Students should request accommodations from DS office rather than faculty

Abstract

Faculty customarily decide whether to modify assignment deadlines and participation requirements based on a request from a student confronted with an emergency. However, when they do so in response to a student's request to accommodate a disability, they can put their institution at risk of violating Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The recent court decision in Brown v. Trinity Washington University illustrates why institutions should adopt and publicize policies that direct students to present requests for disability‐related accommodations to a disability services office rather than to individual faculty, (No. 22‐1612 (Dist. D.C. 03/23/2023); see bit.ly/41PnJXc).