At the Faculty of Arts and Humanities graduation on Tuesday (3 September), one student was forced to receive their degree certificate on the floor because UCL didn’t think to accommodate wheelchair users at the ceremony.
Robert Delaney Online Editor
The Cheese Grater can confirm that Jamie Hale, who studied for an MA in the PPE of Health, was denied access to the stage at Southbank Centre due to organisational failures in accommodating those with mobility issues. In a tweet, Hale (@JamieRHale) explained that they were ‘awarded [their] certificate on the floor’, as opposed to the stage, and that such ‘discrimination is emblematic of [their] experience’ studying at UCL. Hale also noted that it ‘took until week 5 of [their] first term’ for UCL to organise their classes in accessible rooms, and that they were ‘excluded from so many opportunities non-disabled students have, from talks and networking to clubs and friendships’. Hale’s experience at UCL is not an isolated incident and suggests that, in Hales’ own words, UCL treats ‘disabled people [as] second class citizen(s)’.
While Hale gave ‘credit to the UCL staff at graduation who handled [the organisational shortcomings] as well as possible’, the fact remains that such a blunder should never have happened in the first place. Hale is a multidisciplinary creative practitioner and cultural leader who was named by the Shaw Trust as one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK in 2021 and 2022 respectively. They campaign on issues beyond just ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’, drawing attention to ‘autonomy, justice and equity’ for disabled people in Britain. Through engaging in policy research and creative interdisciplinary projects to highlight the discrimination disabled people experience, Hale has become a leading voice in accessibility and inclusion activism.
When asked for a comment by The Cheese Grater on their experience at UCL, Jamie remarked,
‘As a disabled student at UCL, I have never had an equitable experience… From classes timetabled in rooms without wheelchair access to a lack of toilets I could use on campus when I started and departmental talks held in inaccessible rooms, I was never able to access the same opportunities as fellow students who don’t require wheelchair access.’
When asked what UCL should do to make its campus more accessible, Jamie told The Cheese Grater that ‘there has been huge progress in terms of access for disabled students in general across the sector, but I think wheelchair users are often being left behind’. Indeed, as we have previously reported (CG 87), UCL has consistently failed wheelchair users with its failure to integrate accessible design across campus. Jamie went on to remark that ‘UCL needs to work actively with wheelchair users… [and] needs to start trying to understand what it feels like to be attending a university that bars you from a significant proportion of its estate and events, and to recognise the extent to which wheelchair users don’t have an equitable experience’. Jamie called on UCL to ‘commit the staff and energy to assess the need for change, and then to implement the change across the institution’ in areas from ‘timetabling to events, disability services to departments, facilities to academic delivery’.
The lack of accessibility at the graduation ceremony, and Jamie’s broader testimony, leave serious questions to be answered by UCL, an institution which prides itself on inclusive practice. What makes this shortcoming even more spectacular is the fact that UCL has, as of September 2024, introduced a taught MSc course in Disability, Design and Innovation, specialising in ‘accessibility and assistive technologies’, ‘inclusive design and innovation’ and ‘disability rights’; it is perhaps credible to suggest that UCL’s organisational bodies attend a few of the classes the course offers. Indeed, as Jamie told The Cheese Grater, ‘without the commitment from the staff at the top [to give] capacity and time to understand the extent to which this is an institutional problem, situations like this will keep happening’.
UCL has not published any comments on their website regarding the incident at the ceremony, but when asked by The Cheese Grater, the President and Provost Michael Spence said,
“We apologise unreservedly and acknowledge it was unacceptable that Jamie was unable to cross the platform to celebrate this important moment.
“We know we must do more to support our disabled staff and students and have recently launched a five-year inclusive environments action plan. This will ensure our buildings, facilities and services are designed and delivered in a way that meet the needs of all our community, and removes barriers that prevent anyone from being able to participate equally, confidently and independently in their activities across our campuses and venues.”