news
The UWSA and social media
arts
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U N I V E R S I T Yo f W I N D S O R • N O V. 0 4 . 2 O 1 3 • VOL#86 • ISSUE#10 • UWINDSORLANCE.C A
sports
Comedian-poet Lancer sports John Wing comes help CJAM to UWindsor Pledge Drive
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feature More on the student unions’ boycott
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UN-ACCOMMODATED
UWindsor student Donevan • photo by Travis Fauteux
HOW ONE U OF W STUDENT IS FED UP WITH THE WAY STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES ARE BEING TREATED
TRAVISFAUTEUX news editor __________________________ One University of Windsor student with an auditory processing disability is saying that he is tired of having his human rights violated after having his progress in obtaining a degree delayed multiple times since he began attending the university in 1994. Donevan, 58, who only has one name, was granted the accommodation of a recording device by the university through the
office of Student Disability Services, but has been arrested several times in the past 10 years for using his accommodation in class. In 2004, Donevan attended his Theory and Practice of Generalist Social Work class and began recording, as permitted. Part of this class in particular involved the voluntary self-disclosure of students. In an official transcript of Donevan’s judicial panel trial (2007) for this first incident, Dr. Gallant, the professor who taught the class, described the nature
of the disclosure. “I asked for a student to volunteer to share an issue that was problematic to him or her and to reveal the circumstances surrounding their discomfort. And one student willingly volunteered and chose to discuss the heavy work load that was the topic stemming from the demands placed on the student from the course instructors,” says Gallant in the transcript. The next day, September 21, 2004, when the professor was trying to recall what he had said in the previous class, Donevan
told his professor that he had recorded the class discussion. This upset students who had disclosed personal information in class. While Donevan believed it was his human right to record the discussion part of the class because of his disability, the professor disagreed. The course outline stated that “all students may be asked to stop taping at any time at the discretion of the instructor or concern of other students,” but up until this point the students had not been asked to turn off
their recording devices. In addition, this course policy was not backed up by any official university policy. Donevan’s counsel in his first academic hearing (2007) said, “there was nothing to say that individualized class policy in the social work department had ever been adjudicated and sanctified by any body,” according to an official transcript. Over a week later, six students objected to being recorded in MORE PAGE 04 w