Access to Academics
Q: Just what is a "reasonable accommodation"?
A: The term "reasonable accommodation" comes from legislation covering nondiscrimination in employment, not from that covering access to state and local government services. Employers are required to make "reasonable accommodations" for employees and job applicants with disabilities. The ADA defines reasonable accommodation by examples:
"Reasonable accommodations" may include (A) making existing facilities used by employees readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; and (B) job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, reassignment to a vacant position, acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, appropriate adjustment or modifications of examinations, training materials or policies, the provision of qualified readers or interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
The term's catch all nature, ease of use, and neutral appeal have led it into generic use, but "reasonable accommodation" is not found in the federal regulations in any context but employment. Though much of what is done to achieve access to academic programming looks a lot like "reasonable accommodations," discussions of whether a particular request is "reasonable" may be spurious in the light of two alternative legal concepts which set higher standards for educationally related adaptation than what is merely reasonable "auxiliary aids and services" and "academic adjustments."
Q: What are auxiliary aids and services?
A: Auxiliary aids and services are defined as equipment and direct personal services to facilitate communication with people whose impairments require them. While an exhaustive list is not possible, we can give some examples of auxiliary aids and services: qualified sign-language interpreters, scribes; real-time transcriptions; assistive listening devices; Braille, large-print, or tape-recorded textbooks, assistive computer technology and software; etc.
Q: What are academic adjustments?
A: The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, as it specifically applies to post secondary educational institutions, define academic adjustments as "adjustments to academic requirements and practices that discriminate or have the effect of discriminating on the basis of disability." DOE regulations give an example of allowing a deaf student to substitute a music or art history course for a required music appreciation course. The requirement of academic adjustments permits students with disabilities to use needed aids and equipment in the classroom such as tape recorders, calculators, Braillers, and service animals. Similarly, the ADA requires "reasonable modifications in policies and practices" to assure nondiscrimination. For the sake of brevity, this handbook generally refers to auxiliary aids and services and academic adjustments as "services and accommodations."
Q: How does a student become eligible to receive services and accommodations?
A: Eligibility for services and accommodations is determined by the director of SSD after an assessment meeting between the director and student. Three factors are taken into account; information given by the medical or psychological documentation, the student's adaptive experiences, and the professional judgment of the director (who is trained and experienced in identifying the functional limitations of and mitigating approaches to disability).
Q: How are faculty and staff informed of needed services and accommodations?
A: The eligibility assessment concludes with a written description of services and accommodations recommended as necessary for the student to have an equal academic opportunity. Personalized memoranda detailing these needs are then prepared, with written permission from the student (see Appendix B), and sent via campus mail to the university personnel involved in providing the needed service or accommodation.
Q: What information about the student is given in such a memorandum?
A: Information stated in a memorandum to a faculty member or administrator with regard to the provision of services and accommodations for a student on the basis of disability is selected according to academic need-to-know. The student's right to confidentiality of medical records (including diagnosis and other personal facts about the disabling condition) is always protected. The student is identified as a student with a disability, however, and a general description of how the student's impairment supports recommended services and accommodations is given. Recommendations of the director of SSD are listed and described, and the person receiving the memorandum is invited to contact the SSD office if further assistance is needed.
Q: How can the student be certain that services and accommodations will be made?
A: Once the student is determined eligible to receive services and accommodations and the faculty and staff are notified, it becomes the student's responsibility to make timely contact with faculty and staff to discuss and arrange those services and accommodations. This requirement is not intended to complicate the process or place administrative burdens on students. The purpose is to keep students informed and to become their own best advocates. SSD will provide advocacy and other limited services as needed by the student in meeting this requirement.
Q: What are the time guidelines for requesting services and accommodations?
