The student self-advocacy literature commonly claims that although self-advocacy is a skill that disabled students require to succeed in postsecondary education, many students experience significant ‘skills-deficits’ in this area. This qualitative research project at a Canadian university sought to intervene in this literature by proposing opportunities to ‘politicize’ self-advocacy. Interviews with 11 disabled students revealed a perception of an institutionally endorsed ‘right way’ to self-advocate. This presentation will briefly explore this ‘right way’ and then turn our attention to disabled students’ ‘better way’ of negotiating self-advocacy and disability on campus. This was a form of resistance to these ableist expectations and ‘politicizes’ self-advocacy by recognizing ableism and the harms of the self-advocacy model, affirming disabled student knowledge and community, and enacting their visions for institutional change. Vital to this politicization is moving away from nondisabled-led initiatives like self-advocacy training and towards alternative research and student service practices. The presentation will then discuss how this is particularly notable in the COVID-19 era where the university is shifting and creating more possibilities for students’ ‘better way’ but disability community may be more difficult to create and sustain. This right way/better way framework may allow us to look at other equity issues on campus and highlight the importance of politicizing self-advocacy in this present moment.