Students, however, counter that Harvard has only done the bare minimum towards making their lives as normal as possible.

The limited measures that Harvard has taken to accommodate the handicapped--for instance to make some of the houses partially accessible--are not always good enough, according to students. James B. Thomas '86, a Quincy House resident with an undiagnosed form of muscular dystrophy, complains that he must pass through the Quincy kitchen to get to the dining hall.

"A lot of circumstances like that are just plain humiliating," he says.

Besides living arrangements, students say, there are other more mundane, but just as frustrating, obstacles. These include bicycles that are locked to wheelchair ramp handrails, preventing access to an accessible building; or cars that are parked in front of levelled curbs, preventing a person in a wheelchair from crossing the street; or fire alarms that are of no use to hearing-impaired students.

Chertkov says these "little things" are not taken seriously enough by the administration or the students. "You can bet that if a bike was locked on the front door of Sever, they'd bring a chainsaw to get it cut off," she says.

In addition, many extracurricular activities and events are blocked to students with disabilities. For example, to a student in a wheelchair, the usual weekend collection of films presented by House film societies are usually off-limits, since they are screened in inaccessible locations.

STUDENTS SAY THEY WANT full access to buildings, houses, and activities, not only so they car enjoy the complete benefits of Harvard, but because increased accessibility will help them overcome the attitudes of ignorance or insensitivity they now confront.

What can indeed be even more humiliating than the physical impediments facing the disabled are what they say are the often patronizing attitudes or the lack of understanding with which their fellow students and teachers greet their problems.

To prove the point, Chertkov cites an incident earlier this fall involving the Glee Club and Wallace. The Club, she says, scheduled a party in the Lowell House junior common room, a location totally inaccessible to Wallace. However, club members would not change the location until Crooks and Chertkov stepped in and mediated the dispute. The party was finally held in the Freshman Union.

Wallace refuses to talk about that specific episode, but he does speak of similar incidents, which he calls examples of blatant discrimination against disabled students.

"It's a problem of such gigantic ignorance," he says. "They're not aware, mainly because they don't want to be aware. People don't want to spend much time thinking about it."

Andrew H. Siegel '85, a Lowell House resident with cerebral palsy, recalls an incident two years ago when one person whom he did not know at all came up to him, grabbed his hand, and said, "I'm so glad you're here."

Sometimes the incidents are not as harmless. When Siegel was a sophomore, his professor in Chemistry 20 gave him very little extra time for completing exams, despite the fact that Siegel takes longer than most students to write. The professor, Siegal says, also threatened to withhold credit because he was unwilling to let Siegel participate in labs.

"He didn't think I'd be safe in the lab," Siegel says. "He asked me, "Why don't you take physics, where the most you ever work with is 12 volts of electricity?" I understood his concerns, but the proper response is to look to solutions."

Fortunately for Siegel, the professor wound up not teaching the second semester, and the new instructor willingly let Siegel participate in the labs.