When disability is discussed in counseling programs, it is often talked about in relation to client experiences: how counselor biases impact clients, how counselors can make their practice accessible for clients, or how to discuss disability with clients. Oftentimes, we neglect to turn our attention to the very students in our classrooms, who have disabilities themselves. What valuable contributions could we be missing by excluding the knowledge of disabled students?
Having been through master’s and doctoral programs as disabled students ourselves, we wish to draw attention to the value that students with disabilities bring to counselor education and the importance of expanding our understanding of disability to make a more diverse and welcoming learning environment for future generations of students. I (Roundtree) am a disabled faculty member and certified rehabilitation counselor (CRC); my disabilities are non-apparent and include chronic pain and mobility limitations. I completed my doctoral program last year, and my dissertation centered around the representation of disabled students in counselor education. I (Andree) am a higher education administrator and CRC with over six years of experience supporting students with disabilities in their college environments. I identify as a woman with a physical disability; my disability is apparent, and I use mobility devices, including a walker and power wheelchair, to navigate my environment. I am a second-year doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy program at my current institution. My current research interests focus on how higher education institutions (HEIs) respond to disability, and specific institutional frameworks that impact the campus experiences of the disability community at large. Together, we integrate our own experiences of disability with existing literature to highlight the needs of disabled students in counseling programs and identify actionable steps to work towards creating more anti-ableist classrooms and campus environments. Through this article, we hope for readers to gain an understanding of the common experiences of disabled students and identify facilitators and barriers to disability representation.
Origins of Disability in Higher Education
When considering the needs of students with disabilities in counseling programs, it is critical to understand the historical context of how disability was viewed in higher education. Dolmage (2017) asserted that collegiate experiences for folks in the disability community were inherently based in a deficit mindset. This negative perspective is still amplified by academics in health or helping profession-adjacent fields:
[Academics] will talk about health, [but they] rarely engage with the authority of disabled people on these matters…universities create doctors and special educators and therapists who learn how to rehabilitate or cure disability, or how to tokenize or minimally include it…educating people to erase and diminish disability ensures limitations on our knowledge about bodies and minds. (Dolmage, 2017, p. 20)
Despite civil rights legislation passed to ensure nondiscrimination and accessibility, Dolmage argues that equal access for the disability community was never truly attained on campuses. Instead, disability is usually regarded within a liability-based framework, through defining the disability experience medically and “fixing” it through minimal compliance to avoid lawsuits. For example, universities require students to prove they are deemed medically disabled and then offer a set list of accommodations that does not consider needs that change from day-to-day, “disabled people, then, come to have their experiences of education shaped by these legal minimums. That’s a difficult way to learn, and a difficult way to live” (Dolmage, 2017, p. 27).
With minimal compliance-based solutions in place, it is not surprising that disabled students continue to experience challenges that stifle their persistence to graduation. Data from the National Longitudinal Transition Survey-2 (NLTS-2) revealed that completion rates of undergraduate students with disabilities were considerably lower than their non-disabled peers eight years after high school (41% vs. 52%), and many students left their institutions during their first year (Griesmeyer-Krentz et al., 2022). Moreover, conversations with disabled students reveal that systemic barriers within higher education institutions are ever-present, including difficulty with disability services and the accommodations process, lack of self-advocacy support, challenges in the classroom/unsupportive instructors, subpar accessibility, and a disempowering campus climate (National Center for College Students with Disabilities, 2019). Stigmatizing and exclusionary experiences are especially concerning, as students who feel socially accepted are more likely to be retained and persist to graduation (Tinto & Pusser, 2006).
