Have You Heard the One About the Banker and the University?

Last week I attended two panel discussions about disability. One was sponsored by the Faculty of Social Sciences here at the University of Victoria and the other was sponsored by an investment bank, BMO Nesbitt Burns. Not unexpectedly, there was a great contrast between the two.

One institution was way out in front, bursting with new knowledge, passionate about finding ways to develop the talent in every person, dedicated to removing every possible barrier to achievement and welcoming and encouraging disabled people. That would be the bank.

I believe that universities have a critical role to play in democracies and special obligations regarding accessibility and inclusion. Banks, on the other hand, do not. So how it is that BMO Nesbitt Burns is so far out ahead of the University of Victoria?

Why is a bank and not a university in the lead?

I wish the two events had been combined. The university instructor who asked questions on Friday could have learned so much about the human rights of disabled people from the investment banker on Saturday. He asked: "Are we really doing students with disabilities any favours providing all these accommodations?" One assumption in this question is that in the "real world" outside this haven of understanding and acceptance, accommodation is not available. Another is that accommodation is a favour, which it is not.

The professor wondered if the university should recommend that students with learning disabilities go to special institutions that will drill, drill, drill them until they learn to read like the rest of us. An assumption at the heart of this question is that the person can and should be fixed. The disability can be made to go away, if only the disabled person will submit to enough remedial work, or corrective surgery, or rehabilitation or medication. It is the antithesis of the pragmatic willingness to accept difference displayed by the bank.

"I have an employee who reads using a software program for people with learning disabilities," said the banker. "He is our highest performer at Nesbitt Burns, internationally, making over a million a year. Twenty years ago he'd have been lucky to find work in a factory."

On Friday we heard that shabby, unheated, uncomfortable 'S' Hut is the best that the University of Victoria can afford to provide for hundreds of students who require accommodation for their disabilities when they write exams. Oh dear.

On Saturday we heard about a BMO employee who had a sleeping disorder called narcolepsy. In an office tower in Toronto, where commercial space is spectacularly expensive, BMO built a special "sleep room". The employee uses the "sleep room" 20 minutes every three hours, and no longer falls asleep in the rest of his workday.

When BMO got tired of finding one of its best people asleep at his desk they didn't fire him, or try to fix him either. The bank responded to narcolepsy as a challenge for the company to meet, not a personal misfortune.

I'll close with a statement I particularly liked from one of the panel discussions. I'll let you guess whether it was someone from a bank or a university who said it. We don't all have the same talent, but we all deserve the same opportunities to develop the talent we have.