Joseph Williams (CC BY 2.0)
The Widener Library at Harvard University.
The squatter currently occupying the White House isn’t the only one involved in a legal tussle with Harvard University these days.
On May 22, Students 4 Mental Health Justice, a student-led advocacy group composed mostly of Harvard students, filed a federal lawsuit against Harvard alleging discriminatory practices against students with mental health disabilities.
According to the complaint, Harvard “systematically bans” students who are experiencing mental health crises from campus, forces them to undergo “burdensome requirements” to return, and requires them to sign “coercive and onerous” contracts under the threat of expulsion.
“Harvard responds to disability-related behavior with exclusion, blame, and draconian measures,” the lawsuit states. “Because of Harvard’s policies, current students report a chilling effect on seeking needed mental health supports for fear of being banned from campus and subjected to onerous requirements in order to return.”
This, according to the lawsuit, violates several federal and state laws that are intended to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Among the examples of major life activities listed by the U.S. Department of Justice are cognitive functions like thinking and concentrating, and tasks like working, reading, learning, and communicating.
The ADA covers mental disabilities and activities that aren’t essentially physical, making clear that those with conditions like depression need and deserve respect and accommodations just as much as people who use wheelchairs do. Those accommodations may take on different forms. A wheelchair user may need a ramp or an elevator, whereas someone with a psychiatric or mental disability may need a non-punitive leave of absence or access to confidential on-campus mental health treatment.
The lawsuit tells the stories of several Harvard students who sought professional help because they were having mental health episodes and were consequently banned from all campus property, losing their housing, on-campus employment, and academic schedules. To be reinstated, one student was required to show six months of continuous, full-time work verified by a supervisor as well as active mental health treatment (including detailed letters from healthcare providers about her progress)—despite having lost her student health insurance while barred from campus.
Thus, the lawsuit contends, Harvard students who have mental health disabilities are caught in a “double bind: either stay away from student mental health services and risk a mental health crisis, or utilize these services and risk being temporarily banned from campus and having their education seriously disrupted or be permanently kicked out.”
Disability rights laws like the ADA are supposed to prevent the exclusion of any individual with a disability—this absolutely includes everyone who has a mental or psychiatric disability. What they often need the most is easy access to the resources, including professional mental health treatment, to help them get through a mental health crisis. That means that any barrier that discourages them from seeking out that help, for fear that they will fall victim to the stigma that surrounds having a mental health crisis, is illegal and has got to go.