A: Students must make timely requests. A student who knows in advance that services and accommodations will be needed must notify SSD of this, no later than 3 weeks after the beginning of the semester or 6 class sessions after the beginning of a class shorter in length than 16 weeks. Those who need highly specialized services such as sign-language interpretation or tape-recorded textbooks should notify SSD of this at least six weeks in advance of the semester. Even this length of time for advance notice may not be adequate in extreme circumstances. These guidelines are not intended to restrict access; they have been arrived at in order to assure that services and accommodations are adequately documented, validly determined, and communicated and arranged so as to be effective while preserving the integrity of both academic and disability-related programming. Late requests are not rejected out of hand. Sometimes, documentation can be difficult to obtain. Disability can be acquired or can become newly identified late in the semester. Sometimes students, especially new students, inform SSD early about their disabilities but want to "try it on their own" without services and accommodations they may find necessary as the semester progresses. Sometimes, too, the student has insufficient academic experience to know early in the semester what limitations the impairment is likely to impose. Nevertheless, students must respect the fact that eligibility and communication processing take time to administer properly and ethically. Therefore, last-minute requests for services and accommodations may be denied on the basis of their untimeliness.
Q: Can services and accommodations include adapted testing procedures such as extended time limits, and is this fair to other students?
A: Yes. Regulatory authorities and the courts have concluded that extended time on examinations is an appropriate academic adjustment in those instances when no compelling case can be made that the examination in question is specifically designed to measure speed of completion. These authorities have made it clear that results of an examination should accurately reflect an individual's aptitude or achievement level, understanding and assimilation or whatever the test purports to measure instead of an individual's impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills. An instructor who wished to dispute the application of these presumptions for a particular examination would have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of investigating authorities that completion of the examination within a period uniform for all students, regardless of disability, is an essential element in the "aptitude or achievement level . . . [that] the test purports to measure." In furtherance of the right to test-time extension many Courts have required state Boards of Bar Examiners to increase the standard time for applicants with disabilities to take the bar exam. Typically, two days are allowed for bar examination, but courts have required up to four days in cases where evidence supporting such a request was provided by a licensed professional. For example, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York recently ruled that a bar exam applicant with a significant visual impairment must be allowed a four-day examination period rather than the standard two-day period. Consistent with these rulings, the DOE, Office for Civil Rights has confirmed that extended time for examinations is an appropriate academic adjustment for students with learning disabilities, some physical impairments, and some emotional illnesses.
Q: How is the appropriate test-time adjustment determined?
A: The director of SSD typically recommends a range of 50-100 percent time-limit extension for in-class quizzes and tests, based on the extent of limitations imposed by the disability and the student's residual capacities. Notwithstanding these procedures, specific instructions written by the student's physician, psychologist, or other qualified medical-service provider are given "great weight" by federal investigators and the courts, according to the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF). (DREDF provides ADA training recognized jointly by the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).)
Q: Who is responsible for providing services and accommodations for administering tests to students with disabilities?
A: Bottom-line authority and responsibility for test administration are held by the faculty; however, school office facilities and staff levels are often inadequate to assure that special services and accommodations are suitable. For this reason, faculty members commonly utilize the facilities of SSD test proctoring center to assist them in administering in-class tests and quizzes. It is the responsibility of the student who needs this service to make special arrangements with faculty for delivery of test materials to SSD. It is also the student's responsibility to schedule the service time at SSD. Changes in scheduled test times CAN BE MADE ONLY by permission of the teacher assigning the test. After proctoring, all test materials are returned to the faculty by SSD staff. Supervised test security is promised by SSD. All test materials sent to SSD for proctoring should be accompanied by the accommodated test transmittal form available from SSD or academic department offices. The purpose of the exam transmittal form is to provide SSD staff with needed information to assure the student taking the test has an equal opportunity with non-disabled peers the time allowed for test completion within the recommended range and allowances given the class such as open books, calculators, class notes, etc.
Q: What if a member of the faculty and the director of SSD disagree on what services and accommodations are appropriate in meeting a student's stated access needs?