Ableist Microaggressions on College Campuses
Trends in higher education and disability research point to experiences of ableist microaggressions on campuses as a source of depression, stress, and lower levels of self-esteem for folks in the disability community (Andreou et al., 2021). Ableism comprises subtle and overt “attitudes and behaviors that support the idea that people with disabilities are inferior to people without disabilities” (Cawthon, 2024, p. 125). Unaddressed ableism promotes indirect discrimination for the disability community, which, because not always overt, is more likely to be ignored in classrooms or other settings (Graham et al., 2000). These repeated negative messages can also lead to internalized ableism, defined as the ways in which societal beliefs about disability influence disabled folks’ beliefs about themselves. Experiencing ableism and microaggressions regularly may lead to chronic stress and can be a negative influence on academic progress, socialization, and the overall experience in the workplace (Berger & Sarnyai, 2015; Feldner et al., 2022; Fuentes et al., 2023). While research shows that experiencing microaggressions may harm social belonging in campus environments, institutional leadership may still be uneducated regarding cultural norms that make it difficult for those in underrepresented and marginalized communities to feel welcome in higher education (Fleming et al., 2017). As certified rehabilitation counselors represented in both faculty and student affairs roles, we are uniquely qualified to advocate for and contribute to stronger disability-allyship practices on our campuses.
Ableist microaggressions continue to exist within the counseling classroom and in clinical practice (Miles et al., 2021; Morris et al., 2020; Olkin et al., 2019). From our own experience, disability continues to be viewed as a deficit in mental health counseling, with many counselors claiming they do not work with people with disabilities; working with disabled clients and students is inevitable for all counselors. Even rehabilitation counselors, who do have specialized training in disability, continue to enact ableist attitudes (Hartley & Saia, 2022; Saia et al., 2023). With the development of the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC), greater emphasis has been placed on encouraging counselor self-awareness and advocacy (Ratts et al., 2016). However, the application of these competencies related to disability identities is less evidenced.
Shared Experiences of Disabled Students
Initially narrow, our definitions of disabilities have expanded, creating more commonalities between types of disabilities than originally thought. Historically, disability was conceptualized as conditions that are visible/apparent, including only a small subset of what we now consider to be disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA; 1990), for example, defines disability as a “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities” (para. 2). This definition includes non-apparent/invisible disabilities such as mental illnesses, the core population for counselors across specialties. Recent literature shows that disability identity formation is extremely complex, and not all disabled individuals view or embrace their lived experience in the same way, if at all. The disability community is broad and multifaceted, with many intersecting social identities that may or may not inform considerations for career-related and professional goals (Forber-Pratt et al., 2019).
This diversity in identity and experience has implications for how disabled students navigate higher education settings, particularly in graduate programs that set the stage for professional opportunities. Counseling and psychology research identifies several contextual factors that contribute to disabled students’ experiences in graduate school: lack of disability education, exclusive pedagogical practices, and exclusive administrative processes (Axelrod et al., 2019; Feather & Carlson, 2018; Hartley & Saia, 2022; Krebs, 2019; Rivas & Hill, 2018). A lack of disability education in undergraduate experiences can carry through to graduate and professional studies. Research demonstrates that higher education professionals often feel ill-prepared to support students with disabilities effectively (Kimball et al., 2016; Lalor et al., 2020). Specifically, a qualitative study by Kimball et al. (2016) revealed that many student affairs professionals do not feel equipped to support disabled students due to insufficient knowledge of disability law, accommodations, and appropriate resources. Furthermore, research by Lalor et al. (2020) brings attention to the fact that no formalized set of disability-related competencies currently exists for professionals in higher education roles (outside of disability services). Lalor and colleagues (2020) suggested that core competencies in disability access and inclusion, disability-related emergencies, disability exploration, law and policy, and overall resources should be incorporated into professional development across higher education, aligning with the expertise of rehabilitation counselor educators, who are well-positioned to provide support to colleagues. It is especially critical that professionals across higher education understand that disability does not look one specific way; disabled students report that the validity of non-apparent disabilities is often questioned by peers and support staff on campuses (Witham & Brewer, 2023). In counseling classroom settings where mental health is emphasized, there continues to be stigma about counseling students having mental illnesses themselves, leaving students to choose whether to risk disclosure (Boen & Ruiz, 2021). Though the existence of ableism in counselor education is beginning to be considered, how to utilize this information in and out of the classroom is less widely discussed.
