College Students Claim Disability to Game the System

According to an article in Atlantic Magazine college students are increasingly claiming disabilities to gain special accommodations at the expense of their fellow students.

At Stanford 38% of undergraduates are registered as having a
disability; with 24% of undergraduates receiving academic or housing accommodations in the fall quarter alone.

The university’s disability task force is both alarmed and unwilling to curb the abuse with Paul Graham Fisher, a Stanford professor who served as co-chair of the task force, stating, “I have had conversations with people in the Stanford administration. They’ve talked about at what point can we say no? What if it hits 50 or 60%? At what point do you just say ‘We can’t do this’?”

At Harvard which has been under attack from the Trump administration for its failings in other areas, more than 20% of undergraduates are registered as disabled according to the Atlantic.

The government opened the door to the abuse in 2008 when itbroadened the definition of disability, effectively expanding the number of people the law covered.

The Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD), an organization of disability-services employees, followed suit by issuing guidance about how schools should treat students who say they’re disabled.

The guidance advised schools to give greater weight to students’ own accounts of how their supposed disability affected them, rather than relying or requiring a medical diagnosis.

Schools then began relaxing their requirements to the broader definition resulting in an explosion of self-described disabled students.

Accommodations for disabled students run the gamut from receiving more time on tests, use of technology not available to other students, or a place to take a test that is regarded as “distraction free.”

At Carnegie Mellon, students with what’s called social-anxiety disorder can get a note so the professor doesn’t call on them without warning according to the Atlantic.

While there are legitimately disabled students-with both physical and mental disabilities the students who are now gaming the system across the country are hurting the very people who truly deserve some extra accommodation and colleges and universities need to stand up to this abuse and put in place strict requirements to make the system fair for all.