As students, staff, and faculty members with disabilities, their friends and advocates, we urge the administration to adopt the “Accessible Icon” and use this new symbol to replace all uses of the International Symbol of Access on campus. By adopting the Accessible Icon UCSD would join a growing number of forward thinking institutions and municipalities (including NYC) in promoting an image of disability that is more representative of the disabled experience. A central objective of the new icon design is to foster conceptions of people with disabilities as active participants in our communities rather than passive recipients of accommodation.

The International Symbol of Access, which is currently in use, does more than represent entryways, paths, and spaces that are accessible for a person with disabilities. It has come to represent disability itself, and it does so by employing a passive and immobile figure. Within the icon, the wheelchair seems to be more important than the one who uses it. We see the power that is invested in this very visible symbol of disability as a significant opportunity for raising awareness and causing reflection.

The Accessible Icon aims to link the designation of access to the built environment with critical understanding of the productive capacities of people with disability. Rather than showing a passive body needing the assistance of others, the Accessible Icon shows an active and engaged body. No symbol can adequately represent the range of people with visible and invisible disabilities that we strive to embrace on our campus. However, by adopting the Accessible Icon UCSD would signal it’s continued commitment, not only to providing expanded infrastructures for supporting access, but to reshaping how our community views and thinks about diversity of physical embodiment and of ability. Information about the Accessible Icon can be found at http://www.accessibleicon.org