Jennifer Wu is a first-year doctoral student who is paralyzed on the left side of her body.

This fall, she asked the University of Colorado Boulder for help with trash pickup at her campus-owned apartment because it’s physically impossible for her to lift the trash into the outside dumpster while holding the lid open. The university denied her request, according to an email provided by Wu, suggesting she ask a friend for help or hire a third-party caretaker.

“They said my request for trash pickup is not something that the university is required to accommodate because it’s a personal service,” Wu said.

She also asked Disability Services for class-to-class transportation via a golf cart or other vehicle, given that her ability to walk is minimal. Disability Services is the office at CU Boulder that approves or denies disability accommodations, which are adjustments made within the university so students with disabilities can have equal opportunities.

The Disability Services office does not provide class-to-class transportation, so Wu’s request was denied. The office instead offered reasonable tardiness, priority registration and remote attendance which they said “would be equally effective alternatives” for class-to-class transportation, according to communications between Wu and Disability Services.

“Every other university has it and (CU Boulder) denied it,” she said.

Wu said she was accustomed to class-to-class transportation via golf cart while attending undergraduate school at the California Institute of Technology. Additionally, CU Denver has a specially designated accessible shuttle for students with disabilities and so does Colorado State University.

CU Boulder spokesperson Stacy Wagner did not say why Wu’s accommodations were denied.

“Without student consent, we are unable to provide information on specific cases due to FERPA, a federal student privacy law,” Wagner wrote in an email.

Wagner said CU Boulder does not provide personal services, but the Buff Bus and CU Night Ride, which offers on-campus transportation for all students, is ADA accessible.

“Class-to-class transportation is considered a personal service and we cannot accommodate personal services,” she wrote.

Wu experienced the rupture of an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM, which is a tangle of blood vessels in her brain. The rupture in her brain, which happened when she was in undergraduate school, put her in a three-day coma and left half of her body paralyzed.

Wu can’t walk from her on-campus apartment in Athens North to the nearest CU Boulder bus stop due to her disability. She also can’t walk the lengths needed around campus to get to some of her classes, and she can’t drive.

After being denied class-to-class transportation, Wu purchased a mobility scooter in August for $1,600. She uses the scooter to get to her classes from her apartment and back. While scooters are allowed on the buses, Wu said she tried to bring hers on the bus once but there’s limited space that makes it impractical.

“I’ve been feeling pretty unwelcome here,” Wu said. “I feel like they’re treating me like a burden and it’s pretty hard. But I’m also kind of just angry.”

Grievance

Wu filed a grievance with Disability Services after the accommodations for trash pickup and class transportation were denied. In it, she brought up reimbursement for the scooter.

“I was kind of forced to make this purchase and they denied that as well because it’s a ‘personal service,’” Wu said.

A student at CU Boulder can file a grievance with Disability Services after being denied accommodation or receiving an accommodation they feel is ineffective. According to information acquired in a public records request, there have been eight grievances filed with Disability Services in 2024 so far. In 2023, 10 grievances were filed.

In the spring semester, CU Boulder Disability Services granted at least one accommodation to 4,026 students, which is roughly 10% of the student body. The spring semester was the first time CU Boulder had not seen an increase in demand for its services since the fall of 2018. The number of students served through the Disability Services office decreased by about 100.

In August of last year, some students reported facing barriers to accessing disability accommodations. Students shared stories of feeling unwelcome and discriminated against at CU Boulder for their disability, with one student reporting difficulty graduating.

Wu is involved in the Association for Students with Disabilities student group on campus. She’s working with other students in the group hoping to build a safe and supportive community for disabled students on campus.

Since last year, Wagner said CU Boulder has added staff to the Disability Services office and introduced a space called Access+. There were 15 full-time employees in the Disability Services office last fall, and now there are 21.

“Disability Services is consistently evaluating how to further allocate resources to improve upon the services we provide,” Wagner wrote.

Access+ includes adjustable and flexible seating, sensory-friendly lighting and equipment, study tools and stress-reduction activities like fidget toys and slime kits.

“We’ve transformed a section of our office in the C4C (Center for Community building) into a vibrant hub, offering a flexible and welcoming space for relaxation, study and socialization,” Wagner wrote. “Through collaborative programming and innovative resources, Access+ is intended to enrich the academic and social lives of students, fostering a sense of belonging and achievement.”

The university did grant Wu other accommodations including extra time for exams and preferential seating. Wu lives in an accessible apartment on campus that includes a roll-in shower and automatic doors.

“That’s the one thing they did right that I’m happy with,” she said.

Wagner said some of the most common accommodations granted by Disability Services include extra time on tests, note-taking assistance, sign language interpreting, accessible furniture, breaks or preferential seating in class, flexibility on attendance, exams, quizzes and deadlines, housing adjustments and emotional support animals.

But, Wu’s apartment wasn’t a guarantee. Over the summer, Wu was on a waitlist for on-campus graduate housing even after she was granted the apartment accommodations.

Thinking she might not get the accessible on-campus apartment, Wu asked Disability Services if they could provide resources for accessible apartments in Boulder and was redirected to the off-campus housing website that every student uses. Nothing was targeted for students with mobility impairments, so she contacted the mechanical engineering department where she would be pursuing a doctoral degree.

“I was panicking a lot,” Wu said.

Daven Henze, a CU Boulder mechanical engineering professor and Wu’s advisor, has supported Wu as she’s tried to get accommodations from the university.

Henze said a colleague inquired about her housing and Wu was able to secure an apartment. He doesn’t know if she simply got lucky, or if hearing from the department played a role.

