According to Chertkov, however, such hassles are commonplace for disabled students and are often not resolved as fruitfully. "I don't know how many people slide through the cracks," she says. "There are a lot of people who never complain. A lot of people get screwed a lot."
CHERTKOV AND THE OTHER members of ABLE face an uphill battle in focusing student and official concern on the problems of the disabled. One obstacle is the difficulty of coordinating the concerns of the disabled, whose numbers include visually-and hearing-impaired students, students confined to wheelchairs, as well as students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Thus complaints about Harvard's accommodations often vary wildly.
ABLE itself, moreover, apparently consists of a paucity of members. Chertkov says only that a "handful" of members belong, out of the approximately 50 disabled students on campus.
"It's not enough of a unified organization," Chertkov says. "There's not enough of a commitment to broad-based goals."
Some students, moreover, see no need to join ABLE because they believe their needs are being met already. Peter H. Wilson '88, a visually-impaired student and member of the Glee Club says he has no qualms with Harvard's policy towards the disabled.
"I'm of the philosophy that if it's not a problem, don't fix it," Wilson explains. "If something does happen, I'll probably do something."
Wilson says he thinks Harvard students have been sensitive about his visual-impairment, calling the campus "the best environment I've been in so far." He adds, "Most people here are more intelligent, so they have no trouble seeing through that."
THOSE STUDENTS WHO DO COMPLAIN usually turn to Crooks, who for the last four years has been the Faculty's representative to disabled students. Crooks says there has existed a certain amount of tension between himself and ABLE.
"Sometimes they're quite aggressive and political," Crooks says. "Although it's painful for me at times, ABLE has been extremely useful and taught me a lot."
Like Chertkov, Crooks is also critical of the administration for not trying its best to accommodate disabled students, and he blames Harvard's extensive de-centralized bureaucracy for frustrating his actions. But he says he's learned a lot in the past few years.
"I used to be very leery of telling a professor to get his ass out of an inaccessible classroom. I'm not anymore," he says. "If I know about it, most of the time a problem can be solved."
Disabled students praise Crooks and feel confident that he is looking out for their interests. But they also say he is not being given a big enough role, that he is limited mostly to patching up problems instead of preventing them from appearing in the first place.
"He's just holding down the fort," Chertkov says.
And Thomas says it is symbolic that Crooks' office in University Hall is inaccessible to the very students he is trying to look out for.
"It's not all that heartening," he sighs.