Disability at the Elites 

If you’re a student at the University of Michigan and you suffer from a disability, the school has two centers where you can take a test that accommodates your needs. There’s a problem, though. Lately, the centers have been flooded by qualified students and other venues have had to be found. 

That’s just one example of a trend in higher education that was reported a few months ago and picked up by outlets everywhere (see, for example, here and here). More and more kids at elite institutions have been popping up on disability rolls. A story in The Atlantic from December calls the growth “breathtaking” At the University of Chicago, it says, the number has tripled in eight years; at UC-Berkeley it has quadrupled in fifteen years, mostly from diagnoses of ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Now, at Amherst College, fully one-third of the undergrads are marked as disabled. 

A few years ago, a friend who runs field trips for students at a tier one institution told me that the number of attendees on meds these days is shocking (chaperones are always told of existing prescriptions in case of an emergency). When I visited an elite campus in 2024, my host mentioned that in one small class he was prohibited from making too-direct eye contact with one enrollee because of the student’s social anxiety disorder.

My first experience happened around 2014 when, as more and more undergraduates at Emory University carried laptops to class and flipped them open as soon as they sat down, I started banning them entirely, telling them on day one that the class would be book, paper, and pencil, nothing else. I had to do so, having written a book warning of the danger of screens in the hands of adolescents. Besides, these were English classes, and I’d been trained in close reading exercises whereby a poem on the page draws meticulous attention. We would spend the hour on details of prosody, metaphor, structure, alliteration, irony, and any other micro-element they might notice. Screens were an anathema. They sped up these young minds too much for them to grasp the layers of meaning and niceties of style in lines such as 

A loss of something ever felt I— 

The first that I could recollect 

Bereft I was—of what I knew not 

Too young that any should suspect … 

Take those words off the page, put them on a screen, and the experience changes for the worse. It is like looking at something through a window. A poem in a book is more immediate and material and concrete, I told them and any colleagues who would listen. You could write on it directly, inserting marginalia that might come in handy when you study for the midterm. You don’t have to switch screens and lose the text as you type what the professor says. Paper and book share space on your desk.

I kept the policy in place until I retired in 2019, ever more confident of its usefulness. To confront the backs of open laptops instead of faces had to be irritating to my fellow teachers, especially when they knew that lots of other things were happening on those flashing screens. Sometimes a new student would arrive in my class on the second or third session and do what he always did, pulling out the laptop and preparing for an hour of listening, viewing, and tapping. I would spot the sole computer, stare into the distance, and mutter, “Wait—before I begin, I think … yes, I do believe that there may be a laptop in the room. Is someone using a computer? Is someone, anyone, at a screen?” A hand would slowly close the laptop, no one would speak, I would pause two seconds longer, then turn to the day’s poems and stories. 

One time, though, an objection was raised. A week into the semester, I stepped forward, opened the anthology, and started to speak when I noticed a laptop open in the back of the room. A cheery girl I hadn’t seen before looked up and waited for me to continue. I caught her eye and announced the rule with an apologetic smile, no sarcasm this time. She didn’t reach up to close it, however, and she had no embarrassed expression on her face. She stated that she had to use the computer, that she needed it to do her work. I said something more about the rule and she replied that she was authorized to use it at all times, her voice now a little firmer. I let it go for the moment and asked to talk about it after class.  

She came to my office later and presented me with the disability form that all students categorized as such show to their professors. I don’t remember any specific diagnosis detailed on paper, only the fact that she was covered under a disability standard and had to be accommodated. I’m not even sure that a computer was mentioned in the description of her situation. I shrugged and told her, “Okay.” For the rest of the semester, she sat in the rear with her computer at hand while everyone else turned real pages and scribbled.   

She was a decent student, if I remember correctly. There was nothing notably poor about her work. She had no physical problems such as an injured hand that might make handwriting difficult. I didn’t notice any visual or aural problems during the semester that “assisted technologies” would ease, either. Her demeanor was ordinary; there were no signs of depression or anxiety. The disability was invisible to me. Did she need the computer to record or transcribe the lecture/discussion because she had a “processing” issue? Were e-versions of the poems and stories somehow easier for her to read (all the works were out of copyright and available online)? Whatever the problem, her attachment to the screen in every session and the readiness with which she declared her dependence indicated a deep relationship at work. The computer was more than a tool. 

A cynical soul might say the attachment was emotional, not physical or cognitive—a real, felt need, but not a remedy for an actual disability. That’s what I think, and maybe I’m wrong. The distinction doesn’t matter, though. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2019–20, 21 percent of undergraduates reported having a disability and the rate has surely gone up since then. The qualifications for it include “serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition.” The language is general, enough so as to give deference to claimants. What counts as serious? At what point does difficulty signal a disability? Much of that is up to the disabled one, whose lived experience is decisive.   

Back on campus, the policy is clear. If a laptop helps a student concentrate, then regardless of the cause of the trouble and the manner in which the device helps, accommodations must be made. In its 2008 amendment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Congress stated that disability involves (among other things) “an impairment that substantially limits one major life activity.” Subsequent federal regulations ensured that the law would not draw too bright a line at what “substantially” means: “An impairment need not prevent or severely or significantly limit a major life activity to be considered ‘substantially limiting’” Also in the amendment, Congress flagged its expansive intent by stating that the definition of disability “shall be construed in favor of broad coverage of individuals under the Act.”  

Colleges and universities have gotten the message, for while it is true that Emory requires third-party documentation of disability, the document may take the form of a note from a practitioner on letterhead merely confirming the diagnosis or its “impact” on the patient’s life. Indeed, when it comes to qualifying, Emory’s disability services office assures applicants that “one of the most important aspects of the process is each student’s own description of their experiences and barriers.” This reliance on self-description is a common practice. Federal law gives Emory and every other recipient of federal funds no options. 

It’s no surprise, then, that claims at elite schools have jumped. Ivy Leaguers are ambitious and nervous. They’ve worked their way toward admissions for years, piling up AP courses, volunteer activities, and extracurriculars. The system has taught them to become a career in process, one that can collapse because of one bad morning during finals week. They shone in high school, and now that they’re in college, they’re surrounded by fellow shiners. Competition is fierce, pre-med and STEM classes a bruising gauntlet, and failure an inconceivable horror. Some of them see disability as a competitive edge. Others genuinely succumb to anxiety and need help. The young lady in my class felt less alone with the screen close by. There is nothing for professors to do about this. What happens to such individuals, though, when college and grad school end, they enter the workplace, and disability of the “difficulty concentrating” kind doesn’t draw as much sympathy as it does in higher education? Do they wish to maintain their status once the world of tests and grades is left behind? 

Image licensed via Adobe Stock.