Okay it's four hours later & I'm still furious about this. Let's talk about why. 1) This large university claims it cannot make a physical accommodation for a guest speaker, even though she requested it well in advance (& they're the ones who invited her, for heavens sake).
Their offer, instead of providing a wheelchair, is to chauffeur the speaker around campus so she doesn't have to walk as much. Unless they plan to drive her into the building & onto the stage where she'll be speaking, this is a laughable solution.
Why can't they come up with a wheelchair? It can't be due to funds: this is a D1 school that pays its head football coach millions of dollars a year, so surely they could scratch together the hundo or so it would take to go buy a wheelchair at Walgreens.
Now imagine that the guest requesting the wheelchair was an elderly millionaire who was visiting campus to discuss making a significant donation to the university upon her death. Would they be able to find a wheelchair for her? Uh, yes. In a heartbeat.
More significantly, perhaps, would they send her an email the night before her visit saying, "Sorry we couldn't get you a wheelchair lol, but we'll totally drive you around campus ok"? Obviously not.
Which means that 2. It's not a matter of not being able to make the accommodation this speaker requested, but rather a matter of not making it enough of a priority. Imagine how you'd feel if someone told you they'd decided one of your basic needs wasn't actually that important.
"We're so excited to bring you to campus! Unfortunately we weren't able to locate any food, so you're going to have to go without while you're here. Sorry!" It's offensive, humiliating, & sends a clear message that they don't consider her mobility issues to be all that important.
3. Plus, it puts the burden of advocating for her needs back on her shoulders--after she'd already requested this accommodation well in advance. And this, I think, is what makes me the angriest, because if you live with any kind of a disability...
...you already have to fight for access and basic rights all the goddamn time. And as most of us know, self-advocacy is exhausting. It can also be embarrassing. And it's a daily reminder that you & your needs are often invisible to other people, which is dehumanizing.
And the worst part is that it's NOT THAT GODDAMN HARD to fix these issues! People, we can find the wheelchair. We can check on the seating. We can think about stairs and ramps and elevators and handrails. We can offer the seatbelt extender. We can provide the ASL interpreter.
We can take the five extra minutes to advocate for our friends and family and community members with accessiblity issues so they can get a damn break for once. And for god's sake, we can LISTEN to people when they do ask for accommodations & we can MAKE THEM A PRIORITY.
And when an institution can't get its shit together to provide THE MOST BASIC accommodation for a guest speaker? We can make a hell of a fuss about it. Because it matters. We're stronger when every voice is at the table--including those who have to work harder to get there.