Author Narratives
As disabled students ourselves, we had a range of positive and negative experiences in the counseling classroom. I (Roundtree) found that professors were typically understanding when I missed class due to pain. However, attendance policies frequently made me anxious about having to push through pain to not impact my grade. Further, I would often get unsolicited advice from faculty and peers, such as “trying yoga”, to fix my uncurable back pain. One of the biggest challenges I faced during my master’s program was getting an accessible classroom chair. Because my surgeon was retired, I would have had to pay and wait six months for an appointment with a new doctor. I decided not to go forward with applying for disability services and used the regular classroom chair, with the ergonomic chair empty next to me with a “Reserved” sign. During my doctoral program, I remember one day my instructor moved our three-hour class outside, where there were no chairs available. Because I get pain sitting on the ground, I had to disclose my disability in front of the entire class to explain why I was standing while everyone was sitting.
Across my master’s and doctoral programs, I only met one faculty member who disclosed they too had a disability. Gratefully, I had several disabled peers and non-disabled faculty allies who provided support and validation along the way. These mentors-turned-friends helped me move from not feeling “disabled enough” to use disability services or share my experience, to feeling comfortable embracing my disability identity. My experiences as a disabled student are now at the forefront of my mind as a faculty member. Having flexible attendance policies even when it pushes against school policies, teaching counselors-in-training to pause before offering disabled people advice, and never assuming that my classroom is fully accessible are ways I use my experience to consistently work towards creating a classroom and work culture that values disability. As I navigate my shifting identity as a disabled faculty member, I find myself thinking, maybe wait until you are tenured, when I want to push back against an ableist policy or publish research that highlights problems in the academy. When that happens, I remind myself of the student I was and reframe how I can use the power I do have, even as a non-tenured faculty member, to advocate for and with people with disabilities.
I (Andree) entered my rehabilitation counseling graduate program when I made a career change after experiencing barriers to professional advancement. As a visibly disabled woman in the early stages of my first career in special education, I encountered a long list of what I now know to be instances of microaggressions, prejudice, and ableism deeply ingrained in the way disability is viewed by most in the teaching profession. This left me with impostor syndrome and feelings of defeat, and I wanted to explore an alternate path that would allow me to address inequities within the disability community. Although I was excited to move in a different direction, I still re-entered the graduate space with a degree of skepticism. Faculty told me most students obtain positions in the field prior to graduation but, given all I had faced in the job market, I was not convinced I would. Almost immediately, I knew pursuing a second master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling was the right choice. During class, I found myself nodding along with the material, as the information confirmed experiences and feelings I had as a woman with a disability throughout my life, but never had the words for. Faculty and classmates challenged my perceptions of disability and provided a healthy learning environment for me to realize that my own experiences did not always dictate those of others.
As faculty members assisted me in securing practicum and internship placements, the process was less about why a site would be a poor fit due to inaccessibility and more about thinking creatively to find options that matched well with my skills and goals. Finding fulfilling work and getting hired used to feel unattainable, but much to my surprise, I received a job offer before graduation. I am incredibly grateful to the faculty who supported me throughout my graduate program by giving me the “do-over” I needed. They addressed previous barriers I faced proactively and offered new opportunities for growth, while teaching me how to do the same for my prospective clients. Although nondisabled themselves, they validated my experiences and connected me with other disabled students, alumni, and professionals in the field who could relate and provide valuable mentorship. As I reflect, I am reminded of the positive impact mentorship has had (and continues to have) on my career. I am always eager to connect my clients with mentors who can encourage their growth, and I strive to be a mentor for other graduate students in counseling.
Our experiences as disabled students support the themes that continue to be found in literature; these issues are common, and the solutions are simple. Yet we, as educators, have difficulty grappling with them. Themes from our brief narratives have been substantiated by literature and surround the following: policies geared toward able-bodied students, forced disability disclosure, unsolicited advice, and the great importance of disability allies and models (Boen & Ruiz, 2021; Dolmage, 2017; Roundtree, 2024).
