This post shares a case study I wrote for EDD 837: DEIJ in Higher Education, a doctoral course focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in higher education. The assignment asked us to examine Riverbend College, a fictional institution facing resistance after adopting updated accessibility guidelines that encourage faculty flexibility with attendance, deadlines, and assessment formats for students with documented disabilities. It is worth noting that this assignment came with a short page limit following APA 7 formatting guidelines, so the analysis is intentionally brief and touches the surface of what is a much deeper and more nuanced topic.
I examine how Riverbend can respond to faculty concerns about fairness and rigor without compromising equitable access, what role Accessibility Services, academic leadership, and faculty governance should each play in making the policy real, and how the institution can reframe accommodations as a shared responsibility rather than an individual exception. The case study draws on peer-reviewed research and my own experience in higher education to argue that treating every student identically is not the same as treating them fairly, and that access should not depend on which faculty a student happens to get.
Introduction
Riverbend College has taken a meaningful step by updating its accessibility guidelines to encourage faculty flexibility with attendance, deadlines, and assessment formats for students with documented disabilities. The policy is grounded in the real needs of students with chronic health conditions, mental health disabilities, and neurodivergent learners, all of whom have historically been penalized for circumstances they did not choose. However, the resistance that has followed, including faculty complaints about fairness, informal framing of the policy as optional, and a rise in student complaints to the Office of Accessibility Services, shows that adopting a policy and implementing a policy are two different things. This paper addresses three questions facing Riverbend's administration: how to respond to faculty concerns about fairness and rigor while protecting equitable access; what role Accessibility Services, academic leadership, and faculty governance should each play in making the policy real; and how to reframe accommodations as a shared institutional responsibility rather than an individual exception.
Addressing Faculty Concerns About Fairness and Academic Standards
Faculty resistance is not unusual, and it is rarely ideological. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (2024) found that faculty reluctance to implement approved accommodations is common across institutions and traces most often to two things: limited training on disability law, and a genuine belief that accommodations give certain students an unfair advantage. That belief is wrong, but it makes sense when faculty have never been taught the difference between equal treatment and equitable access. A student who misses class because of a chemotherapy infusion or a major depressive episode is not in the same situation as a student who skipped class because they overslept, and an attendance policy that treats them identically is not fair. It is uniform, and uniform is not the same as fair.
The workload concern deserves to be taken seriously too, even if the conclusion some faculty are drawing from it is not the right one. Most faculty did not receive any formal training in disability law or inclusive design during their own graduate education, and they are being asked to change their practice without much support. Moriña et al. (2025) conducted a systematic review of faculty training programs and found that targeted training in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) increased both teaching competence and faculty confidence in implementing inclusive practices. Faculty are not the problem; the absence of professional development is the problem. Riverbend has to invest in faculty before it can reasonably expect faculty to deliver on the policy.
The Role of Accessibility Services, Leadership, and Governance
The current model at most institutions, Riverbend included, puts the burden of accommodation enforcement on the student. A student registers with Accessibility Services, receives a letter, and then has to deliver that letter to each faculty member and negotiate implementation on their own. Cho and Jones (2024) surveyed college students with disabilities and found that while most had strong self-advocacy skills, their understanding of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) itself was limited. Students know what they need, but many do not know what they are legally entitled to.
Accessibility Services should continue to determine eligibility, coordinate accommodations, and serve as a resource for both students and faculty, but the office cannot be expected to mediate every individual dispute. When a faculty member refuses to implement an approved accommodation, that is a compliance issue and it belongs to the chain of command, not to the student, and not the Accessibility Services Office; deans and administrators need to step up and stop putting the onus on the student. Faculty governance plays a different but equally important role. A joint committee between Faculty Senate and Accessibility Services would give faculty a stake in shaping how the policy gets implemented rather than feeling it was handed down to them without consultation. Bartolo et al. (2025) found that students with disabilities consistently identified institutional systems, rather than the individual accommodations themselves, as the place where equity either works or fails.
