[OCTOBER 2020] TSEU activists and UTEP professors Dr. Selfa Chew and Dr. Aurelia Lorena Murga have been instrumental in building support for an initiative to end discriminatory ADA parking policies on campus. The TSEU UTEP ADA Parking Organizing Committee meets every other week via Zoom to coordinate the pressure campaign. As of now, an online petition drafted by the OC has reached nearly 2000 signatures through coordinated outreach to student groups, professors, and local disability justice activists. Campaigning on social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook, has built broad campus and community support for the mobilization. The petition has already attracted the attention of local media, including KTSM and El Diario De El Paso, and OC members are continuing media outreach. In addition, TSEU members are working with the UTEP Faculty Senate, Student Government Association, Graduate Student Assembly, Staff Council, and Parking and Transportation Office to extend free ADA permits to all disabled students and employees.
Currently, staff members pay upwards of $525 to access ADA parking on campus for one academic year. Students pay upwards of $250 per academic year. These prices are significantly higher than at any other UT system institution despite El Paso’s lower cost of living. Disabled community members are often unable to find parking in the inner campus and are forced to walk—or wheel—up steep hills simply to access their own classroom or workplace. Disabled veterans at UTEP currently access ADA parking free of charge.
So far, university administrators have maintained that the expensive parking permits are needed to pay for the maintenance of the lots. But their lackluster response only raises more questions: Why are disabled employees and students being made to pay simply to access the campus where they study and work? Why are free passes extended to disabled veterans but not to other disabled UTEP workers and students? And why are UTEP’s parking passes pricier than any other UT system campus despite a lower cost of living in El Paso? The UTEP ADA Parking OC—and the broad coalition of student groups, employees, and community disability justice activists we’ve built—will continue to mount pressure until UTEP becomes the accessible university our community deserves.