Behind universal design for learning (UDL) is the belief that courses designed to address the needs of students who experience barriers to learning result in better-designed classes for everyone (Rose & Meyer, 2002). As pedagogues concerned with how students learn and progress in life, we combine our specialized disability knowledge with critical communication pedagogy (CCP), culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP), and UDL to course design and assessment/grading to improve student learning. The focus of this chapter is to propose a Critical Universal Design for Learning (CUDL) framework that connects UDL, CCP, and CSP to offer educators/scholars in higher education a practical theoretical lens and some strategies to consider when thinking about becoming more socially just in their course design and assessment of students in higher education. When students are prepared for learning in this way, we have found that student learning improves in two ways. First, we see students’ differences as strengths and move toward a strengths-based assessment approach. Second, students leave our classrooms knowing what they need to be successful in future learning and have a concrete experience from which to talk and advocate. We find that a CUDL approach centered in the course design and assessments allows for the needs of more students to be met. Engaging all our students in our classrooms changes us as educators and makes our pedagogies more socially just