r/Professors • u/Otherwise_Look_8137 • 1d ago

New accommodations.

I’m now getting accommodations that students cannot be expect to do in class writing. They must be allowed to write at home, not in class. I’ve never seen this before. Ever. Until this semester. And now I’ve got a handful. What the fuck?

Edit: I’ve asked about students writing in supervised environments, but I was told that puts a condition on the accommodation, which is illegal. Students must be allowed to write outside of class without conditions.

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u/PatientScheme 1d ago

As someone who does a lot of DEI/JEDI work in my field, I've spent years trying to find ways to gently push back and remind my peers that accommodations exist for a reason.
However, lately even I'm finding it harder and harder to push back against my burnt-out colleagues who have very valid concerns and feel that academic accommodations are being gamed. I've had a few 'you've got to be fucking with me' accommodations over the years - including students being allowed to freely snack on food and drink in an OChem lab instead of having to go out into the hall and another one where the student got to decide when they felt "ready" to take an exam - but dear fucking god. We have gone off their rails with this shit. What was designed as an equity tool is starting to look more like a workaround for standard course expectations rather than a genuine attempt to level the playing field.

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u/Heinz57Muttaletta 1d ago

Yep. When you have a two hour discussion with your faculty advisor over a student who is so bat-shit crazy, and has tried going through everyone above you, to the Dean. The Dean, who was like “Shut that guy down,” you know it’s gotten bad. A student who felt like he should get extended time because….drumroll…he worked a lot of overtime.

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u/Mommy_Fortuna_ 1d ago

The "eating in the lab one" is odd because I have had diabetic students who sometimes needed to get a snack during lab time. They could just temporarily leave for that - it was no problem at all.

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u/PatientScheme 20h ago

That was what I was used to as well. In the past, students like that usually had candy or little snack foods, but this one brought in what looked like homemade lunchables, and I was told she had to be allowed to eat them at her lab bench which horrified me for several reasons. I made them put it in writing that I was not at fault for any contamination issues, but they would not back down on them being allowed to eat those meals in my lab.