Clarity Needed on Accommodations for Disabilities

While there are many concerns the University needs to address, one that stands out immediately is this line: “When authorized as a University-approved accommodation for a documented disability.”

One must prove one has a disability to use a recording device? When I started at Princeton, I had ADHD. Because ADHD is so often overlooked in women, I did not receive formal documentation until I was 24, almost two years after I had already graduated from Princeton. National Geographic recently published an article about how many women go undiagnosed until adulthood. Getting diagnosed cost me at least $5,000 and a significant amount of time. Documentation for ADHD in particular is not a fair ask if it’s not easy to be diagnosed. Frankly, it would have been extremely helpful if I had been able to record certain meetings, and I now use tools like this regularly. I always ask for consent, but I imagine this becomes an additional burden if the meeting is a precept or a class.

The policy does not mention classes or precepts. It only references situations “when privacy would be reasonably expected.” What counts as reasonable? Would a student have to prove both that they have a disability and that a precept is not considered a private environment?

There are many journalistic concerns here, but at a practical level, this policy harms students. I worry that it harms students who, like me, have yet to figure out why they are less organized and have poorer working memories than some of their peers, despite being able to achieve at a high level inconsistently.

While I understand where the administration may be coming from with this rule, it feels half-baked and theoretical rather than grounded in practice and experience. I hope that there is more clarity to come.