By Ella Miller
When third-year student Laurence Price came to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in 2021, he was no stranger to the post-secondary environment. Price had already completed a general arts certificate at Seneca College and a bachelor’s and master’s* at York University and was returning to school at TMU in order to pursue a second bachelor’s degree in social work.
Price has dealt with various learning disabilities all throughout his life and developed a system of approaches to make his life in the classroom more manageable. This included recording the lectures he attends and working alongside a student notetaker.
“Even to get a notetaker, I had to argue with the school about it,” said Price. “I had to fight for everything on my accommodation sheet, explain who I am. For self-advocacy, I believe that it’s hard to advocate for others if you can’t advocate for yourself.”
Studying social work was a way for Price to formally expand his own advocacy and desire to help others who may have struggled as well. Most of this work has unfortunately been born of struggle and now, because of his own challenges in being heard, Price finds himself adept in finding classmates who may need someone to stick up for them.
“I had one student, he came up to me [after] I gave him my email,” said Price about one such occasion where he had spotted a peer in need. “He couldn’t get a laptop funded—I really lobbied the school to fund my laptop—and he said he really needed it, he had epilepsy. Unfortunately, he was failing all his grades so I taught him. I helped him with his work. I taught him how to get [the] attention of the facilitators.”
At TMU, this lobbying is mostly directed towards Accessibility Accommodation Support (AAS)—the primary governing body for students who require academic accommodation at the university due to disabilities. In theory, students with disabilities can register their needs with AAS—such as peer note-takers, extended time to complete tests and even funding for new equipment that can aid their learning.
“Even to get a notetaker, I had to argue with the school about it”
“I don’t think that they understand totally how much students struggle and there’s some of them that are not willing to listen to students,” said Price. “When students try to speak up, they’re labelled as troublemakers, they’re labelled as being too pushy. So I think it’s even a structural problem within the school or systemic.”
The Eyeopener reached out to the university for comment several times but did not receive a response in time for publication.
AAS was repeatedly described by sources as being underfunded and understaffed, leading to a backlog of accommodations not being met. These issues have been persistent with AAS for over a decade. The Eye has previously reported on the shortcomings of AAS—then the Ryerson Access Centre—such as alleged instances of tardiness in approving accommodation requests or ineffective “blanket solutions” from the university.
Acting in response to these long-standing issues, the Neurodiverse Students’ Association (NDSA) works to support neurodivergent students on campus. The group currently operates under the leadership of fifth-year engineering student Julian Ciaccia—who worked with AAS in the past as part of their student advisory committee but found the work to be draining.
“The language I would get in conversations with AAS staff is like ‘Oh we are doing something about it, we have a student subcommittee that’s working on bringing ideas to life for us,’” alleged Ciaccia. “Well that’s what they tell you, but when you actually go look at what these subcommittees do and what the committee does itself, it’s very much just the labour force.”
The NDSA operates on a more egalitarian model with an in-house advocacy team according to Ciaccia. They have also worked together to compile hundreds of resources that can be shared amongst fellow NDSA members with all manner of disabilities.
“We have what we call an independent resource module. It’s a bunch of resources that we’ve compiled and that have been tested by our membership, that they have used themselves,” shared Ciaccia. “We have 232 resources over 23 categories.”
“If you feel that you have been discriminated against on campus, you report it to us, provide the evidence and we will anonymously, on your behalf, investigate and kind of give shit to [the] faculty responsible,” he added.
The practice of interdependency—a pooling of resources to foster a sense of community—has long been a staple in disability justice movements, as defined by disabled writer and community organizer Mia Mingus in a blog post entitled, You Are Not Entitled to Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence.
“Interdependence is ultimately about ‘we,’ instead of ‘me,’” wrote Mingus. “It understands that we are bound together, by virtue of existing on this planet. Interdependence is generative and grounded in care for one another. It doesn’t live in obligation or entitlement, but rather a loving willingness and a sacred giving.”
However, digging deep and finding that energy to care can be difficult for those who are already navigating a post-secondary environment with a disability. As such, performing day-to-day tasks can become even more strenuous and exhausting.
