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Quadriplegic Forced Out of Residence Hall

by Jeff Jackson on November 11, 2009

The Oklahoman reports a quadriplegic student at East Central University was told he cannot return to the residence hall unless he hires an assistant to stay overnight.

School officials are worried about Jackson living in the dorms because he cannot move from his bed to his wheelchair without help. Jackson now has an assistant who helps him get in bed at night and out in the morning. There is not an aide in his room overnight if he needs to suddenly leave the room.  – The Oklahoman

I think this is a tough story to get your arms around. You do not want to see a student’s education experience limited due to a disability, but on the other-side I can see the administrations concern with safety and liability.   The Oklahoman has an interview with the student and the vice president of student affairs on the video clip below.  I would love to hear thoughts from people with residence life experience about this situation. Would this happen on your campus? Do you have assistance and policies in place to prevent this?


Tagged as: Disabilities, Res Life

  • Yve

    Got to your site via twitter….know lots of people in higher ed and can't wait to fwd URL. Good luck w/ the site. Just one comment, you may want to look into the cam instead of yourself when you're doing video :)

  • http://gettingsocial.net/ Jeff Jackson

    thanks for finding me. I plan to get a real camera sometime soon. Right now i am just using the laptop built inn camera. Let me know if you have any additional suggestions, topics, etc.

  • Yve

    Got to your site via twitter….know lots of people in higher ed and can't wait to fwd URL. Good luck w/ the site. Just one comment, you may want to look into the cam instead of yourself when you're doing video :)

  • http://gettingsocial.net/ Jeff Jackson

    thanks for finding me. I plan to get a real camera sometime soon. Right now i am just using the laptop built inn camera. Let me know if you have any additional suggestions, topics, etc.

  • Doug

    I had a student last year that was a quadriplegic. It was a tough situation. We have a 24/7 front desk, and that desk had a buzzer that was tied to our student. Should he ever fall out of his wheelchair he would press that button. Then we would have to call our campu police who would come and assist him back into his chair. RAs and hall staff were not allowed to assist back into the chair.

    He did have an assistant who would come in each day, but there were definately times when the assistant was not around when he would ask us for asssistance. I know that this made many RAs uncomfortable throughout the year depending on the circumstances. Falling down in the bathroom, requesting us to take out his trash, clean up a spill he made, etc…

    He was very active in the community at programs and connecting well socially with the other students. So it was great to interact with him, however it was difficult at times for sure.

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