More People Are Asking For Accommodations—That's A Good Thing

Female college student sits in a library composing a paper. She appears tired with her hand on her forehead.

I’m bone tired. Tired in a way that comes from realizing the fight for access never actually ends. It just changes locations.

It starts in school, when you learn that if your disability isn’t obvious, you have to document every inch of it, defend it to people who aren’t medical professionals, and then brace yourself for the moment you’re approved but quietly judged anyway. I learned early that asking for what I was legally entitled to somehow made my education “less fair,” as if my access diluted the value of the degree instead of making it possible for me to earn it in the first place.

You carry it into adulthood, into workplaces where you are expected to be calm, articulate, strategic, and endlessly patient while proving you deserve the same tools everyone else takes for granted. If you’re competent, people assume you don’t really need accommodations. If you ask for them anyway, the narrative shifts to unfair advantage. You’re working twice as hard with fewer margins, and still managing other people’s comfort.

Today, two headlines landed at the same time. Keely Cat-Wells, founder of Making Space wrote in Forbes that disabled talent is one of the largest untapped workforces in the country, and that leaving us out is no longer just an equity issue but an economic one. We’re used to surviving and thriving in spaces that aren’t built for us, and so we bring unique solutions to the table. Preston Fore at Fortune meanwhile, focused on the rise in college students seeking disability accommodations, calling it a "phenomenon."

These stories are connected in a way many may not see.

More people asking for accommodations does not mean the system is being abused. It means stigma is finally loosening its grip. It means people are learning the language of their rights and realizing they don’t have to suffer quietly to belong. Accommodations are the difference between access and exclusion.

The real problem is not that too many people need accommodations. The problem is that we still treat access like a moral test instead of a design decision.

If we actually care about the future of work, we need to stop asking whether access is fair and start asking why it was ever optional in the first place. Accommodations are not burdens and they are not unfair advantages. They are lifelines that ensure equity and access.

What Real Leaders Understand About Power And Trust

A black-and-white photo of a man in a suit pointing directly toward the camera, mid-sentence, conveying authority or confrontation.

When I hear a CEO say “get on board or quit,” my brain freezes.

I sit there for a minute, stunned that this even needs to be said.

What that really means is: Don’t question us. Don’t need anything. Don’t exist differently.

We’ve reached a point in workplace culture where control is being sold as leadership.

That’s not strength. It certainly isn't leadership.

As Sarah E. Needleman K. and Julia Hornstein recently wrote in Business Insider, the new mantra from companies like Palantir Technologies, GitHub, AT&T, Shopify and Coinbase is clear:

Embrace the company’s politics, its AI, its in-office mandate—or leave.

That’s control disguised as “efficiency.”

Let’s pause on that for a second, because this has nothing to do with work style and everything to do with power.

A real leader asks, how do I bring more people in?
A fearful one asks, how do I push people out?

Disabled employees—including me—are told to “prove” we can do the jobs we’ve already been hired to do.

We get accommodations approved one year, then re-fought the next because a new manager wants to “tighten culture.”

Meanwhile, as Kandiss Edwards at Black Enterprise Magazine noted, even showing up has a price tag now, about $55 a day for workers asked to return to the office.

That control? Someone’s paying for it.

Here’s the thing.

If you don’t trust your employees, look in the mirror and ask why.

Trust isn’t a perk.
It’s infrastructure.
It’s how access works.
Access isn’t extra. It’s how we exist.

If you’re leading with surveillance instead of support, you’re not leading.

The upfront cost? Turnover. Morale. But nothing gets tarnished faster than reputation and legacy. Something that takes decades to build and mere minutes to destroy.

At some point, people remember how you made them feel.
They remember if you led through fear or through trust.

So before you demand loyalty, ask yourself this:

What kind of culture are you loyal to?
And what does that loyalty cost the people you lead?

Disability Accommodations at Work: Why Employees Fear Speaking Up

A diverse group of professionals, including wheelchair users and employees with headphones, collaborate in a modern office, promoting workplace inclusion and accessibility.

Who gets to be "disabled enough"?

That’s the uncomfortable debate unfolding in workplaces across the country—and one I recently discussed in The Wall Street Journal alongside Justina Plowden and Keely Cat-Wells.

As more employees request accommodations, some worry we’re stretching the definition of disability too far. But here’s the real question: Are we diluting the meaning of disability, or are we finally acknowledging the full spectrum of barriers people face?

Here’s where I stand: Pitting disabilities against each other is dangerous. It’s not up to me, an employer, or anyone else to decide whose disability is “valid enough” to deserve support. If someone says they need an accommodation, believe them. Full stop.

And yet, many disabled employees don’t feel safe disclosing their disability at all. Why? Because they know what happens next:

🚫 They’re seen as less competent.
🚫 They’re overlooked for promotions.
🚫 They’re often the first to go in layoffs.

This is why so many people don’t ask for accommodations, even when they’re legally entitled to them. It’s not simply that remote work itself makes disabled employees more vulnerable—it’s that stigma and workplace bias make disclosing a disability a risk.

I appreciate WSJ and Callum Borchers for giving space to this conversation, and I hope it pushes more employers to rethink how they support disabled workers—both those who disclose and those who don’t.

Disabled Workers Debate Who Is Really One of Us