Abes, Abrams, and Floyd (the authors) note that while Universal Design is a way faculty can work against academic ableism and create more accessible classes that Universal Design still relies on often non-fluid definitions of disability and assumes that disabled students would have the same predictable needs throughout the course, this is how the authors differentiate between a class that utilizes universal design and a cripped class.

Universal Design vs. Cripped Classes

While the authors gesture at the idea that access needs can change throughout a semester, I think that the authors fail to properly address the idea of conflicting access needs. Conflicting access needs is the term used to describe when students have access needs that are completely or nearly mutually exclusive taking into account the physical space. One example of conflicting access needs would be a student needed dimmed lights because of sensory sensitivities and another student needing bright overhead lights because they are low-vision. There is this idea that we can make spaces that are completely accessible but this gets complicated by conflicting access needs.

Conflicting Access Needs

- Flexible Environments
- Built-in Supports
- Cripping Office Hours
- Supplemental Supports

Ways Faculty Can Build Cripped Classrooms

The author's acknowledge how there is a tension between ensuring student access needs are met and requiring disclosure. While the author's ultimately decide that a cripped classroom should not require student disclosure for accessibility to be present there is noting that there is a tension between access and disclosure.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Even when students go through formal accommodation processes students are still required to engage in forced access intimacy with professors and often peers through the process of discussing and disclosing their accommodations. While this forced access intimacy may be easier to identify in conversations where professors ask questions about student's medical conditions in response to students disclosing their accommodations there is still forced access intimacy in having to disclose your accommodations to begin with.

Forced Access Intimacy in  Disability Disclosure

Abrams, E. J., Floyd, C. E., & Abes, E. S. (2024). Prioritizing Crip Futures: Applying Crip Theory to Create Accessible Academic Experiences in Higher Education. Disability Studies Quarterly, 43(4). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v43i4.8270

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