Reporter Volume 25, No.7 October 14, 1993

By MARK WALLACE
Reporter Staff

While the University at Buffalo has no legal obligation to pursue the
systematic removal of all barriers to the accessibility of its
facilities for the disabled, anything less than a policy to do just
that may be interpreted by those in the disability community as a
tacit endorsement of continued discrimination against them by UB,
Scott Danford of Architecture and Planning told the Faculty Senate
Executive Committee last week.
	Danford made his remarks as part of a report from the Faculty
Senate Committee on Facilities Planning, of which he is chair.
	Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, UB is
covered by Title II, Danford said, which requires the university to
ensure the accessibility of all programs by July 26, 1995. It was
important to distinguish between that and Title III, he added, which
did not cover UB, and under which it is required that all facilities
be accessible by Jan. 26, 1992. What this means, he said, is that
while UB is required to make all its programs accessible to the
disabled, it is not necessarily required to remove all architectural
barriers to access.
	However, since the presence of such architectural barriers
actively discriminates against persons with disabilities, Danford
said, the Facilities Planning Committee decided to examine how best to
remove existing architectural barriers from the university's
facilities, even though UB was not legally required to do so. "We
believe in the removal of all barriers," he said. "At the very least,
we ought to do what's required under Title II, which we have not yet
done."
	Under Title II, a public entity is required to "evaluate its
current services, policies, and practices and the effects thereof,"
Danford said. UB had done such an evaluation and was required under
Title II only to review that evaluation, he said. But the Justice
Department had indicated that it expected many public entities to
reexamine all their policies and programs, he added, and whether or
not UB had formally undertaken such a reexamination was unclear.
	More fundamentally, he said, the self evaluation required
under Title II was not comparable to the accessibility assessment
survey required under Title III. Without such a survey, he said, UB
would not know either the full extent to which its existing facilities
are actively discriminating against persons with disabilities, nor the
actual costs of removing all architectural barriers.
	Furthermore, UB's present policy for addressing architectural
barriers has been on a case-by-case basis, he said. It is only when a
complaint is made, he said, and when program accessibility cannot be
ensured any other way, that facilities alterations are made, and then
only to the extent necessary in that particular case. "We
discriminate, and only when someone complains do we try to fix it," he
said.
	The crux of the problem is money, Danford said. UB has no
funding dedicated to the removal of architectural barriers to access,
and as a result, accessibility projects were forced to compete with
maintenance projects for the same limited pool of monies. "In such a
situation, accessibility understandably loses out," he said.
	The committee had three recommendations, Danford said. First,
it recommended that UB stop the practice of having accessibility
projects compete directly with maintenance projects for in-house
money. Second, the university should conduct an accessibility
assessment survey of its facilities to identify all architectural
barriers, so that it could put an accurate price tag on the cost of
their removal. And third, UB should then pursue outside sources of
funding for the systematic removal of all such barriers.
	Charles Garverick of Pediatric Dentistry said that a number of
groups had been trying to improve UB's accessibility to the disabled
for a long time. "As a father of a wheelchair-bound son, I wrote off
UB as a possible place for him to go to college," he said. He added
that the National Council of Disability was beginning to do reviews on
who was or was not in compliance with various regulations regarding
access, and that "no SUNY school made the list of schools providing
access. We've known a lot of things were wrong since 1973, but there
hasn't even been a plan," he said.
	Stephen Bennett of the Educational Opportunity Center asked if
UB had developed a prioritized plan on the question of accessibility.
	 Danford replied that was not the case. "The current policy of
UB is to respond to individual claimants rather than to take a
proactive stance. The university claims that its programs are by and
large accessible 'when viewed in their entirety,' and that barriers
are removed only as a last resort."
	Patricia Eberlein of Natural Sciences and Mathematics asked
about how many complaints there had been and, if someone wanted to
complain, to whom they would complain.
	Danford said there had not been many complaints, but that it
was impossible to know how many people had been affected. "People
shrug and walk away," he said. "Many don't know what their rights are,
and they figure that it's their problem, because of their disability.
Complaints should be lodged with University Facilities, but how is
anyone going to know that?"
	Danford concluded his report by saying that the committee
believed that a knowing adoption of the current policy of tacit
discrimination, although not necessarily illegal, "would be
unconscionable."
	The FSEC plans to make resolutions regarding accessibility for
the disabled in the Faculty Senate meeting of Oct. 26.
	In other FSEC business, Robert Chatov, chair of the Committee
on Athletics and Recreation, reported that the committee had set a
tentative agenda for 1993-94. Chatov said that the five items on the
committee's agenda included completing the report on the appropriate
role of faculty in intercollegiate athletic programs, examining the
division of funds between men's and women's sports, conducting surveys
on faculty and student satisfaction with athletics facilities, and
examining the student athlete monitoring program.
	Chatov also presented a statement on the role of the Faculty
Athletics Representative (FAR) as part of his report from the
committee. According to Chatov, the responsibilities of the FAR
involve playing a "strategic role" that would "ensure academic
integrity, facilitate institutional control of intercollegiate
athletics and enhance the student-athlete experience." This includes
such duties as overseeing the academic integrity of the
intercollegiate athletics program and activities related to compliance
with NCAA, conference, and institutional rules, and playing a central
role in discussions of matters relating to intercollegiate athletics
at committee meetings and at faculty or institutional senate meetings,
Chatov said.
	Charles Fourtner, who is the current FAR, said he believed
that his job was "one of oversight. I don't make policy, but I have a
responsibility to see that it is carried out. I also serve as chief
investigator of violations to the university or NCAA. And I have a
responsibility to see student athletes treated fairly, and to give
them access to the university."
	The FSEC voted that Fourtner's proposal of a mentor program
designed to help student athletes who are receiving financial aid was
an appropriate use of faculty resources, and that they "supported such
uses as part of the faculty concern that such services go to all who
need them."