Price notes that when slow rolling becomes visible, for instance in the case of Jacky needing more course releases, apologies are routinely offered along with even more harmful delays, in the case of Jacky having to request more course releases from the Dean and Provost, apologies are seen by academic systems as a form of redress despite the fact that they do nothing to change the harms occuring.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Jacky is a blind woman of colour professor in a tenure track job, her institution was slow to provide accommodations like a reader, screen reading software and a scanner. Since Jacky didn't have access to the accommodations she needed she ended up using half of her eight course buyouts in the first three semesters, which are supposed to be used over five years to support tenure-track faculty with research activity. This was paired with Jacky hiring a reader who then left the institution which left her with no reader mid semester. When Jacky appealed to her department chair for more course releases after her first year she was only offered an apology and then was cast by her dean and provost as being too needy and demanding. When course releases were finally discussed administration wanted to grant them on the basis of low-productivity instead of lack of accommodation which would've negatively impacted her chance at getting tenure.

Example from Participant: Jacky

Price notes that slow rolling and its effects are often invisibilized because of dominant narratives in academic that academic accommodations are smooth, linear and instituted promptly, and that the process of accommodations is easily navigable.

Invisibilization of Slow Rolling

Price, M. (2024). Crip Spacetime. Duke University Press.

Crip Spacetime

When Slow Rolling Becomes Visible

While the Disabled Academics Study does not account for the experiences of disabled students, by design, this invisibilization of slow rolling also impacts students with students who have hard times accessing accommodations because of lack of biocertification (often lack of access to diagnostic paperwork), or whose accommodations get implemented late or midway through the semester are immediately cast as lazy or unprepared because of a lack of understanding by non-disabled faculty members and graduate students about the slow rolling of accommodations.

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