When accessibility is assumed to be in place: responsibility shifting in institutionalized deaf and hard-of-hearing higher education

Many higher education institutions have invested heavily in accessibility infrastructures for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Yet accessibility failures in everyday teaching often reveal governance dynamics that remain poorly understood. This study examines how accessibility is governed when it is institutionally assumed to already exist. Drawing on an explanatory qualitative case study conducted at two universities, we analyze four accessibility breakdown incidents across classroom and field-based teaching contexts. Through abductive, process-oriented analysis, we identify a recurring five-step process model through which responsibility for accessibility failures is progressively deferred and redistributed without being clearly reassigned to an accountable actor. We conceptualize this mechanism as responsibility shifting, a governance process through which accessibility formally exists as infrastructure but becomes operationally detached from institutional accountability. By reframing accessibility as an institutional obligation rather than merely infrastructural provision, this study provides a mechanism-based account of accessibility governance in higher education.