Accessibility

A comic with four panels. The first panel [top left] features three people with brown skin, wearing shorts and t-shirts. They stand on boxes that are all the same size, and watch a baseball game from behind a fence. The tallest person and medium-height person appear to be able to see over the fence, but the shortest person cannot. This is Equality.The second panel [top right] is the same, except now the box the tallest person was standing on is beneath the shortest person, and all appear to be able to see over the fence. This is titled Equity. The third panel [bottom left] has no boxes and no fence. All are cheering. This is titled Liberation. The fourth panel [bottom right] features the tallest person doing tactile interpreting for the medium-height person, who we realize is wearing dark glasses. This is titled Accessibility.

What is “accessible”? This might seem easy to answer, but in fact, it’s pretty difficult.

An “accessible” parking spot isn’t accessible to most drivers. A technology that created “accessibility” 10 years ago may not work so well now for the same users.

Interrogating what accessibility means shows us that creating accessibility is ongoing and requires relationships and creativity.

Understanding Access and Accessibility

Access and Accommodations

The difference between access and accommodations: Accessibility v. Accommodations blog post by Katie Rose Guest Pryal.

Insights on how we perceive disability, shout out to picture-boards discussing philosophy: http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/0301/0301ft1.htm

Some Books I Like

  • The Question of Access: Disability, Space, Meaning by Tanya Titchkosky
  • What Can A Body Do? by Sara Hendren
  • The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
  • Building Access by Aimi Hamraie
  • Touch The Future by John Lee Clark
  • How To Find A Four Leaf Clover by Jodi Rodgers
  • More Than Meets The Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art by Georgina Kleege
  • All The Weight Of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism–collection from Autism Self-Advocacy Network
  • There are also many nerdy articles I deeply enjoy. If you’re working on something particular, send me an email!

Accessibility and Higher Ed

We can either embrace the diversity of the students we have (and want to have) or we can continue with piecemeal solutions that don’t work particularly well for anyone. Disability accessibility is a journey, but without some broader steps and planning from the top, even compliance is going to take a long time….

12/6/24 Article from Chronicle of Higher Education on WCAG compliance and universities: https://www.chronicle.com/article/colleges-must-revise-millions-of-web-pages-it-will-be-painful

Access Beyond Compliance

Legal compliance with laws like the ADA is extremely important, and, unfortunately, in lots of areas of our public life, we still aren’t there yet.

However, accessibility is not a matter of checking things off and then being finished. Indeed, what the law requires when it comes to accessibility currently continues to expand. But, even without the law, if we want to truly include people with disabilities, we need to think not: “What’s legally required?” but rather “What’s necessary for everyone to be able to access this thing?”