Disability activists are calling for action to address the discrimination and ableism faced by students and students with disabilities and to implement laws that should protect them.
They were speaking at the launch of UK Disability History Month (UKDHM), which this year focuses on disability, children and young people.
Mette Anwar Westernder, founder and CEO of Disabled Students UK, is part of the Disabled Students Network at University College London (UCL), which published a report earlier this year about the discrimination they face.
Since the report was released, she has started hearing from students with disabilities at other universities raising similar concerns, she said at the launch event.
Following meetings with fellow students from across the country, Disabled Students UK (DSUK) was founded.
This year, DSUK conducted its largest survey to date of disabled students enrolled in UK higher education institutions, taking input from over 1,300 disabled students.
Anwar-Westerner said the project proves that the disability rights movement has led to advances in supporting university students with disabilities that were “unthinkable 25 years ago.”
But she said the findings also showed that “in many ways the law is not being enforced.”
She said: “Despite having a right to an equal education with their non-disabled peers, only 35% of students said they actually receive the supports and adjustments they need to achieve this.”
The 2020 report, which was welcomed by UCL at the time, included findings from a survey into disabled students, which revealed that two-thirds (67%) of students had experienced disability discrimination by UCL, and almost three-fifths (58%) said they had felt unwelcome at the university because of their disability.
Susanna Cheng, postgraduate student and disabled student officer at University College London (UCL) and campaigns assistant for DSUK, said that many disabled students at UCL “report that they have lost trust in the system” because previous feedback, including the 2020 report, “has not delivered any substantive change”.
She called for reforms such as implementing reasonable accommodations at universities, creating grievance procedures to hold those responsible for disability discrimination “accountable” and ensuring disability awareness and equality training is provided to all students and staff to “make campus cultures more inclusive.”
Richard Leeser, founder of UK Disability History Month, said there was “a lot to fight for and a lot to change” with 191,000 disabled children currently being educated in segregated schools.
“In an education system that is run on eugenic principles, there is a need to respect differences and remove barriers to access and communication,” he said. “This needs to be challenged as a violation of human rights.”
Rieser said there was also a need to enforce existing disability equality laws, which should ban discrimination and harassment in schools and universities but are rarely enforced.
He also said he was disappointed that the new Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, had returned to government after being responsible for reversing what the previous Prime Minister saw as a “bias towards inclusion in schools” in the 2010 coalition government.
“Now we need to take another leap forward to ensure all children are accepted and part of the community,” Reaser said.
Daniel Kebede“I truly believe that with enough resources and the right funding, most pupils can thrive alongside their peers – this is something we absolutely must fight for,” said the national education union’s general secretary, who hosted the launch event in central London.
He said the government’s “focus should be on creating a school system that is inclusive and fit for purpose to educate all young people.”
But he said “building inclusion requires investment – funding, time for staff to do their job well and a change in the whole culture of education.”
He added: “The Government’s Special Educational Needs (SEN) and disability policy is primarily aimed at saving money, rather than providing young people with what they need to thrive in an inclusive education system. It is vital that we return the focus to young people and enable them to advocate for themselves.”
Yewande Akintelu Omoniyi, Youth Officer at the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) ‘Our Voice’, told the UKDHM event that discovering the disability movement at the age of 19 changed her life after a mainstream education where she faced ableism and discrimination.
She said: “I realised that the discrimination I had experienced was not my fault.
“It allowed me to empathize with other young people who were experiencing the same barriers.”
But she said she still feels left out because she is often the only Black disabled person at disability rights events.
She said: “That’s why joining ALLFIE’s Disabled Black Lives Matter group was so helpful.”
“I was able to meet people who understood my experience as a black disabled person.
“To all young disabled people growing up and struggling with their identity, I want to say: What you’re going through right now is not your fault. The world hasn’t yet realised how amazing you are.”
“I and many others will continue to fight for you to get closer to a more equal world for you, but until then, keep believing in yourself.”
Dr Milo Griffiths, co-director of the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds, advised against trying to “establish a youth voice” within the disability movement.
He said: “I think that’s really damaging to what we’re trying to achieve in the disability movement, which is to think about all of our ideas in the process of resistance, to articulate an alternative vision for an inclusive society, and to think about how we can thrive with collaborations and ideas that come from different communities, whether that’s youth groups, or people from ethnic minority communities, or people who bring in the intersection of sexuality and disability.”
Disability independence activist Ellen Goody told how she had had a mainstream education from kindergarten to university in Newham, an east London borough that pioneered the inclusive education system in the 1980s.
She said: “It means I’m part of a community, I have lots of friends and I have a great life.”
Her mother, Linda Jordan, was one of a group of parents who worked with Newham Council in the early 1980s to close a special school and allow disabled children to attend local mainstream schools.
Jordan ran for local council elections and became chairman of Newham’s education committee.
She said: “We approached this issue from a human rights perspective: that these are eugenic ideas that are no longer acceptable, and that it is morally wrong to segregate people based on socially constructed labels.”
“What we discovered was that having kids go to their local school was actually great for everyone. Education for everyone improved and teachers felt a great joy in teaching because it forced them to think about how to include everyone.”
“We’ve been able to break down that barrier so that smart people no longer seem more important. In fact, educational attainment has improved dramatically, and educational attainment has improved for all children.”
She told the meeting that the “backsliding” on inclusion under the current administration was “shocking and utterly frustrating”.
*Special educational needs
Pictured: (L to R) Ellen Goody, Mette Anwar Westernder and Yewande Akintele Omoniyi
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