Reframing Accommodations as Inclusive Excellence
As long as accommodations are framed as exceptions granted to a small group, the fairness argument will keep coming back. The better frame is Universal Design for Learning. Moriña et al. (2025) found that UDL-based instruction improved learning outcomes and participation across the entire student population, not only for students with documented disabilities. A flexible deadline policy does not take anything away from students who do not need it. It is a design choice that makes the course work better for everyone, including the student dealing with a sick parent, the commuter stuck in traffic, and the student who just had a bad week.
The increase in accommodation requests reflects a change in who is enrolled, not students gaming the system. Solís García et al. (2024) found significantly higher rates of mental health conditions among university students with disabilities compared to their peers, with depression, anxiety, and ADHD appearing at especially elevated levels. That matches what Accessibility Services offices across the country are reporting. More students are arriving with mental health conditions, more are being diagnosed with ADHD and autism during their college years, and more are willing to ask for help than a generation ago. The policy is not expanding because standards are being lowered, it is expanding because the students actually enrolled at Riverbend today do not look like the students the institution was designed for a generation ago.
The administration should release a clear, evidence-based statement from the provost that affirms the legal and educational basis for the policy and addresses the most common misconceptions directly. That needs to be paired with syllabus language templates that normalize flexibility, voluntary faculty development that treats accommodations as part of good teaching, and student-facing resources that explain what to do when an accommodation is not being honored. None of this is groundbreaking. What matters is that it is coordinated across Accessibility Services, the provost's office, and academic affairs, rather than being scattered across offices that do not talk to each other.
The Risks of Inconsistent Implementation
Legally, institutions face exposure under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 when faculty refuse to implement approved accommodations. Macfarlane (2025) examined how the fundamental alteration defense, which institutions rely on when arguing that an accommodation would compromise academic integrity, only holds up in court when the institution can show it engaged in a good-faith interactive process. A pattern of faculty refusing accommodations, inconsistent enforcement, and the policy being treated as optional undermines that defense. The ethical risk is more immediate. Dali and Charbonneau (2024) found that for disabled and neurodiverse doctoral students, the one consistent source of support was the goodwill of individual faculty members. That means access at most institutions is not actually institutional. It depends on which faculty a student happens to get, and students should not have to rely on that kind of chance to receive the education they were promised.
Conclusion
Riverbend College has a good policy on paper. The work ahead is making sure the policy is the one that actually governs what happens in classrooms. That requires taking faculty concerns seriously without letting those concerns override student rights, investing in training so that faculty have the support they need to do this well, building an enforcement structure that does not rely on students to fight their own battles, and communicating clearly about why this work matters. The students arriving at Riverbend today are not the students this institution was built for a generation ago, and the accommodations policy is one acknowledgment of that reality. Higher education is supposed to be a place where people can come to learn regardless of the circumstances of their bodies or minds. Riverbend has said it wants to be that place. Now it needs to act like it.
References
Bartolo, P. A., Borg, M., Callus, A., Camilleri, L., De Gaetano, A., Mangiafico, M., Mazzacano D'Amato, E., Sammut, C., Vella Vidal, R., & Vincent, J. (2025). Students with disabilities in higher education call for personal empowerment, equitable inclusive systems, and individualized accommodations. Frontiers in Education, 10, 1432682. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1432682
Cho, J. I., & Jones, K. (2024). How do college students with disabilities do? Law, self-determination, self-advocacy, and campus resources. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 24(3). https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v24i3.35703
Dali, K., & Charbonneau, D. H. (2024). Academic ableism and the experiences of disabled and neurodiverse Ph.D. students in LIS programs. Education for Information, 40(3), 233–266. https://doi.org/10.3233/EFI-240001
Macfarlane, K. (2025). The higher education accommodation mistake. Georgetown Law Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4920307
Moriña, A., Sandoval, M., Carballo, R., Morgado, B., & Biencinto, C. (2025). Transforming higher education: A systematic review of faculty training in UDL and its benefits. Teaching in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2025.2465994
Solís García, P., Real Castelao, S., & Barreiro-Collazo, A. (2024). Trends and challenges in the mental health of university students with disabilities: A systematic review. Behavioral Sciences, 14(2), 111. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14020111
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2024). Higher education: Education could improve information on accommodations for students with disabilities (GAO-24-105614). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105614