Larger students speak out on inaccessible lecture seating

Caitlin Lloyd says it’s emotionally taxing to ask professors for accommodations every time she attends their classes, shuffling tables and chairs in the lecture hall to make space for her body, writes Winston Szeto for CBC News.

“There are a lot of classrooms where there’s either very few accessible seating options or there aren’t really any at all,” said the 24-year-old, who studies at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, Canada. “It’s basically without doing anything on your own accord or without any fault of your own – it just singles you out, basically, and it definitely is a bit ostracising,” she said. “It’s not a fun part of the university experience.”

In recent years, individuals and advocacy groups have been speaking out on the stigmatisation they face for their body size. Lloyd says she wants to speak out about the discrimination she has faced, and that she feels her university hasn’t done enough to make classes more accessible for bigger students who are paying tuition like other students.
Full report on the CBC site