A: The University as a whole is legally obligated to make necessary and appropriate adjustments and to provide free and effective services and accommodations for students with disabilities. Though most always routine, this process can require discussion. While the diverse effects of disability are unique to the individual and need to be evaluated by the trained eye, academic necessities do vary from discipline to discipline and need to be established by academic authorities. Therefore, SSD does not have unqualified responsibility to determine, and a member of the faculty does not have unlimited authority to deny, service and accommodation requests without rigorous consideration of all pertinent facts. A faculty member who believes that a recommended academic adjustment or result of a student grievance fundamentally and irreparably debases the academic integrity of a course or academic program should contact the director of SSD to discuss the matter. Either party to such a discussion may in turn consult authorities such as department chairs and deans. If disagreement persists, the faculty member may contact the chair of the advisory committee on services for students with disabilities, who will investigate, mediate, and attempt to resolve the disagreement. A refusal to honor recommended services and accommodations could form the basis of a student complaint.
Q: In reserving judgment about the appropriateness of services and accommodations recommended by the director of SSD, are faculty and administrators permitted to require a student to reveal information about the type or effects of the student's disability?
A: No. Medical and psychological facts about a student's disability are personal and confidential, and need only be revealed to the director of SSD for service and accommodation determination. Once the director of SSD has properly notified involved faculty members and administrators that a student has an impairment which requires services and accommodations, judgment can only be reserved on the basis of academic necessity or undue financial and administrative burdens (which are rare), not on the basis of presumptions about disability.
Q: Do students with disabilities have the right to expect teachers to allow special consideration when setting class-attendance policy?
A: No. Class-attendance policies are set by teachers individually, according to academic necessity. Lecture materials, collaborative learning activities, utilization of laboratory and other equipment, etc., make up unique and essential elements of the teaching, learning, and performance process. Teachers have the right to determine the degree to which class attendance affects learning outcomes and the extent to which individual student attendance meets standards for satisfactory completion of the course. A student, who cannot attend class because of disability, illness, or other reasons, may not be qualified to participate in the class. No policy of IPFW, however, is exempt from the ADA requirement for reasonable modification of policies and procedures needed to assure nondiscrimination on the basis of disability. If the university were somehow responsible for a student's having to miss class, program access services would be necessitated in addition to waiver of attendance policy. For example, let us say that five minutes before the start of a class located on the third floor of a building, a student finds that an elevator has just gone out of order. The student's disability impairs his or her ability to climb stairs, and it is too late to move the class. The university would be obligated, then, to provide services which would make up for the loss experienced by the student, and the student could not be penalized for having missed the class.
Q: Can people with disabilities be required to take advantage of special programming designed for them?
A: No. The ADA explicitly leaves to people with disabilities the option of taking or not taking advantage of special programming made available to them. DOJ's Interpretive Guidance to its ADA Title II regulations give the example that a blind person could not be required to select a museum tour specially designed for people who are blind. At IPFW, a student with a disability who is not requesting special services and accommodations cannot be required to visit or contact the SSD office. Faculty and administrators are always within their rights to refuse academic adjustments requested on the basis of disability in cases where the student has not given due notification to SSD and/or has not been determined by the director of SSD to be eligible for these adjustments.
Q: Are faculty and staff permitted to refer to SSD, students who have not identified themselves as having disabilities but who are having significant academic problems?
A: Yes. Of all questions asked of SSD staff by concerned faculty, this is the question most common. Many students have undetected disabilities whose limitations negatively affect academic performance. Yet, because most academic problems are not disability related, faculty and staff often are uncomfortable, understandably, with the risk of errantly putting the disability label to academic problems, even significant and persistent ones. Still, in the context of offering help and information, it is perfectly legal and acceptable to inform students about the existence and location of SSD and to tell them that we can informally provide guidance and counseling on academic problems and that certainty of disability is not required for this service. We can also provide information to those students seeking psycho educational assessments to detect possible learning or other disabilities. Faculty and staff are welcome to contact SSD to discuss confidentially any concerns they have about student needs which may be disability related. It should be added here that the ADA protects the civil rights of people who are falsely regarded as having disabilities. All campus-community members not licensed to diagnose disability should take care to avoid speculating, even with the best of intent, about whether a student has or does not have a disability.
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