Olivia Boonstra, the senior research officer at Eviance, formerly known as the Canadian Centre for Disability Studies, explained this form of social reproduction.
“The labour that students with disabilities have to put into their studies—into getting accommodated, into getting bursaries, into repayments—all of this stuff is incredible,” said Boonstra, who is also a TMU alumna and former employee with the school’s Office of Social Innovation.
Adding on to this is the fact that statistically, disabled folks are less likely to have the financial freedom to volunteer their time to advocacy work, according to a recent study by a team of researchers at York University.
Boonstra described some barriers students with disabilities who become part-time students or may otherwise take longer to finish their degrees can face because of the extended time to complete their programs.
“Often paying a lot more overall for your degree because you still have to pay really high tuition and fees, and you have to do that for much longer, so debt accumulates, quite a bit more,” said Boonstra.
Still, clubs like the NDSA and the Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union’s Student Access Collective are working to improve these conditions. Other clubs like Tetra’s TMU chapter—which doesn’t directly deal with disability advocacy—is working to innovate cost-effective solutions to accessibility barriers, such as attachable wheelchair headrests and hospital call buttons for people with limited mobility.
Even organizations like AAS, which are far more embedded in the university system, can provide some benefits.
“I won some awards, that’s how I do it,” said Price on how he has been supported at TMU. “I got money for therapists. They give $2,000 for counseling…I’ve got thousands of dollars in tutoring. They got me a laptop. They got me a lot of assistive technology.”
However, there remains one significant barrier to accessing all of this potential funding: a diagnosis. The first step on AAS’ website is to have a family doctor, psychiatrist or psychologist fill out a form confirming that the applicant does in fact have a disability.
It is understandable that organizations like AAS wish to ensure that their resources are only being allocated to people who have verifiable disabilities, as is consistent with the medical model of disability as described by the American Psychological Association. However, complications come into play with the financial and even geographical difficulties in obtaining a diagnosis.
“It’s hard to get assessed,” said second-year professional communications student Precious Ampadu. “I think that’s the one thing that is really, really daunting for students because there’s no resources on how we can get funding to get assessed and how to properly confirm [what] you have.”
Ampadu, who needed academic accommodations for ADHD, had to get a new family doctor to get the medical proof she needed.
“Thank God he’s a saint because he was able to help me get on an academic accommodation after my [original] family doctor just disappeared and went to a place outside of Toronto,” said Ampadu.
Ampadu’s gratitude is in no way misplaced. 2.5 million Ontarians are without family doctors, according to a 2024 report by the Ontario College of Family Physicians. Family doctors are currently the only way to receive diagnoses without paying fees for private specialists, which can run as high as $3,000, according to Boonstra.
Without a proper diagnosis, students can be left at the hands of professors who, while claiming they are entirely understanding of accommodations, only perpetuate ableist harm.
“I come from a low-income area with struggles in the criminal justice system, gun violence…I was dealing with a loss,” said Ampadu. “Even getting those professors, telling them that I was dealing with a loss, they didn’t care.”
“Even getting those professors, telling them that I was dealing with a loss, they didn’t care.”
“And that was something that was like, ‘Wow, high school and university are really different,’ profs really don’t care,” she added. “So I just wish they were able to get maybe more training, more knowledge on it through the school by mandatory training.”
Boonstra corroborated Ampadu’s suggestion.
“One of our recommendations [from Eviance] coming out of the project was training,” said Boonstra. “And specifically what we heard from faculty and staff was that training is often unpaid and kind of off the side of their desk, and so they often don’t have time for it. They don’t feel like it’s a major priority, or they can’t make it a priority because of the rest of their workload.”
While they wait for a fated day in the far-off future where society is ready and able to meet the needs of people with disabilities, advocates like Price and Ciaccia have their body of work to fall back on—work that they are proud of.
“We also do have a lot of informal hangouts throughout, so the members will congregate of their own free will and hangout—they’re all friends,” said Ciaccia. “Again, it’s about that community sense. And I think that’s our greatest achievement, is that we built the community.”
*A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Laurence Price was a fourth-year student and had completed a bachelor’s degree at Seneca College. The article has now been updated with the correct information.
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