When half the class is disabled, what does disability mean?

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The recent report that nearly half of UC Berkeley law students receive disability accommodations should prompt a question that goes beyond whether students are gaming the system.

If nearly half the students at one of America’s most selective law schools qualify as disabled, what exactly do we mean by disability anymore?

The conventional explanation is that we are finally recognizing conditions that were previously overlooked. There is certainly some truth to that. Mental health conditions and learning disabilities were often misunderstood or ignored in the past, and many people genuinely benefit from accommodations that allow them to demonstrate their abilities.

But that explanation becomes harder to accept when accommodation rates climb to levels that would have seemed unimaginable a generation ago. Nationally, the share of college students reporting disabilities has risen sharply over the past two decades, reaching roughly 1 in 5 students at four-year institutions. At elite universities, the numbers are even more striking. Harvard’s accommodation rate rose from roughly 3% in 2014 to more than 20% a decade later.

According to reporting by the Atlantic based on federal education data and university figures, 38% of Stanford undergraduates were registered with the university’s disability office.

If nearly half the students at an elite law school qualify as disabled, we’re no longer talking about a small group of exceptional cases.

UC Berkeley law students are among the most accomplished young people in the country. They excelled in college, scored highly on the LSAT, and earned seats at one of the nation’s top law schools. Yet once they arrive, nearly half are deemed sufficiently impaired to require special accommodations. That should give us pause.

(Washington Examiner illustration; Getty Images)

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The debate usually centers on whether accommodations provide unfair advantages. Critics argue that students exploit the system. Defenders argue that accommodations merely level the playing field for students with legitimate disabilities. Both sides may be missing the larger story. It is why so many experiences that were once considered part of achievement are now interpreted as evidence of disability.

Law school is difficult, and it is supposed to be. Students face enormous workloads, intense competition, frequent evaluation, and relentless pressure. Many feel anxious. Many struggle to concentrate. Many lose sleep before exams. Many doubt themselves. None of this is new.

What is new is our growing tendency to interpret these experiences through the language of diagnosis, impairment, and accommodation.

Berkeley isn’t an outlier. It’s a window into a broader cultural shift. Over the past several decades, America has come to view more of human experience through a therapeutic lens. We have become more likely to see emotional discomfort not as something to be managed or overcome but as evidence of injury. Feelings that were once considered part of ordinary life and achievement, anxiety before an exam, self-doubt during a difficult transition, stress from taking on enormous responsibility, are now more likely to be interpreted through the language of diagnosis and dysfunction.

We have become more fluent in the vocabulary of vulnerability and less comfortable with the language of resilience. We are quicker to ask what conditions should be modified than what capacities can be developed. The message, often unintended, is that difficult feelings are evidence that something is wrong rather than evidence that something is hard.

This shift extends far beyond law school. In schools, workplaces, and therapy offices, experiences that previous generations saw as challenges to manage are now often interpreted as evidence of impairment.

As a psychotherapist, I see this regularly. Many people arrive in therapy convinced that their distress proves they cannot function. Often the opposite is true. Their distress reflects the fact that they are attempting something difficult, ambitious, or meaningful.

The student preparing for a demanding exam, the lawyer arguing a difficult case, the entrepreneur risking failure, and the executive carrying enormous responsibility will all experience anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, and stress. Those feelings are not necessarily signs of disability. More often, they are signs that people are engaged in life’s challenges and stretching beyond their comfort zones.

Over the years, I’ve noticed another shift: more and more, people seek not treatment but accommodation. They want a letter for extra time on an exam, an exemption from a requirement, or relief from an expectation that feels overwhelming.

In my practice, prospective patients sometimes contact me seeking an accommodation letter before we’ve even met. Some ask whether documentation is even necessary. Others are explicit about the language they want included. The goal isn’t treatment or change. The goal is permission, exemption, or relief from an expectation that feels difficult.

Our institutions often reinforce this way of thinking. A university administrator recently told me, “No one gets in trouble for accommodating.” Denying a request can mean meetings, appeals, legal review, and accusations of insensitivity. Saying yes is simply easier. Over time, that creates a system that steadily expands. When there is little downside to approving a request and substantial risk in denying one, the definition of disability naturally grows broader.

This goes beyond changing diagnostic criteria. It’s about how we’ve come to think about struggle itself. We’ve moved from asking, “How do I rise to this challenge?” to asking, “How should the world accommodate my discomfort?”

People develop confidence and resilience not by avoiding difficulty but by discovering that they can tolerate it. We become more capable by doing hard things, functioning despite anxiety, and learning that discomfort is often temporary and manageable. If every unpleasant feeling becomes evidence of impairment, we risk teaching people something profoundly discouraging: that they are more fragile than they really are.

Accommodations can be essential. But they also communicate something, whether we intend them to or not. Too often, the message is not, “You can do hard things with support.” It is, “This challenge may be too much for you.”

Of course, genuine disabilities exist, and accommodations can be essential for people with substantial impairments. No reasonable person would argue otherwise. But if nearly half the students at one of the nation’s most selective law schools qualify as disabled, it becomes difficult to believe we are merely uncovering previously hidden disabilities.

I think something else may be going on. Perhaps we have steadily lowered the threshold between ordinary struggle and clinical impairment. Perhaps experiences that previous generations viewed as part of growth, achievement, and adaptation are now being interpreted as evidence that individuals require special treatment. And perhaps a culture steeped in therapeutic thinking has inadvertently encouraged many capable people to see themselves through the lens of limitation rather than possibility.

WHY EVERYTHING SOUNDS LIKE THERAPY NOW

The biggest cost isn’t administrative or financial. It’s psychological. We risk teaching some of our most accomplished young people that anxiety means incapacity, that distress means impairment, and that difficulty is evidence of fragility rather than an invitation to develop strength.

If we keep telling some of our most capable young people that ordinary adversity is evidence of disability, we shouldn’t be surprised when more of them start to see themselves as fragile.