Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #WhyDisabledPeopleDropout

Most recents (7)

This thread is for educators bc I am worried by how my students talk about their accommodations. Many are apologetic, many feel the need to convince me that they CAN do well and that they ARE smart. And all I can think is: what the fuck did you do to make them feel this way? 1/17
First of all I'm a disabled academic who has had accommodations since the sophomore year of undergrad. I had accommodations forms each term for the rest of undergrad and grad school - were they helpful? No. Accommodations treat disabilities like cookie cutter issues.2/17
Disability Services has a list of accommodations, and a set number of each they can give. It's a quota system of interventions like "time and a half" or "quiet test spaces" that's designed to save the school as much money as possible while pretending at access. 3/17
Read 17 tweets
This thread is about to be a massive disclaimer. I am going to use today to speak as if I were speaking to friends, which means I am going to be completely honest, but it also means some of the advice I am going to give really, really sucks. (1/)
No one, not a student, not a professor, not a post-doc, should be forced to advocate for themselves and their accommodations. Is it a useful skill? Absolutely. It should not be a necessity, and it often is. There are a range of experiences to be had in #HigherEd. (2/)
Some people are wonderful and some offices and departments and folks in power are truly doing their best, trying to help disabled people, and working on their ableism. They're life-savers in my opinion. (3/)
Read 7 tweets
Performative allyship is not activism. Just a reminder for everyone "celebrating" Disability Awareness Month without looking over their campus policies regarding faculty hiring, student recruitment, and retention of faculty, staff, or students. 1/5
If you're "celebrating" our existence in #HigherEd, you should also be listening to all of the stories where we've recounted barriers, discrimination, neglect, and abuse by academic systems. See #WhyDisabledPeopleDropout 2/5
And you should be doing the real work of implementing policy changes and investing money in disability culture. If you're an educator or admin - read about academic ableism. 3/5
Read 5 tweets
Nearly any autistic's outrage about something is diminished to social media bickering or "ridiculous" or conspiracy theories.

If people say they're helping autistic people, and we say "actually we have some concerns" we are always deemed the bad guys. #StopSpectrum10K
TW ableism, gaslighting, ABA, that senator who gaslights autistic people who have gone through ABA therapy

Oh wow, what perfect timing, here's a great example -

also "multiple degrees" Lol. She hasn't seen the #WhyDisabledPeopleDropOut hashtag, clearly

"classically autistic" 😂

Can I be "baroquely autistic"?
I have no idea what that would look like but I think the music would be pretty good.
Read 4 tweets
#WhyDisabledPeopleDropOut A thread. As a former faculty member, I have heard several colleagues complain about accommodations as being frivolous. If they are willing to say these things in front of a very visibly disabled colleague, what do they say behind closed doors? 1/
I regret very much being silent in my early career. I stayed silent because I was afraid to ask for meaningful accommodations for myself, because I was untenured. As progressed in my career, I became more vocal, and they became more silent. 2/
And then my disability progressed as I got older. I got a service dog, and some colleagues asked me if I got him because I wanted a dog at work... because I wasn’t *that* disabled. Then I had surgery after surgery every summer while others were conducting research. 3/
Read 15 tweets
I want to share a bit for this HT because, while I didn’t end up having to drop out, systemic ableism def. meant I thrived and learned less in school than I could have . . . #WhyDisabledPeopleDropout
Like a lot of Autistic women/non cis men, I did receive MH dxes in my teens and young adult years, but never had the full picture of myself/my support needs bc I did not fit the traditional diagnostic criteria (white male, not masking socially, etc). #WhyDisabledPeopleDropOut
By sophomore year of college, I was burnt out from trying so hard to be “a good girl” and student and fitting in socially with my peers that I had my first major depression—which I now understand to be autistic burnout. #WhyDisabledPeopleDropOut
Read 19 tweets
#WhyDisabledPeopleDropout because when I was in 11th grade, I had several bad flare ups of a disease I had gone through most of my school life with. I missed a lot of class and despite my willingness to stay after every day, work during lunch, and constant requests for help- 1/5
-my teachers decided it would be too much work to help me along and set me up to fail. Denying me my work and test retakes from when I was hospitalized, my new school nurse (my old one was a former ER nurse and was familiar with my illness, this one was not) telling me- 2/5
-“not to make a habit of going home early because I don’t feel good”, the list goes on. Only my math teacher was willing to help me. One teacher. I then asked a trusted study hall teacher if a GED would really ruin my life and when she said no, I dropped out. 3/5
Read 5 tweets

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