OHSU, stop disability discrimination now! Graduate programs must comply with the ADA.

Steven Stadum, Drs. David Robinson, Allison Fryer, Matthew Lattal, and Marie Chisholm-Burns

Students at OHSU are being deprived of their federal rights protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA). The ADA has been in effect since 1990 and prohibits discrimination based on disability. OHSU created the Office for Student Access (OSA) to make sure that the graduate, undergrad, and other educational programs are compliant with the ADA. However, the OSA is under-staffed and under-resourced. Additionally, OSA’s recommended actions are being ignored by departments and faculty. This is resulting in students with disabilities being deprived of their federally protected rights at OHSU.

To: Steven Stadum, Drs. David Robinson, Allison Fryer, Matthew Lattal, and Marie Chisholm-Burns
From: [Your Name]

To Mr. Stadum, Drs. Robinson, Fryer, Lattal, and Chisholm-Burns,

We are calling on OHSU to take immediate action to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA) and its associated statutes. For students at OHSU, the Office for Student Access (the OSA) is where accommodations requests are processed so that departments and faculty employers are complying with the ADA. OHSU is ignoring compliance recommendations from the OSA and that OHSU is not providing adequate resources to the OSA to fulfill their intended responsibilities to the ADA.

In extreme cases, students are also facing discriminatory action and even termination from graduate programs when making accommodation requests. OHSU’s School of Medicine has failed to comply with the ADA by not properly training/advising faculty, allowing the removal of graduate students from research assignments after seeking accommodation, and creating insurmountable barriers to receive an accommodation. All educational and employment programs, including graduate programs, are required to comply with the ADA.

Currently the OSA only has four employees serving over 4,000 students. As a result several students report longer than normal wait times for case management due to understaffing. What’s more all budgetary decisions at the OSA are made by administrators who have no experience or knowledge with the ADA or the accommodations process.

We are making the following demands for OHSU to meet compliance with the ADA:

1) Comply with the ADA by giving all graduate students with disabilities an interactive process for developing an accommodation.
2) Training program directors and faculty to comply with accommodations and work with the OSA.
3) Graduate students who were advised to leave their assigned lab when seeking an accommodation will be immediately reinstated to their research assignment, have used leaves of absence restored, and have non-pass or failing grades be removed from their record.
4) Increase the funding to the OSA, hire two OSA accommodation coordinators, hire one OSA administrative assistant.
5) Increase the funding to the OSA for the equipment and technology needs, and budget autonomy to the professional staff with first hand experience working in compliance with the ADA.
6) Relocate the OSA to a building that is accessible.

We expect OHSU will respond by meeting our demands and comply with the ADA,

The undersigned graduate researchers and concerned community members.