Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act

Section 504 Of The Rehabilitation Act

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Pub. L. No. 93-112, 87 Stat. 394 (Sept. 26, 1973), codified at 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., is American legislation that guarantees certain rights to people with disabilities. Section 504 is widely recognized as the first civil-rights statute for persons with disabilities. It took effect in May 1977. Because it was successfully implemented over the next several years, it helped to pave the way for the Virginians with Disabilities Act in 1985 and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

Section 504 states (in part):

No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 705(20) of this title, shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service.

Codified as 29 U.S.C. 794.

According to this law, Individuals with Disabilities are:

"persons with a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities."

where

"Major life activities include caring for one's self, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, working, performing manual tasks, and learning."

However, "For purposes of employment", Qualified Individuals with Disabilities must also meet "normal and essential eligibility requirements", such that:

"For purposes of employment, Qualified Individuals with Disabilities are persons who, with Reasonable Accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the job for which they have applied or have been hired to perform. "

where

"Reasonable Accommodation means an employer is required to take reasonable steps to accommodate disability unless it would cause the employer undue hardship."

That is, Qualified Individuals with Disabilities must be able to perform the job duties associated with the job for which they would be hired. The USA Department of Labor also indicates that "Small Providers" do not have to make "significant structural alterations to their existing facilities" to accommodate the individual with the disability.

"The ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) was passed in 1990, and seems to pick up where the Rehabilitation Act left off. Borrowing from the §504 definition of disabled person, and using the familiar three-pronged approach to eligibility (has a physical or mental impairment, a record of an impairment, or is regarded as having an impairment), the ADA applied those standards to most private sector businesses, and sought to eliminate barriers to disabled access in buildings, transportation, and communication. To a large degree, the passage of the ADA supplants the employment provisions of §504, reinforces the accessibility requirements of §504 with more specific regulations".

The broad reach of Section 504 is implied in the statutory language above. Section 504 covers "any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance". Federal funds underwrite airports all over the country - it is no accident that airports were among the first American facilities to become fully accessible. Federal funds also flow to some 3,000 colleges and universities nationwide, typically in the form of grants and cooperative agreements, but also through financial assistance for students. Colleges, universities, and community colleges became accessible in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s because of Section 504. Public libraries in many thousands of communities receive federal financial assistance, directly or indirectly. These, too, became accessible within just a few years of the implementation of section 504.

The law also pertains to any "local educational agency (as defined in section 8801 of Title 20), system of vocational education, or other school system". As applied to K-12 schools, "the language broadly prohibits the denial of public education participation, or enjoyment of the benefits offered by public school programs because of a child’s disability." Because another law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), also applies to K-12 schools, people sometimes mistakenly assume that, with IDEA, the Rehabilitation Act is superfluous. In fact, however, IDEA only protects a subset of children and youth who have disabilities—those who satisfy its definition for "child with a disability". Many young people with disabilities do not meet that definition. However, many are protected by Section 504. In addition, Section 504 can be valuable in providing rights to students for issues outside of the school day such as extracurricular activities, sports, and after school care. That is because Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. For example, were a basketball coach to cut a student with a disability from the team simply because he did not want to be bothered by having a player on the team who has a disability, Section 504 is what would offer the student protection against such unjust treatment. Schools comply with Section 504 with the following process: Identify students with disabilities; evaluate those students; if the student is eligible, create a written accommodation plan, often called a "504 Plan". It is similar to, but often shorter than, the IDEA Individualized Education Program (IEP). Parents, teachers, and school staff are a part of the process. Parents have due process rights; where they disagree with the determinations of the school, they have a right to an impartial hearing.
Violations of Section 504 in the educational environment can be addressed locally with the education agency or with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education. Violations of Section 504 can result in a loss of the federal funding. According to the Department individuals may also enjoy a private right of action for violations of Sec. 504. Thus, Section 504 is enforced by OCR. IDEA, by contrast, is carried out by another unit of the Department - the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).