WNY Collegiate Consortium and Disability Advocates

Many people have expressed concern over recent Supreme Court decisions limiting and defining the Americans with Disabilities Act and worry about how these decisions will impact students with disabilities in college. It is important to remember that for most colleges and universities, Section 504 is the foundation for determining who is an eligible person with a disability and what range of accommodations and/or services that individual may require. It is important to understand what Section 504 and its related regulations do and do not say:

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 states:

No otherwise qualified person with a disability in the United States … shall, solely by reason of … disability, be denied the benefits of, be excluded from participation in, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance….

Let’s review Section 504 definitions:

A person with a disability is:

“any person who (1) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities, (2) has a history of such an impairment, or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment.”

Examples of disabilities include, but are not limited to:

Substantially limits means that the individual’s manner, rate or duration of performing a life function is significantly different than that of most people. For example, most individuals who have asthma have acute asthma, which means that they periodically have periods of impaired respiratory function, but most of the time their breathing is within normal range. Chronic asthma becomes a disability when, even with medication and treatment, the individual’s breathing severely limits the ability to routinely perform everyday functions that other individual’s can perform with no respiratory distress.

A qualified person with a disability is defined as one

“who meets the academic and technical standards requisite to admission or participation in the education program or activity.”

In postsecondary education, a qualified student with a disability is one who can meet the admission requirements for both the college or university and the specific program of study which she wishes to pursue AND

• Voluntarily self-identifies herself to the Disability Office on campus and provides adequate documentation of a disability.
• Has documentation that details the current impact of the disability on everyday life functions.
• Needs those adjustments, modifications, auxiliary aids or services to participate in and/or benefit from the college’s programs and activities.

Under the provisions of Section 504…

Colleges and universities that receive federal assistance such as PELL grants, ROTC, federal grant money etc., may not discriminate on the basis of disability in the recruitment, admission, educational process or treatment of students in any of the institution’s programs, services or activities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) extends the provisions of Section 504 to private entities such as private colleges, regardless of whether or not they receive federal funding. Special exemptions exist for solely religiously funded institutions

Section 504 specifies that colleges and universities may not:

• Limit the number of students with disabilities who are admitted.
• Make pre-admission inquiries as to whether or not an applicant has a disability. (There are limited exceptions to this rule; however students are never REQUIRED to disclose during the admissions process.)
• Use admissions tests or criteria that inadequately measure the academic qualifications of students with disabilities because special provisions were not made.
• Exclude qualified students with disabilities from any course of study, program or activity.
• Establish rules or policies that might adversely affect students with disabilities.