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Academic accommodations and systemic barriers

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Employment and Social Development Canada projects that two-thirds of job openings from 2011-2020 will be in occupations that generally require post-secondary education (college, university or vocational) or management occupations.[1] At the same time, people with mental health disabilities face several challenges in post-secondary settings. Almost a quarter of people in Ontario with mental health and addiction disabilities have discontinued their formal education or training because of their condition (24.1%).[2] This is more than three times higher than the proportion of people with other disabilities who have discontinued their education because of their condition (6.4%).[3] The proportion of Ontarians without disabilities with a university degree (24.8%) is more than twice that of people with mental health and addiction disabilities (8.5%) or people with other disabilities (10.9%).[4] Ontarians with mental health and addiction disabilities are four times more likely to earn a college diploma or trade certificate (33.9%) than complete university (8.5%).[5]

The Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code) guarantees the right to equal treatment in education, without discrimination based on disability. Academic accommodations are a fundamental aspect of ensuring equal access to education for students with disabilities. Education providers have a duty to accommodate students with disabilities up to the point of undue hardship. This duty to accommodate includes both procedural and substantive obligations. Organizational policies, procedures and practices must satisfy both of these components.

In recent years, post-secondary institutions have received unprecedented numbers of requests to accommodate disabilities and have worked hard to make their services accessible to, and better accommodate, increasing numbers of students with mental health disabilities. Nonetheless, systemic barriers to accommodating post-secondary students with mental health disabilities persist.

A 2012 OHRC report entitled Minds that Matter: Report on the consultation on human rights, mental health and addictions (Minds that Matter) outlined findings from the OHRC’s province-wide consultation with more than 1,500 individuals and organizations on the human rights issues experienced by people with mental health disabilities or addictions. Submissions about post-secondary education focused on the duty of post-secondary institutions to accommodate students with disabilities to the point of undue hardship, and highlighted barriers faced by students with mental health disabilities in post-secondary education settings.

Consultations revealed that a diagnosis or detailed information about a disability was often required for accommodation purposes, that accommodation requests could be contested by professors or others, and that delays in mental health services (e.g. getting an appointment with a psychiatrist) resulted in decreased access to education for students with psychiatric disabilities and addictions, because schools were relying on these practitioners to verify students’ accommodation requests.[6] During the consultations, many people stated that maintaining privacy of their health information was very important, due to continued societal stigma surrounding mental health disabilities.

In 2013, the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) – through the Mental Health Innovation Fund – provided funding for a project on the challenges in accommodating post-secondary students with mental health disabilities. The project report, entitled Recommendations for Documentation Standards and Guidelines for Post-Secondary Students with Mental Health Disabilities (the Academic Accommodations Report), released in 2015, highlighted systemic barriers faced by post-secondary students with mental health disabilities when seeking academic accommodations relating to disclosing diagnosis, delays in receiving medical assessments and documentation, requiring students to arrange for academic accommodations directly through their instructors and lack of awareness of relevant policies and services.

The report emphasized that a student’s functional limitations in an academic environment, rather than a DSM diagnosis, is the most accurate and appropriate way to assess and implement academic accommodations. The report made comprehensive recommendations and provided a sample medical documentation form that post-secondary institutions can use to obtain relevant information about functional limitations, without requesting unnecessary and private medical information.


[1] Ontario Human Rights Commission, By the Numbers: A statistical profile of people with mental health and addiction disabilities in Ontario (2015), online: www.ohrc.on.ca/en/numbers-statistical-profile-people-mental-health-and-addiction-disabilities-ontario (By the Numbers) citing Employment and Social Development Canada, Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS): Graph Descriptions
of Imbalances
, online: http://occupations.esdc.gc.ca/sppc-cops/c.4nt.2nt@-eng.jsp?cid=37.

[2] By the Numbersibid at 35.

[3] By the Numbersibid at 35.

[4] By the Numbersibid at 34.

[5] By the Numbersibid at 35.

[6] Ontario Human Rights Commission, Minds that matter: Report on the consultation on human rights, mental health and addictions (2012), online: www.ohrc.on.ca/en/minds-matter-report-consultation-human-rights-mental-health-and-addictions at 83-84.

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