The Daily Californian covered Ed Roberts’s arrival to campus as the first student with polio, or any severe disability for that matter, to attend UC Berkeley.
The university felt Roberts’s admission was highly “experimental”and would only consider admitting future students with severe disabilities on an individual basis. At the time, there were no housing options for students needing around-the-clock personal care assistance, so the university housed Roberts in a wing of Cowell Memorial Hospital. Using Roberts as an example, the university slowly began to admit more and students to the program.
Although the campus expressed an interest in supporting students with disabilities, the university itself had a lot of ground to cover in terms of addressing inaccessibility of campus structures, increasing the number of services available for students with limited mobility, and dispelling stereotypes around bodily difference.