“All I know is that those channels were explored and all of the sudden they gave her a spot,” Henze said. “Even though they, being housing, said they didn’t have a separate list.”

Wu said she’s “not very pleased” with the Disability Services office and how she’s been treated.

“My impression so far is that they don’t want to do their job and they’re kind of lazy in how they respond to my requests. It’s constantly just ‘Oh, the university doesn’t already provide this, so no.’”

Disability Services told Wu the bus is a good option, which she thought was “hilarious.”

“They told me, a person with paralysis, to walk 20 minutes to the bus,” Wu said.

CU Athletics used to assist injured players in transportation around campus. Wagner said that that service ended five years ago.

“CU Boulder provides accessible transportation via Buff Busses and Night Rides and students can access the wide range of RTD accessible transportation services,” she wrote.

‘Their approach is very standardized’

Despite being denied class transportation and trash pickup, Wu has come up with solutions. She purchased the scooter to get around, and after asking for help, the graduate housing department allows her to leave her trash in the laundry room for pickup.

“I think feeling included and represented is an important thing,” Henze said, adding, “Yeah she figured it out, she’s an engineer and a problem solver. She could do that, but it would be nice if the university had the time and resources to be able to look into a new policy, even if it’s really small, like how can we help a student with their trash?”

After Wu’s grievance was denied, she started an appeal process. Wu said she hasn’t received an official decision on her appeal yet, but the assistant vice chancellor of health and wellness services who handles appeals has been communicative and responsive to her needs. She said he’s working with facilities to exchange the existing dumpster behind her apartment with a dumpster that has an accessible side opening that slides open.

While she’s optimistic about the outcome of the appeal, Wu said the fact that she had to file an appeal on top of a grievance to try and get a reasonable accommodation is frustrating and exhausting.

“It feels like they’re very unmotivated to actually accommodate students with disabilities, or at least their approach is very standardized and they try to do a one-size-fits-all all kind of approach to all students,” Wu said. “But each disability is different and requires different considerations.”

Wagner said there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

“Instead, we approach every student’s needs on an individualized basis through an interactive process, as laid out in the Disability Services Student Procedure Manual, where a student will work with their designated Access Coordinator,” Wagner wrote. “Some processes may take longer than others depending on how involved the student’s accommodation request is.”

An access coordinator works with students on their accommodation needs. CU Boulder has nine full-time and two part-time access coordinators. Access coordinators are not medical professionals. Instead, they are trained on how to interpret medical documentation and student self-reports to determine reasonable accommodations based on disability laws. Minimum requirements include a bachelor’s degree in education, special education, psychology, rehabilitation, or closely related fields, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Henze said Wu’s scooter will be a problem in the winter when there’s snow and ice, and they’re not sure what the solution will be.

“She can work it out, we will help her get around,” Henze said. “People in our department office help her get around, but that’s

different than a formal university policy.”

The engineering department has a diversity, equity and inclusion program where Wu can apply for funding from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. The money is dedicated to supporting diversity and inclusion within the department. Henze said she can apply for those funds that can help, and it can go toward improving accessibility like fixing automatic doors in the engineering building that don’t work correctly.

Wu said working to get accommodations created a big disruption while she was trying to adjust to classes after moving from California.

“I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with the grievance and having to write an appeal,” Wu said. “But I’m also getting a lot of help from my PhD advisor. He’s really advocating for me.”

Henze said there wasn’t always a nuanced, considerate response to her requests and it was clear the university didn’t have a policy to accommodate her.

“It didn’t give her a super-welcoming sentiment with regard to the campus as a whole upon arriving and that was, I think, unfortunate because she’s a valuable student and we want to make her feel included,” Henze said.

She’s not falling behind, he said, but Wu is having to do more and that impacts how much time and energy she has for pursuing her doctorate.

“We spent the last couple of weeks, the bulk of our meeting time, discussing these issues and what progress she’s made and how I can help and what we can do, who we can reach out to,” he said. “And doing that instead of talking about her research.”

Henze said he’s concerned about Wu’s individual case and how it might impact other students.

“I’m conscious of all issues our graduate students are facing and (want to) make sure if there’s systemic issues at the university that there’s channels for addressing that,” Henze said. “Like why was disability services unable to respond in an accommodating manner? Is it a resource thing, is it a budget thing? Do they just not have enough people with the time to look into this? I can understand those being constraints but then I want to address that systematically.”

Wagner said CU Boulder does not have a systemic problem addressing the needs of disabled students on campus. She said the university does have enough funds, employees and other resources to respond to accommodation requests.

“As evidenced by our support of more than 4,000 students on campus, we do not have a systemic problem with addressing the needs of students with disabilities,” Wagner wrote. “We also acknowledge the challenges some of our students face with accommodations and want to continue to work with them to identify a reasonable solution that allows them to thrive at CU Boulder.”

Henze said there could be more attention from Disability Services about how responses are perceived and how the responses themselves could be different, considering what it would take to make that kind of change.

He said he’s sure there are other students in similar positions.

“I certainly as a professor see plenty of students come wintertime and ski accidents around campus on scooters and crutches and maybe they’re also frustrated,” Henze said, adding, “I think that there are some issues that could serve more students than just Jennifer, but I am proud of the fact that Jennifer has been pursuing her studies and her living arrangements with a really good attitude and staying positive and making jokes. I think she’s doing really well and I hope she doesn’t get too discouraged by some issues here in the startup process.”

Wu said CU Boulder should do better.

“Compared to every other university, they’re really behind,” Wu said. “I think accommodations need to be more individualized. I get that it’s a really big school and maybe they don’t want to spend as much time on an individual student, but I think that’s just an excuse.”