This project showed that academic culture creates gaps in access between disabled and non-disabled computing PhD students, systematically disadvantaging disabled students. We identified how ableism—the act of privileging nondisabled people over those with disabilities—manifests across academic systems and culture. We initialized guidance for future students, faculty, and disability services staff for how to support PhD computing students with disabilities.

We studied how 30 PhD students with disabilities in computing disciplines work around access obstacles in their day-to-day research. Students in our studies were blind, low vision, deaf or hard of hearing, autistic or neurodivergent, and had mobility disabilities. We evaluated 18 university websites and interviewed 17 disability services staff to understand how institutions support disabled graduate students. We interviewed 14 faculty who served as PhD advisors to students with disabilities. In addition to engaging students, faculty, and staff, we analyzed how students with disabilities used research tools needed to complete their work. We led workshops to understand and facilitate communication across these groups for improved student support. 

This project was guided by the ACM’s code of ethics and approach to fairness and non-discrimination, “Technologies and practices should be as inclusive and accessible as possible and computing professionals should take action to avoid creating systems or technologies that disenfranchise or oppress people. Failure to design for inclusiveness and accessibility may constitute unfair discrimination.” This project documents how university infrastructure and academic culture discriminate against students with disabilities when materials, tools, and communications are inaccessible to them. For instance, labs may not be navigable by wheelchair users, or they may not have haptically distinguishable lab equipment a blind student can access, or communication with chat messaging may block visual awareness of ongoing conversations for deaf students. Social practices signal assumptions that students are not disabled, and that they are expected to communicate their needs and to obtain their own support. But our work showed that disability services offices do not know how to manage graduate student needs (i.e., access to advanced tools for data analysis); PhD advisors are unaware of these challenges and expect students to navigate these issues independently, often without necessary resources. Consequently, students employ inefficient trial and error approaches, including spending their own money to gain access. Many graduate programs have timelines that do not account for such effort, thus unfairly penalizing disabled students by increasing their time to degree compared to nondisabled peers. We provide an example below.

A graduate student may use software to analyze large datasets in their research. Such analysis involves visually checking charts and graphs for patterns because it is easier to perceive a trend from lines on a graph than to discern one from a spreadsheet of thousands or millions of numbers. A blind student may not have visual access to charts and graphs. Meanwhile, the software used to process large datasets produces charts without alternative text describing the visualization. The student may try other tools, they may ask a lab-mate to describe the charts to them, or they may try to adjust parameters to make the charts easier to see (make lines bolder, adjust colors), especially if the student is low vision and has some sight. These strategies require time and resources – for instance to pay an undergraduate to describe the charts – which delays the project and increases time to graduation. The student’s limited access to the visual charts is not reflective of their ability to analyze the data; they successfully complete the analysis when they gain access to the visual information. This research ecosystem assumed that student could see, which in turn disallowed resources, e.g., disability services are unprepared to provide support to access charts, or analysis tools lack visual description options. By contrast, not assuming the student can see the visualization enables processes to find tools and support, e.g., disability services could prepare student helpers trained on visual description who could be called upon as needed.

To explore best practices in supporting students, this project engaged deaf and hard of hearing master’s students to research the accessibility of usability methods for researchers who use American Sign Language (ASL). This work trialed how structuring accessible spaces and providing ASL interpreter support enabled ASL signing deaf and hard of hearing students to effectively conduct research.

Academic culture and structure that excludes disabled students comprises two parts: access differential and inequitable access. The bias in academic culture and systems can be measured as the access differential – the gap between what nondisabled and disabled students have access to; the disadvantage it creates is inequitable access – the severity of that gap and its impact on student success. Assuming that graduate students do not have disabilities disadvantages and unfairly burdens disabled students. With access, disabled graduate students are capable of conducting high quality research. In academia, the most disabling condition is inaccessibility. 

Last Modified: 04/21/2025
Modified by: Kristen Shinohara