Dr. Whitney Rapp: So, the first thing that
we really need to do is to shift our
thinking a little bit. We need to... 
And this really connects to a lot of the
experiences that I heard Kim talk about.
We need to shift our thinking from
disability as a deficit to disability as a
difference or as diversity. Alright.
And that's really shifting from the 
medical model of disability, which views
disability as a social construction that
views disability as something that is
broken or sick and needs to be fixed or
cured and we want to move away from that
thinking to a social model of disability.
And that social model views disability as an
aspect of one's diversity and therefore, 
not something to be viewed negatively.
This has to happen in all that we say
and do, not just reactively when a problem
occurs but proactively in all of our
language, all of our written materials,
all of the wording that we use, how we 
approach our teaching and how we
approach our environments. 
Thornton and Downs published an article
in 2010. They are the University Of Arkansas,
Little Rock, and they have talked about
the need to shift this paradigm right at
the root in the disability, the office of
disability services, and they changed all
of their language, they changed the name
of their department to the office of
disability resource center rather than
disability services or support services.
So it took the focus away from students
need support to students and their team
come up with resources together that are
better match for their environment. 
And they changed their mission, things
like that. So the whole idea is it is not 
just top down. It is bottom up, to the sides
every which way. Alright so as we are
shifting our thinking and how we really
view disability from the core, we want 
to shift our practice from kind of
operating under the letter of the law
to operating under the spirit of the law.
If we look at just the letter of the law
right now there is just two pieces of
legislation that govern the accommodations
that we provide in higher education.
The first is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation 
Act, and this is from 1973. And in the
non-discrimination clause it reads that 
"no otherwise qualified individual with a
disability in the United Stated as defined
in section 705(20) of the title, shall
solely be reason of her or his 
disability, be excluded from the
participation in, be denied the benefits
of or be subjected to discrimination
under any program or activity receiving
Federal financial assistance or under any
program or activity conducted by an 
executive agency." Blah blah blah blah.
The second piece is the Americans with
Disabilities Act, which is from 1990.
So some years later and that is and that 
reads that "no qualified individual with a
disability shall be by reason of such 
disability excluded from participation in
or be denied the benefits of the services
programs or activities of a public entity."
So what I want to focus your attention to 
is the phrase that appears in both pieces
of those legislation and that is the, "no
person shall be excluded from participation
in or be denied the benefits of..." 
education.
So Section 504 started it with anything
that is federally funded and ADA brought
it to any sector. So if we are thinking
about strictly the letter of the law, what
this is telling us is we cannot bar anyone
from applying to and being accepted to a
program because they have a disability
and we have to provide their documented
accommodations. If we stretch to 
operating solely from that letter of the
law, alright we are going to let them in
and alright we're going to provide those
accommodations to stretching ourselves
to thinking about the spirit of the law
and what we're going to start thinking
is it is going to broaded our idea of what
access means. To mean equitable experience
and opportunity for achievement. Not just
physical access, not just isolated
accommodations, but equitable experience
and opportunity for achievement. 
Alright. And it doesn't mean just not
exclude. It means to include, truly 
include everyone. Not just people with
disabilities, not just people without 
disabilities. Everyone.
So a quote that I take from Sapon Shevin
from her book, "Widening the Circle"
is the idea of embracing inclusion as 
a core value means committing to serving
all students in that model over time and
consistently. It makes little sense;
therefore, to talk about partial 
inclusion since this violates the basic
principle of inclusion, everybody all the
time consistently. Everywhere.
Alright. So an important thing to say about
that is that is not a promise of success.
The spirit of the law is a belief and a 
practice of equitable experience and
opportunity for success. It is presuming 
competence. I know they can do it,
but they still have to show me they
can do it.
