Much attention has been paid to making academia more diverse and equitable, yet strategies developed to encourage diversity equity, and inclusion sometimes come into conflict with one another. Less attention has been paid to this question of what scholars and activists call “access friction”: “a situation in which people have seemingly opposing access needs.” (Silverman 2024) Considering access friction is essential for not only encouraging but sustaining diversity and equity; as more undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff with access needs enter the academy, conflicting access needs become more likely and those conflicts have the potential to push people to reconsider their ability to persist and thrive in a given institutional context—or in educational institutions altogether. (Price 2011, Price 2024, Smilges 2023) In this project, I summarize core debates around access friction and provide recommendations for understanding and approaching access friction.