<p>Not necessarily referring to the OP, because I haven’t read all the posts, but in general I’d be surprised if there isn’t somewhat of a gray area here that may be open to the interpretation of the school, regarding the issue of disclosure in advance. When you fall and break your arm in the middle of the semester, the disabilities office and ADA still protect you even though you didn’t disclose anything advance. While a mental illness diagnosed in advance is inherently different in a lot of ways, I’m not sure an unusually severe episode occurring mid-semester wouldn’t be treated the same way by some schools-- I know at my school it is, at least in certain circumstances-- there are a lot of people with a lot of leeway on issues like these in many places, so it’s difficult to really say. </p>
<p>I feel like there’s a distinct difference between someone with a well managed mental illness who all of the sudden has an uncharacteristic crisis, which happens more often than you think, and someone with ongoing severe medical problems. I’m struggling with the idea that someone who has a mental health crisis without previous diagnosis would probably be accommodated in some way but someone with previous diagnosis would not just because they didn’t disclose in advance when they may well have had no idea there was anything to disclose, if the condition wasn’t previously disabling how would they know? Mental health is so murky, there’s not even necessarily a way to isolate every mental health episode and attribute it to one disorder in particular, for us to know whether or not we can even attribute the crisis to what has been previously diagnosed. We read all the time here about students with no previous history of mental health problems cracking under the pressure and having some sort of mental health episode as a result, and I don’t think just because someone has a history of ANY sort of mental health issue means they are immune to having that same experience-- is it fair for them to be treated differently? Having anything at all wrong with you doesn’t give the world carte blanche to your medical information just in case it might maybe someday get worse. It could be that there’s a clear legal answer and some schools are simply just willing to go further than the laws require, I don’t know that off the top of my head.</p>
<p>I had a plethora of disabilities disclosed to my university. I did experience discrimination, in one case discrimination that was QUITE severe (in that instance the professor was from another country and not accustomed to the concept of equal access), but the benefits far outweighed the risks. At least in my case, I had recourse when I was discriminated against because I disclosed and I wouldn’t have otherwise.</p>