While I believe each of us has some personal, ethical responsibility to do better and recognize ableism when we see it (including the unintentional kind, which is everywhere), my primary focus has never been on blaming individuals.
Not all educators are willfully perpetuating ableism. It’s also true that individual instructors are not always fully autonomous and responsible for the courses they are charged to teach, which complicates their efforts to make courses sustainably accessible. Behind every instructor is a system in which we are expected to operate, and each of us finds ourselves in a different state of precarity depending on how we rank in that system (e.g., adjunct faculty and graduate teaching assistants are unfortunately often justified in their uncertainties about risking their jobs by pushing back against ableist policies because of the potential for administrative backlash).
I like to focus on what institutions can do to better support instructors in their accessibility and inclusion efforts. What should programs and institutions do to provide scaffolded support and resources for instructors to propel courses and learning environments toward greater accessibility and inclusion? Stay tuned: this is one of the questions I’ll be asking instructors in my dissertation study.
Caitlin Cornell 