‘Out of left field’: Students with accommodations say housing rules disadvantage them

Some students with housing-based accommodations say they feel alienated and concerned after Resident and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) announced that students with early housing selection will not be allowed to form roommate groups for the 2026-27 academic year.

Under the new policy, students with approved disability-based and religious accommodations with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE) will still receive priority in the housing assignment process but will not be able to extend their priority to chosen roommates. In previous years, accommodation-based priority could be extended to up to three chosen groupmates.

In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Angie Davis suggested that friends of students with accommodations try to select rooms in the same residence during general selection.

“Because students with approved accommodations will learn their assignments prior to General House and Room Selection, they can share their assignments with their friends, who can then attempt to select a room in the same residence when it is their time [to select housing],” she wrote.

Students are concerned the change could make housing more difficult for those who need stable or familiar living environments. Accommodations could also involve noise level regulation or increased personal space boundaries.

“If I’m living with someone who I don’t know will meet my needs, it’s going to be both miserable for me and them,” said Trin Nobles ’27, who has a housing accommodation. As a current and prospective resident assistant (RA), Nobles will not be directly impacted by these changes but said her concerns reflect the general sentiment of the disabled community. 

In response to these concerns, representatives of the OAE say they are continuing to work with students to ensure accommodations are met under the new policy.

“The OAE is committed to supporting students with disabilities by ensuring they have equal access to the university’s programs and services. We will continue to work with students to determine appropriate accommodations and coordinate with campus partners as needed to support access in academic and student life settings,” wrote Retnika Devasher, accommodations and centralized testing center (CTC) manager, in an email to The Daily.

The new policy also has the potential to interrupt friend groups’ living plans. “We said that we would be roommates all four years,” said Bella Zhou ’29 of her and her roommate, who has an OAE accommodation. “This new piece of legislation has prevented us from being able to.”

According to Davis, the change was made this year because extending priority housing to roommate groups reduced the number of available rooms for the general housing selection process. 

Davis said that the change is in the interests of fairness for both accommodated and unaccommodated students.

“We are fully committed to ensuring that students with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodations in accordance with our legal obligations, and we do so in part by giving these students priority in the housing assignment process,” she wrote. “Our goal is to ensure that we meet legal accommodation requirements while also keeping the process as fair as possible for the entire student body.” 

Some students said that the new system might make housing more equitable for those with OAE accommodations.

“If people are having trouble finding accommodated spaces, I could maybe see that working out in the sense that they’re more likely to have a room that fits their accommodations,” said a student with a housing accommodation for autism and post-traumatic stress disorder, who requested anonymity based on the personal nature of their accommodations.

This housing rule change comes amid growing media attention on the rising proportion of accommodations and registered disabilities at higher education institutions, including Stanford. Complaints that OAE accommodations are being abused have also spread.

An analysis by the New York Times found that over the last 10 years, the number of college students who report disabilities has risen more than 50%, with diagnoses of ADHD and autism being some of the most prevalent.

At Stanford, 38% of students are registered with disabilities and 24% receive academic or housing accommodations. The University also guarantees four years of undergraduate housing, with roughly 98% of students living on campus.

Zhou feels the policy is an unjust response to concerns about misuse of accommodations. “It’s not necessarily fair for Stanford to respond to people abusing the OAE accommodations through just one piece of legislation that takes away the right for everyone with an accommodation to choose who they live with,” she said.

According to Nobles, the rule change will incentivize students with accommodations to seek additional documentation to acquire single room accommodations — something that they said is already happening. This would mean fewer single rooms for students without accommodations later in the housing selection rounds. 

Maiya Kothari ’29, Zhou’s roommate, said that because of her disability, which makes focusing difficult, she will have to request a single room when she otherwise hoped to live with friends she believed could meet her needs. She noted the new policy could limit options for students who rely on supportive living environments.

“I know that some people use accommodations to try to get better rooms,” Kothari said. “But being able to choose a roommate can actually be part of the accommodation for some students.”

An announcement about the change came through the same email all undergraduates received about housing assignments on March 3. However, some accommodated students believe communication has been insufficient.

“I found out about [the change] because there was someone I was planning on rooming with who sent me The Daily article,” said the anonymous student. “It does seem like maybe there should have been a little bit more announcement messaging.”

The anonymous student also spoke about the importance of adequate accommodations. Housing was difficult for them in their freshman year, before they received an official diagnosis and accommodations.

“For me, a quiet space is really important. And I struggled a lot with housing my first year because it was very, very loud all of the time,” they said. 

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