‘…but if you tell anyone, I’ll deny we ever met:’ the experiences of academics with invisible disabilities in the neoliberal university

Abstract

In the contemporary academy, scholars are expected to deliver highly measurable outcomes in order to build positive reputations for themselves and their institutions. The disclosure of any form of disability, within academe’s predominantly ableist culture, risks raising concerns about a faculty member’s professional competence to achieve expected results. This article is derived from a doctoral study based on qualitative interviews with 16 professors who self-identify as being invisibly disabled. The findings point to a pervasive culture of ableism and disability avoidance in the neoliberal academy. Participants discuss the often-negative impact of disability in their professional lives, which can be exacerbated by intersecting dimensions of differentness attached to their self-identities. The results of this study suggest that for faculty members who disclose an impairment, hoping to have their needs accommodated, the social response within the academy may be inimical, regardless of what policy or employment law requires of institutional administrators. This is clearly the reason why many participants say they only disclose if it seems absolutely necessary, even though they provide ample evidence that their differentness need not hamper their performance or their contribution to overall productivity.

Keywords:

• Neoliberal universities
• higher education
• ableism
• performativity
• faculty with disabilities
• disability avoidance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In my PhD dissertation, I used the term diversability when referring to unconventional thinkers and performers. This seemed an appropriate response to, and rejection of, ablenormative labels attributed to physical and non-physical impairments. More fundamentally, I felt it would disrupt the arbitrary duality of ability/disability. The intention behind the term diversability was mainly to inspire a greater sense of agency within contexts defined and constrained by performativity. In hindsight, I was so eager to help eradicate the notion that disability means having a flaw or being inferior that I did not want to use the term. Today I realize that in encouraging the use of the word diversability, I was in fact at risk of perpetuating the stigma surrounding disability. More than ever, I see why disability scholars such as Andrews et al. (2019) urged us to just ‘say the word.’ I now agree that ‘euphemisms reveal discomfort with disability and reinforce the implications that disability is a negative and undesirable state’ (p. 113). Indeed, the need for just saying the word is critical. When my peers and friends heard the term diversability, they enthusiastically expressed the view that this would be a better way to refer to differentnesses, free of any negative aura. Some even said they would be adopting it. Now my mission is to have them see, just as I did, that if we really care about inclusiveness and eradicating oppression toward minority groups, we must put energy into making disability part of our discourse, ‘by recognizing and speaking out against offensive language and efforts to replace disability with euphemisms’ (Andrews et al., 2019, p. 116).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vera L. B. Dolan

Prof. Vera Dolan is a Brazilian-Canadian scholar who focuses on issues of social justice in higher education. Building on more than two decades of experience in digital/remote education, her current research shines a spotlight on the online supervision of graduate students with invisible disabilities.