As a result of Georgetown University’s unfulfilled promise to serve its disabled community, students at Georgetown face unnecessary shortcomings in physical accessibility, which I detailed in my previous column for The Hoya. The culpability of this neglect does not solely rest on the administration. Georgetown’s undergraduate student population shows a disregard for disabled people on campus, which includes not only other students but patients of the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital system. Many students, despite benefitting from the facilities and amenities built for those with physical disabilities — such as elevators and door access buttons across campus — have little regard for those who face physical barriers to access related to an injury or disability.
During my time working at the School of Medicine adjacent to the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, patients of the Georgetown Hospital have often told me that Georgetown changed their lives, and that they have great respect for the university community following their experience with its healthcare workers. It is unfortunate, then, that the student population on Georgetown’s campus has a clear disregard for those who live with physically limiting conditions.
Earlier this semester, I watched a woman with a walker struggling to open the door of the Leavey Center at the hotel entrance to get to the Lombardi Cancer Center. After helping her get through the doors, I realized that multiple students had been standing there, watching her, but doing nothing. Early this year, too, I saw a student on crutches attempting to navigate a flight of stairs with a large number of grocery bags into Village B, an on-campus residence hall that does not have an elevator. Several students walked up and down the stairs past him without helping.
In both of these cases, the initial failure was the university’s provision of inadequate accommodations, like functioning automatic door access buttons and elevators. But compounding Georgetown’s failure to accommodate people with physical limitations is the subsequent failure of Georgetown students to assist someone with a disability who is facing a physical barrier to access. It is even more important, in the face of the university’s poor accommodations, that students take any opportunity to help someone living with these restrictions.
It would strengthen the entire Georgetown community if our student population demonstrated more compassion for others who struggle with physical limitations to make up for the university’s failure to provide fully-functioning accessibility measures. Georgetown students must work to have a helping hand ready in order to support all members of our community with physical disabilities. It may be more comfortable to remain a bystander when faced with a person who needs help to navigate campus, but we have to do better, even if those around us do nothing. Care for those who need disability accommodations is not limited to obvious disabilities, either; many live with impairments that may not be visible to the naked eye, but are physically debilitating in nature. Although we cannot always tell that someone has a physical impairment, we can make a commitment to take the opportunity to help those we see struggling to navigate campus.
People come from all over the world to work, study and receive medical care at Georgetown. Although the medical campus may seem like a different world to many students, patients of the Georgetown University Hospital live a portion of their lives alongside Georgetown’s students, especially in the Leavey Center, which is directly adjacent to the Lombardi Cancer Center. It is almost certain, then, that students will come into contact with people who require accommodations due to illness or disability. Students must work to help those facing obstacles when it comes to navigating the inaccessible parts of our campus, instead of disregarding or ignoring them.
If our campus is not built to support those who live with physical disabilities, our community must be. Starting with the moment we enter campus, all of us become a part of the larger Georgetown collective, from those who work and study here to the patients of the Georgetown University Hospital. It is important for us all to avoid bystanding and take action to help others within the university community whenever we see a person in need of help, especially if that person has a physical restriction, seen or unseen. Otherwise, we are complicit in the barriers to access that limit us.
Savannah Jones is a junior in the College. Health on the Hilltop appears in print and online every third Friday.
