Consultation with Jane Jarrow

Federal law says a college must make reasonable accommodations for an otherwise qualified individual to have equal access.

Otherwise qualified means that with or without reasonable accommodation, the student with a disability meets all of the same standards - academic, technical, behavioral, and professional - as the non-disabled students.

An accommodation is NOT reasonable if it is:

1. A direct threat to the health and safety of others.
2. An undue financial or administrative burden.
3. A substantial change in an essential element of the curriculum.
4. A substantial alteration in the manner in which the programs or services are offered.

A college is not required to change a course/program to fulfil a student's personal purpose for wanting to be in the course/program.

Legal precedent: Ohio Supreme Court case, Fischer v. Case Western, involving blind student wanting to go through medical school. Med. School said student could not do required competencies such as surgery, reading x-rays because she is blind. Student claimed her purpose was psychiatry but had to obtain medical degree in order to accomplish her goal. Med. School said their program's purpose was basic, standard medical school curriculum, the competencies were basic requirements for their degree, the same for all students and not intended to serve as a jumping off point for other purposes. A blind practicing psychiatrist with a degree from Temple University was interviewed. Court learned that Temple voluntarily chose to make significant modifications for him in every course, but said it would not do so again. Conclusion: Colleges may choose to make substantial changes in essential elements of their curriculum but are under no legal obligation to do so.

A listing of technical standards and eligibility criteria stated up front for all technical programs make it easier to determine the qualified status of the student.

Legal Precedent: Davis v. SouthEastern CC in North Carolina. LPN with degenerative hearing loss wanted to be an RN. Training program involved surgical and ICU nursing. One difficulty - can't lip-read instructions through a surgical mask. The alternative of having another person be the ears of the student puts the patient at significant risk due to the resulting delay in communication time and the need for the student to take her eyes off the patient and the surgical procedure at hand. In the ICU, having another person be the ears and relay information would mean the assistant rather than the student is the one doing the interpreting of the sounds which is the nursing skill requiring mastery. Conclusion: the accommodation of an assistant to be the student's ears was not appropriate in this case.

Application to Voc Ed. programs:

If a student is interested in doing a program, the entire package must be evaluated in terms of physical requirements. If the student wants to take a single course, the course will need to be evaluated for its core requirements. Theory courses can be done with out problem. Other courses may not be doable.

Focus on the course requirements rather than the student's disability. Must determine whether each task required is necessary and appropriate as stated. Do not create requirements to blanketly exclude people with disabilities. Decide what is really important in the course and only then can you evaluate whether a given student is able to make it through.

Provide all students access to this information up front so they can evaluate their skills against what they will need to have for successful completion.