A York doctoral student had Counselling and Disability Services change guidelines for students wanting to access academic accommodations, as students now have their privacy protected, and no longer have to disclose their specific mental health diagnosis to register for academic accommodations.
“This case was my attempt to give all York students the chance to be given accommodation because we are all doing the right thing by going to school, working a job on the side, and trying our best to read the copious amounts of information we are assigned,” says Navi Dhanota, graduate student.
Dhanota was asked to provide a DSM-IV diagnosis, or psychiatric label, in order to receive accommodations during her undergraduate degree at another university.
“I had to undergo a number of meetings with a psychiatrist before I was considered eligible to receive academic accommodations,” says Dhanota.
“After three sessions, I was subsequently diagnosed with six possible DSM diagnoses, none of which I identified with.”
When she was originally accepted into a graduate program at York, Dhanota says, she realized York had a similar process for being granted academic accommodations.
“I refused to be forced into identifying my experiences using the medical model, which sees my requirement for accommodations as being a result of my own deficiencies. Instead, I was of the opinion that there are external factors which could create disablement, and a psychiatric label only pathologized my experiences.”
Dhanota asked CDS if they would allow her to register without a diagnosis.
“I was told I could not,” says Dhanota.
“With the knowledge I had of the Ontario Human Rights Code, I filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.”
The biggest hurdle for Dhanota, she says, was being forced to argue she did not want to disclose her diagnosis because of privacy concerns.
“However, I pursued this complaint so intensely because I see that there are an intersection of reasons why a student would require accommodations and are not from their internal deficiencies, the issue is systemic. Filing this complaint was a way to engage with the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s commitment to intersectional analysis and to clarify the academic accommodation process at all universities in Ontario.”
The Ontario Human Rights Commission along with York, sent a press release out on the issue this morning, stating how Dhanota, represented by ARCH Disability Law Centre, York, and the OHRC, worked collaboratively to develop revised guidelines for accommodations.
“Maintaining control and privacy over one’s confidential medical information is particularly important given the strong social stigma associated with mental health disabilities,” says Chief Commissioner Renu Mandhane, OHRC.
“I am pleased to see York University taking this important step to ensure its students get the accommodations they need without having to first disclose their mental health diagnosis.”
The OHRC urges other post-secondary institutions to do the same.
Excalibur got a chance to sit down with Dhanota to speak further on this policy change. View the full interview below:
[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBHp5NBSaH0″ width=”440″ height=”300″]
Ryan Moore, News Editor
Featured image courtesy of Michael Zusev, Photo Editor
Very smart lady. Congratulations on the win.
I can not wait for sentences…. or even more words! We’ve just realized in the past few weeks that Bridget understands A LOT of what we say. Ask her to do something and she’s on it immediately. It was scary at first- like, Crap! What else is she un?etsranding!d!?!? :).-= Andrea’s last blog post: =-.