When I started university in the dark old days of 1996, I was informed in a letter that I needed formally to ‘declare’ my disability. Which seemed fair enough, really, so I went along to do so, only to be told that I wasn’t in the right place, but should go somewhere completely different on campus. “Oh bother,” thought I, and plodded off. To be told that I still wasn’t in the right place and should go somewhere different. And when I went to the third place, they said that I shouldn’t have come to them at all, but to the people I first visited. In short, I spent (over a series of several days, for reasons which should become obvious) hours walking to different places on campus to tell them that amongst other things, I had difficulty walking!
Things have improved amazingly in the 14 or so years since then, both in universities and in employment status. Most, if not all, universities now have a Disability Advisor, usually with several support staff to help. The Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 was considerably extended in 2005, giving people with disabilities more rights in the areas of work and education (amongst other things).
The legislation says, in effect, that “your employer has a duty to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to make sure you’re not put at a substantial disadvantage by employment arrangements or any physical feature of the workplace”* The word ‘reasonable’ is a tough one: how can there be a legal definition of what is or is not reasonable?
If you don’t tell your university or employers that you are disabled, however, they can’t help you. Nevertheless, many people with invisible disabilities and illnesses still choose not to inform their employers of their disability, fearing that they’ll be treated less favourably. Sure, there’s legislation in place to prevent that; but it’s not always easy to prove that it was specifically the disability which caused the disfavour – and, of course, a lot of disabled people are just not well enough to be able to cope with what might be a long, drawn out process. (The same principle applies to benefits such as Disability Living Allowance, incidentally: many people who are eligible for the benefits are, ironically, too unwell to jump through the multiple hoops which the government demands. It is rare, for example, that anyone with ME is accepted without an appeal; for many people, the stress of going through the process is too health-destroying to be a realistic possibility.)
There are still good reasons for worrying about ableist policies at work and in universities, too. It’s not unknown for workplaces actually to use legislation to discriminate against people with disabilities, however. A friend of mine had a job which involved a lot of standing up, which she found difficult. In line with the ‘reasonable adjustments’ idea, she asked for a tall chair on which to sit whilst doing her job. She was informed that she couldn’t buy a chair to bring in, nor could she borrow one which was not in use – because it would breach “Health and Safety” regulations. Instead, she must visit the employers’ medical advisor to get confirmation that she needed a chair. Three months later (yes, you read that right), when she saw the doctor, he was left almost speechless by the referral. “But they’re paying me more than the price of a chair to see you – and given that you declared your disability when you first came to work here, it’s not as if I’m likely to suggest you don’t need it!” he said in disbelief. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but either her work was astoundingly incompetent, or they were attempting to use their dilatoriness to force her out, by making her job almost impossible for a long time.
It is, in some ways, difficult to complain about the outlook for people with disabilities at the moment because there have been such great and sweeping improvements. However, that doesn’t mean that we should not ask for more equality – it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out where the legislation is falling down. Imagine you were mugged, and when you went to the police, they said “Well, you should be grateful: lots of people have been murdered.” The fact that things aren’t as bad as they might be is no excuse for the issues there still are.
* Quoted from the government website at http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/Employmentsupport/YourEmploymentRights/DG_4001071
