This case study is based on my research into the consequences of ableism in higher education and focuses on the postsecondary German-language classroom. For this project, I drew from my personal experiences of ableism as a disabled faculty member and educator and supported my experiences with relevant concepts from disability studies. This project explores how academia fails students and faculty with disabilities with barely accessible infrastructure, ableist expectations about performance, and narrow pedagogy approaches that ignore the needs of disabled and neurodivergent stakeholders in higher education. In a second step, the project offers ideas for improving the status quo through critical pedagogy. Focusing on German studies, this project identifies German-language textbooks that often cater to only one type of learner and the lack of awareness of critical pedagogy in graduate student pedagogy training as the biggest barriers to improving access and awareness of the needs of students and faculty with disabilities in the discipline. It also examines the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a critical pedagogy teaching framework with the promise of improving learning for all by starting the course design with the needs of students with disabilities. This case study exemplifies how to create research that investigates systemic disparities in academia and specifically demonstrates the importance of framing the concerns of students and faculty members with disabilities as concerns of social justice and not as isolated medical issues. Readers learn how reconceptualizing disability as a social justice concern is of vital importance for creating more equitability in higher education and will learn how to create theoretically sound research projects that examine exclusion and marginalization with an intersectional focus. In this case study, I exemplify this approach by outlining a project that began with my own experiences of marginalization in higher education. [This content is provided in the format of an e-book.]