Addressing Ableism in Higher Education
Our own experiences, when put in conversation with existing literature, highlight the need for greater allyship of counselor educators in and out of the classroom. Disability allyship is the ongoing practice of deconstructing discriminatory practices towards people with disabilities (Feldner et al., 2022; Pierce, 2024). Below, we discuss how allyship can be attended to and the importance of listening to disabled people, disability advocates, and professionals with specialized training in disability from a cross-cultural perspective.
Call to Action: Disability Allyship in the Classroom
In the counselor education classroom, disability allyship may show through pedagogy and classroom culture. Disabled students have noted that they never learned how to be counselors with disabilities; teaching students how to manage their disability in conjunction with their counseling responsibilities is not modeled enough. Roundtree (2024) presented several disabled students’ narratives that could be beneficial for self-reflection, student learning, and offering real-world applications, as the stories come directly from disabled students. Disabled students have also discussed how helpful it would have been to have known about accommodation and learning resources earlier and more often in their program. Finally, disabled students reported a need for increased disability representation in counselor education classrooms. With greater representation, disabled students may be more widely considered in recruitment and retention.
With these suggestions, it is critical to remember that students do not have to disclose their disability. In the context of power dynamics between professors and students, disabled students need to be reminded that disclosing is optional, and therefore, you may not know as a faculty member if your students have disabilities. Not knowing does not excuse us from allyship. Our classrooms should be designed with disabled students in mind, regardless of whether we know that any of our students have disabilities, especially considering low disclosure rates, power dynamics, and the impact of multiple forms of oppression.
Call to Action: Disability Allyship Beyond the Classroom
Allyship practices beyond the classroom must work to eliminate systemic barriers and nurture disability-affirming campus communities. For counselor educators, doing this effectively means actively participating in institutional cultural initiatives that emphasize, support, and value the disability experience. Abes and Wallace (2019) pointed out that campuses must be safe places where disabled students can find a home and community, resisting intersectional erasure. Rehabilitation counselor educators, grounded in social justice principles (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023), must model this through identity-affirming work as it relates to everyday campus engagement, as should educators across all counseling specialties. Amplifying the disability community through direct participation in campus programming, special days/months of observation (e.g., Global Accessibility Awareness Day, National Disability Employment Awareness Month), and other institutional projects and policy work goes a long way in allowing disabled students, many who are multiply marginalized, to be “seen.” When counselor educators do not share disability identities themselves, they still can and do serve as advocates for folks with disabilities (students and employees) on campus to be meaningfully included in institutional DEI initiatives, especially as this community is so often a forgotten part of diversity in higher education.
To spark and sustain campus-wide change, rehabilitation counselor educators should extend their campus influence beyond graduate programs by partnering with colleagues across student affairs, academic departments, and institutional leadership. Many professionals outside of disability services may be unaware of the unique value rehabilitation counselors bring to fostering full disability inclusion in campus environments. As Lalor et al. (2020) and Kimball et al. (2016) demonstrated, there is a critical need for training in disability-related competencies, particularly in areas such as accessibility, universal design, best practices for disability etiquette, and career development. Rehabilitation counselor educators are ideally situated to lead or collaborate with others on these professional development opportunities.
Lastly, being an ally involves being cognizant of the complex psychosocial barriers many disabled students experience, often stemming from ableist microaggressions, internalized stigma, or a disempowering campus climate. The importance of mentorship for students in the disability community as a tool to lessen the impact of these experiences cannot be understated. Whether through faculty, peers, or professionals in the field, mentors can support and empower students with disabilities to navigate challenges, improve self-advocacy, and participate in personal community building. Institutions should consider developing mentorship programs to support persistence and create avenues for career opportunities within the disabled student community.
Conclusion
Including disabled students in conversations about accessibility and Disability Justice is imperative for making meaningful change in counselor education classrooms. Despite progress being made to increase disability inclusion in higher education, disabled counseling students continue to share instances of microaggressions and exclusion in counseling classrooms, including feeling minimized or dismissed (Roundtree, 2024). Alternatively, disabled counseling students are also sharing the positive impact of celebrating their identities and having role models. Considering these findings, it is crucial for counselors to learn how to advocate with and for the disability community as part of their education, which starts with us as counselor educators.