“The Office of Access and Learning Accommodation (OALA) creates an encouraging, supportive, and caring environment where students with disabilities feel they are accepted and valued as individuals.” With that being said, Baylor University is currently planning to move the OALA office from the first floor of the Sid Richardson building to the basement. As of now, there is one elevator with limited access that accesses the basement. This elevator is not reliably functional. 

OALA services students with many diverse disabilities, including those with physical disabilities, visual impairments, hearing impairments, learning impairments, etc. Asking those with physical or visual impairments to travel to the basement of a building, especially with an elevator that is unreliable, is less-than realistic. 

Baylor University claims, “you have chosen to continue your education at a school with a long history of inclusion of students with disabilities.” Think about the stereotype of things often placed in the basement: unimportant, embarrassing, and something of low priority. The message Baylor University is providing by moving the OALA department into the basement is that students with disabilities are not a priority for Baylor University, unlike the students in sports, who get billion-dollar buildings. 

As an OALA student for learning and physical disabilities, I was unsettled when I heard the plans for a department that was essential to my college education. However, I was not surprised. It is not the first time Baylor University has turned its back on discrimination based on disabilities. I was a victim of discrimination based on physical disability in my sorority. I filed a Title IX report. After interviewing myself and a girl who experienced discrimination based on her visual impairment, Baylor University dismissed the case with no penalty for the perpetrator. 

Even more upsetting was the news that the Associate Director and my OALA accommodation specialist, Mrs. Anna Shaw, was terminated due to speaking her mind on her concerns of the movement of the department. My understanding is that this news of the movement has sent a wave of distraught and concern throughout the department. Together, the department worked on a letter to express their concerns for their students and how this change will negatively affect them. This letter was directed to the Provost and signed by most within the OALA department. Anna Shaw was targeted by Baylor University and was pinned as the person to blame for the letter. After 19 years at Baylor University, Anna Shaw had her employment terminated, wrongfully.  Anna Shaw cares for her students. She always has her students' best interest in mind. Anna Shaw did not act alone in this letter, but this letter looked out for the students, while Baylor University is looking out for its image. 

Baylor University has failed. They have failed their employees. They have failed their students. They have failed the disabled community. And they have failed Anna Shaw.  I petition to put an end to the movement of the Office of Access and Learning Accommodation to the basement. And I petition to re-employ Anna Shaw, one of the few professors at Baylor University that actually cares for her students.