An editorial last year in The Justice, Brandeis' student newspaper, is titled "The University is constantly lagging in accessibility." The Justice Editorial Board writes, "The University has been slow to implement more accessibility renovations and to staff the Student Accessibility Support Office. This board believes that helping students with disabilities thrive on campus needs to be a higher priority for the administration. Brandeis often advertises itself as an institution that champions social justice and fosters a diverse student body. However, an inaccessible campus demonstrates that more progress is needed in order to honor these values."
Some of the accessibility problems cited include a lack of elevators in multistory buildings, and a lack of push buttons near building entrances. In 2023, students called out Brandeis Counseling Center for lacking a ramp at its entrance, essentially creating a barrier to disabled students seeking mental health care on campus, and even causing injuries on several occasions to disabled students attempting to access the center.
A year earlier, in an editorial titled, "Brandeis is failing to accommodate students," The Justice Editorial Board criticized the widespread lack of enforcement around students' accommodation letters. "According to board members’ experiences," they wrote, "several professors resist, or flat-out refuse, to accept accommodations, leaving students to struggle as though they never received accommodation letters in the first place." A stigma against disability and an ableist belief that students who need accommodations are "less than" their nondisabled peers is pervasive on campus, according to The Editorial Board.
In an article from 2023 titled "DCL fails to fulfill housing accommodations," students decried the lack of accessible housing for disabled students who want to live on campus. “A lot of recent [issues] have disabled students feeling like they’re no longer welcome on Brandeis’ campus," said one student to The Justice. "It feels like Brandeis is doing everything possible to push disabled people away, as if they don’t deserve a full college experience just because they happen to have a disability."
Brandeis University is ranked 63rd among national universities by U.S. News. It was ranked 60th in 2024.