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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Handicapped accessibility: the civil rights movement of the future

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Tufts University, a bastion of liberalism and progressivism in the heart of Massachusetts. Who would think that a policy of our university directly and actively discriminates against those members of the student body who happen to be disabled? Since our inception as a college in 1852, Tufts has considered itself a forward-looking and well-meaning, beneficent institution bent on ameliorating the problems of the world, one student group at a time.

However, it reflects quite poorly on our school if we are unable to advance the plight of the handicapped in our midst with such great resources available. A host of other colleges have mandated that fraternities and sororities all across their campuses update their facilities to offer equal accessibility to those who are unable to ascend the steps as a typical brother or sister would.

Unfortunately, the efforts to do so on our campus have been at best lackluster. The most recent update to our handicap accessibility on campus came a long five years ago, when West Hall, Metcalf Hall and South Hall were renovated to include an appropriate degree of handicap accessibility to accommodate the Tufts student body. This era of renovations failed even to begin to address the problem of fraternity handicap non-accessibility. Each and every fraternity and sorority house, in fact, denies access to the disabled members of our Tufts family as, unfortunately, they are all accessible only via staircase.

Fortunately, there is hope for the cause of handicap accessibility for fraternity and sorority life on campus as there has been some debate recently on the strong merits of universal accessibility on campus.

President Monaco, as well as many faculty, have spoken out against human rights violations and all manner of other social issues worldwide, yet seemingly do nothing to combat this injustice which happens to be so prevalent on our very own campus.

However, it is not to say that updating the accessibility of fraternity and sorority houses across campus will be easy; rather, it may be cost-prohibitive for some of the smaller, less well-endowed Greek organizations here at Tufts. Following the lead of many other institutions of higher learning that have already mandated a change in this policy, a subsidization of renovation costs would go a long way to facilitate meaningful and lasting change.

Moreover, it is necessary to inform the student body of the heightened importance of this issue, especially as we move forward with a variety of other non-discrimination and equality movements, such as the recent debate over the Committee on Student Life’s allowing religious exemption from the non-discrimination policy.

Student involvement with pressuring the administration is perhaps one of the most important tools that activists use to force positive change in any number of organizations across the country. With proper publicity, the students at Tufts can be galvanized for yet another cause, which calls for the utmost degree of concern and attention in our modern era. In furthering the push for equality for the disabled members of our community, however, we must be wary of over-radicalization and alienation of various, legitimate concerns. We must approach the issue in a way that fosters compassionate, reasonable discussion, focused on policy, rather than ideology. By doing so, change can be made. The importance of improving accessibility to the fraternity and sorority houses on campus is not simply a problem for Tufts, but rather an endemic societal issue whose death-knell has long tolled. We must actively facilitate action against discrimination towards our disabled brothers and sisters, rather than insulting them with inaccessible social environments. We must continue to pursue a more equal, fair and just community — one that embodies that original vision of progressivism set forth by the founders of our great university.

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James Golden is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at James.Golden@tufts.edu