Five disabled students were dismissed from a small Hopkins graduate program within a span of 7 months. They all have disabilities, four of them had already been granted accommodations, but their program prevented them from accessing these accommodations. Furthermore, these students were held to inequitable standards, standards the school did not apply to their non-disabled peers, standards that were used to justify their dismissal. Some of these inequitable standards violated the school's own COVID protocols.
Their stories are a tragic example of discrimination, ableism, and how the needs of disabled Hopkins students aren't being met. We are asking for Hopkins to take the following steps to get justice for these 5 students, and to create an equitable environment for all students that follows both the letter and the spirit of the Americans with Disabilites Act, the United States' last great piece of Civil Rights legislation.
For Hopkins to release the graduation rate of disabled students, overall, for each of the 9 schools, and for each department with more than 500 students. That it also releases, overall and for each of the 9 schools, graduation rates for each category on the Federal EEOC's targeted disability list, and for students with chronic illness and disabled veterans. Graduation rates should be for 4, 6, and 8-years. Graduation rates should be for all degrees and certificates Hopkins offers. Hopkins will publish these numbers Sept 1 each year and at the beginning of every subsequent September for all time, so disabled applicants know what they're getting.
For Hopkins to publish, for all of the 9 schools, the percentage of disabled students on academic probation (candidate improvement plans or other forms of probation) v. abled students, the percentage of disabled students who fail or withdraw from a class v. abled students, and the percentage of disabled students who fail to complete their work for incompletes v. abled students. This information will be made public every year in early June.
The creation of a position of Disability Protection Office, separate from SDS, OIE, and any academic department, that is responsible for intervening swiftly and fairly when Hopkins fails to provide approved disability accommodations, or fails in some other way to provide equal access to disabled students under the law. They will review all academic probationary plans, or their equivalent, for every disabled student placed on them and have power to revoke any part or their entiriety based on accommodation needs. They will help students challenge grades when students fail to well because they did not receive their approved disabiltiy accommodations. They will have the power to act quickly, and their decisions will be binding on departments. The Disability Protection office will publish a yearly report on the disability experience at Hopkins, including the number of reports of accommodation failures, the numbers of disabled students placed on probation or improvement plans, v. non-disabled students, and the numbers of disabled students who take incompletes, or drop, or fail a course, v. non-disabled students for each of the nine schools. Hopkins will hire Disability Protection Office staff from industry, non-profits, or the government, not non-profits. Disabled hires will be preferred, and some will be lawyers.
For Hopkins to allow disabled students who have not received their approved accommodations to appeal grades and academic decisions in classes and other situations where they have not received their approved accommodations. They should be able to appeal the consequences of these grades, including academic probation, and dismissal. This will be allowed retroactively back to Jan 1, 2019, and going forward for all time.
For Hopkins to allow the 5 dismissed counseling students back in under this policy, and if they don't want back in, to refund their tuition in full. For Hopkins to remove their dismissals from their student record. And for Hopkins to publish, with the counseling students’ permission, Hopkins' action on this matter.
For Hopkins investigate the school of educations practices which we believe are leading to a disparate impact on disabled students: CIPs and monthly faculty meetrings held to discuss “struggling” students (both of which acting as vehicles for sharing biased information about students, with students who have struggled with disability symptoms being particularly vulnerable).
For Hopkins to check all forms academic improvement plans and academic probation in all 9 schools to see if disabled students are disproportionately represented, and to mitigate if they are. In particular, we believe academic probation, CIPS are in many cases serving to deny disabled students extensions, absences, and incompletes--all of which may be approved disability accommodations under the ADA. Hopkins needs to check for this--we suggest commissioning an independent, 3rd-party study because we believe Hopkins uses academic probation to deny disabled students reasonable disability accommodations Hopkins has already approved them under the ADA. We have seen several cases of this. This policy in particular discriminates against the chronically ill, and those with mental illness, including people suffering PTSD from rape and sexual assault. We believe academic probation and CIPS violate students' rights under the ADA and force students to choose between their academics and their physical and mental health. In studying this, Hopkins should consider disparities in mental health treatment and treatment of chronic illness among people of color in America.
That Hopkins commit to increasing disabled student and faculty numbers using the same guidelines as the EEOC has set for the Federal government, 12% disabled, minimum 2% of targeted disabilities—targeted as defined by the EEOC—and commit to reaching this goal by 2027. Hopkins will publish these statistics every other year.
That Hopkins post each year a Disability Best Practices handbook written by disabled students at JHU and require all department heads, high-level administrators, people involved in creating Hopkins policies, and professors involved in creating course content to read it--for every school and every department. That disabled student community will be allowed to revise this handbook yearly. Hopkins employees required to read it will sign a yearly form stating they've done so. That all Hopkins faculty and administrators undergo two hours of disability training a semester on JHU's disability policies, the ADA, current ADA, and State disability case law, and parts of this handbook.
That Hopkins provide safe spaces for disabled students, including a disabled-student run Disability Student Union, mentored by an existing, successful non-JHU disabilty unions and by other successful JHU student-run student uions, and neurodivergent-friendly study areas and neurodivergent-friendly tutoring in all departments and schools, both undergraduate and graduate, for all undergraduate and masters degrees. Some of these spaces will be physical, others online.
That Hopkins will commit to running and publishing a twice-yearly disabled-student campus climate survey, written and run by disabled student. If disabled students fail to provide such a survey, the previous year's will be rerun. Faculty and administrators may recommdend questions to this survey, but the ultimate arbitrators will be student government working with disabled students.
For Hopkins to commit to teaching about disability, the accomplishments of disabled people, and disability access in all departments and all majors, so that this material is offered in at least half of all courses, to be proven by yearly departmental syllabus reviews, and Hopkins will publish the results of these reviews.
For Hopkins to have disabled people and disability experts review all new research, of any variety, performed by Johns Hopkins University in any of the 9 schools, for the same to review all results, and for Hopkisn to publish these reviews along with the research.
For all policies Hopkins enacts concerning disability to be based strongly in one of the following: peer-reviewed research showing the policy helps disabled students; national disability case law; the disability climate survey mentioned here; the disabled student handbook; the recommendations of an established (at least ten years old) disability non-profit based outside of Baltimore City/County, or pro-disability laws passed, or legislation passed or proposed in a American State or US Territory.
Hopkins lobbyist arm will support all pro-disability legislation that comes before the Maryland House of Representatives, particularly if it pertains to colleges and universities.