach across to other groups and towards our inherent, shared humanity and connection, while recognizing that we have differences; or we pull away from other groups and then support practices that dehumanize them.

Radical disability allyship in higher education means that one treats students with mental disabilities as students, granting accommodations in order to level the playing field, but not gifting additional privileges out of pity, faux empathy, or self-congratulation. Noting educators’ power to achieve educational equity, David Johnson implores, “we need to continue to maintain high expectations for students with disabilities” (18). Not only do we need to maintain them, some of us need to actually begin.

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Notes

[1] See, e.g., Reuben, Aaron & Schaefer, Jonathan. “Mental Illness Is Far More Common Than We Knew,” Scientific American (14 July 2017) (“new research suggests that nearly everyone will develop a psychological disorder at some point in their life—but for most, it’s temporary”). https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/mental-illness-is-far-more-common-than-we-knew

Also, “Summary: World Report on Disability,” World Health Organization, World Bank (2011) (“Disability is part of the human condition – almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life.”). https://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/accessible_en.pdf

[2] For further discussion, see Tarr, Kathleen. “Above and Beyond: Veterans Disabled by Military Service.” 5 Geo. J. on Fighting Poverty 39 (Winter 1997).

[3] https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/774

[4] See Rössler, Wulf. “The stigma of mental disorders: A millennia-long history of social exclusion and prejudices,” Science & Society (28 July 2016). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5007563/pdf/EMBR-17-1250.pdf

[5]  Grasgreen, Allie. “Dropping the Ball on Disabilities,” Inside Higher Ed (April 2, 2014) (“Students with disabilities say the ignorance of faculty and staff members makes it difficult to get the help they need -- and in some cases, makes them less willing to disclose their condition.”). https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/02/students-disabilities-frustrated-ignorance-and-lack-services

[6] Tarr, Kathleen A. & Dorfman, Doron. “Regatta Revisited: The Race for Equity in Virtual Sports,” 46 Rutgers Law Record 151 (2019). https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/46_Rutgers_L_Rec_151.pdf

[7] 29 U.S.C. § 794 (Section 504)

[8] Othering & Belonging Institute (formerly Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society). https://belonging.berkeley.edu/vision

[9] powell, john a. & Menendian, Stephen. “The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging” (29 June 2017). http://www.otheringandbelonging.org/the-problem-of-othering

[10] “Text: George W. Bush's Speech to the NAACP,” Washington Post (10 July 2000). https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/bushtext071000.htm

[11] Harber, K. D., Gorman, J. L., Gengaro, F. P., Butisingh, S., Tsang, W., & Ouellette, R. (2012). “Students' race and teachers’ social support affect the positive feedback bias in public schools,” Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(4), 1149–1161 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028110 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-10763-001. See also Resnick, Brian. “When Teachers Overcompensate for Racial Prejudice,” The Atlantic (10 May 2012). https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/when-teachers-overcompensate-for-racial-prejudice/256951/

[12] “Education Longitudinal Study of 2002,” Institute of Education Sciences & National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/els2002/

[13] Papageorge, Nicholas W., Gershenson, Seth, & Kang, Kyungmin. “IZA DP No. 10165: Teacher Expectations Matter,” IZA Institute of Labor Economics (August 2016). https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/10165

[14] See Rose, Diana, Thornicroft, Graham, Pinfold, Vanessa, & Kassam, Aliya. “250 labels used to stigmatise people with mental illness,” BioMed Central (28 June 2007) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925070/pdf/1472-6963-7-97.pdf

[15] Compare Gershenson, Seth & Papageorge, Nicholas. “The Power of Teacher Expectations: How racial bias hinders student attainment,” Education Next (Winter 2018, Vol. 18, No. 1). https://www.educationnext.org/power-of-teacher-expectations-racial-bias-hinders-student-attainment/    

[16] Compare Cohen, Geoffrey L., Steele, Claude M., & Ross, Lee D. “The Mentor’s Dilemma: Providing Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (1999) (“In fact, the motivation of black students provided with criticism in this wise manner improved so dramatically that it slightly surpassed that of their white peers.”). citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.116.9737&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[17] powell, john a. “Us vs them: the sinister techniques of ‘Othering’ – and how to avoid them,” The Guardian (8 November 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them

[18] Johnson, David. “The Power of High Expectations for Special Education Students,” Achieving Educational Equity blog, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota (25 November 2015). https://cehdvision2020.umn.edu/blog/high-expectations-special-education/

KATHLEEN A.

TARR, J.D.

Kathleen Tarr is a University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School graduate, Advanced Lecturer in Stanford University’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric, and former Skadden Fellow (“legal Peace Corps”) who developed some of the USA’s first outreach programs to disabled female military veterans. She also founded the annual Getting Played Symposium on Equity in the Entertainment Industry and Awards. Kathleen’s quest for allyship includes her2019 TEDx talk that focuses on othering and belonging.