Disability Rights Issue
Online Education Is a Disability Rights Issue
Author: Brittany R. Collins
Date: 2019
From: Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection
Publisher: Gale, a Cengage Company
Document Type: Viewpoint essay
Length: 1,230 words
Content Level: (Level 4)
Lexile Measure: 1250L
Full Text:
Article Commentary
“Despite the fact that respected institutions are increasingly incorporating online learning into their milieus, there remains a
pervasive stigma surrounding the validity and value of online degrees.”
Brittany R. Collins is a writer on education issues, group manager at Write the World LLC, and a reader for the Harvard Review and
New England Review. In the following viewpoint, she urges institutions of higher education to think of online education as a disability
rights issue. Collins draws from her own experiences as a student who became disabled during her undergraduate degree and could
no longer physically attend classes on campus. The author argues that online learning and online degree programs offer great
potential for expanding education opportunities for students with disabilities a population of students that faces unique barriers to
access and degree completion. Collins suggests that, in addition to investing in more well-rounded and robust online learning
opportunities, colleges and universities will also need to address negative attitudes toward online degrees among many educators
and employers.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. How does the author use her personal experience to demonstrate the importance of providing online education options for
students with disabilities?
2. According to the author, how does the issue of student loan debt affect students with disabilities differently from other
populations of students?
3. In your opinion, what kinds of actions could colleges and universities take in attempting to destigmatize online degree
programs? Explain your answer.
From a young age, I fantasized about getting a Ph.D. more than I ever dreamed of my wedding. Learning was, and continues to be,
my greatest love. For that reason, when the onset of a physical disability forced me to leave college after my sophomore year, I was
faced with the task of recalibrating.
How could I continue to learn and grow in an academic environment if my body did not allow me to return to campus? How could I
forge a path to self-sufficiency? As an education major, could I still contribute to the field even if my standing at the front of a
classroom was precluded?
Disability in Higher Ed
Though isolated, I knew that I was not alone in my predicament. One in 5 Americans lives with a disability, and one in 10 has a
severe condition (https://www.ssa.gov/disabilityfacts/facts.html). As an American studies professor once told me and a lecture hall of
classmates, we are fragile; despite what mainstream culture leads us to believe, young people are no exception even if our
prefrontal cortices tell us otherwise (https://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/econ/fs153_ssdi.pdf).
The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (https://www.ada.gov/) added breadth to the educational opportunities afforded students
with disabilities: 2007 08 and 2011 12 studies conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics show that 11 percent
of college students reported having a disabling condition, which is not an insignificant fraction of the general student body
(https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=60).
