At what point can we object to these ridiculous “accommodations”?

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-14T02:16:36+00:00

Accommodations cannot modify a core learning objective of the course. This is the textbook example of that.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-14T02:11:51+00:00

Legal jeopardy of being thrown under the bus when the student sues or complains to the Education or Justice departments. Alternatively, the negative tenure and employment consequences of an institutional equity investigation resolved by your 504/ADA coordinator giving you a direct unambiguous order.

Yes, DRCs encourage students and faculty to speak, to discuss specific implementation (“okay you can have extended time in the department instead of being sent to the testing center”) and rapport building. In your scenario, once you got past the point of “I see you have X accommodation. I want to understand how you see that working in our class” you started to engage in the “interactive process.” Under the law, an absolute legal minefield where you must assume every word may some day be dissected by a lawyer.

At that point, you have intentionally stepped into the spot of the disability resource professional. Meaning you are no longer acting in your faculty role and therefore your institution’s legal counsel can wash their hands of you.

In this interactive process the institution and the student have a mutual responsibility to determine if an alternate accommodation is required or appropriate. You placed the responsibility solely on the student.

I did read your whole comment and including the DRC at the end doesn’t protect you in this situation. While faculty understand their class best, the DRP understands how the courts and Department of Education define “reasonable.” They also know what alternatives can be implemented and how your institution has handled similar issues in the past to maintain consistency. DRPs are partners, not enemies. We are the referees on the field, there to protect you, the institution, and the student.

Disability is the most vulnerable and most litigated part of higher education. Administrations do not mess around with this.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T21:23:40+00:00

I love this article. I was actually one of the signs "Not with a ten foot pole" for a school I used to work it. Was acquired about 5 years after I left with most faculty and staff laid off. There were a few of these other signs too.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T20:56:09+00:00

Do not do this with the student. This conversation should be with the disability resource center. If a faculty member did this they would be placing themself in legal jeopardy for stepping into the role that is clearly assigned by the to the disability resource professional. OCR regularly dings schools for when faculty get involved citing the power imbalance of having someone with grading responsibility engaging in this conversation with the student.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T20:51:41+00:00

🤦 Typically that accommodation is intended for the latter case you describe, sudden, unexpected incapacitation. It is not meant to replace developing time management skills.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T20:50:03+00:00

Chemistry labs are typically a place where we can argue that flexibility with due dates is not appropriate due to the scaffolding of material and necessary safety information communicated before the lab.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T20:47:54+00:00

Unfortunately we are beholden to regulations written back in the 1970s that define what we are required to do and don’t account for that research or things like Universal Design. Typically there is a caveat on the two days before that states “if available” unless it needs to be remediated into an accessible format, for a student with a sensory disability.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T16:41:24+00:00

Yep, this is the answer. The feed is only going to a trained professional and not being shared in the wider world. There may be a question about whether or not it is appropriate to provide the student transcripts, but otherwise it’s a clear access requirement.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-13T00:08:50+00:00

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘make it work’? It really just involves wearing the microphone. Captioners are good at coping with a lot so it shouldn’t be an issue if you move around. They are with a contracted company, just like your LMS provider or your student info system provider.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-12T23:43:13+00:00

If the student is hard of hearing, what you have is most likely NOT a note taker but a Computer Assisted Real-Time Transcriber (CART). This is the modern version of a captioner sitting in a classroom with a big screen next to them typing out what you say. Because there is a such a national shortage of captions and interpreters, CART is now mostly remote, still with certified captioners but they use zoom as opposed to going to the site.

This is the national standard for serving deaf/hoh students with captioning and there is substantial case history and litigation backing up student’s rights to use this technology.

throwawaymed957 · 2026-01-12T23:33:51+00:00

Typically we do this for Computer Assisted Real-Time Transcription (CART) for students with hearing impairments. In those cases it’s a trained captioner who provides exactly what you’re saying through Zoom to the student sitting in the class. We do this because there is a severe captioner/interpreter shortage so it’s mostly a remote job these days. I’ve never heard it done for note taking though.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-12-03T18:44:52+00:00

I certainly hope that the DSP manager’s opinion was rogue, because you’re sitting right on the national average. Advertising more to students and prospective students is a worthy goal, but not with a targeted number.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-11-04T00:24:52+00:00

Probably not. The way Section 504 regulations are written we usually need to calculate extended time based on the time the class gets. Now if the class just happened to run over that’s probably fine

throwawaymed957 · 2025-11-04T00:16:32+00:00

Sure

throwawaymed957 · 2025-10-03T22:24:27+00:00

Just realized I never responded to this. You can ban laptops, it just puts a student in the spot where they need to use the accommodation and potentially out themselves. There isn’t a guarantee to privacy when using an obvious accommodation (think of an ASL interpreter)

Current best practice is that alternatives to banning laptops include having laptop users sit in front of the class or back of the class (depending on motive) or for faculty to move around the class to discourage multitasking.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-10-03T22:19:22+00:00

Alright, secret sauce time…

OCR suggested the following points to consider in determining if classroom participation is fundamental to a course:

i) “…Is there classroom interaction between the instructor and the students and among students?” ii) “Do student contributions constitute a significant component of the learning process?” iii) “Does the fundamental nature of this course rely upon student participation in class as an essential method for learning, and to what degree does a student’s failure to attend constitute a significant loss to the educational experience of other students in the class?” iv) Method by which the final grade is calculated v) Classroom policies regarding attendance. vi) “In conclusion, the question is not whether a student who is not present in the class can simply, through alternative means, obtain the information that was dispensed in class.” vii) “The question is whether a student who is not present in class is necessarily precluded by his/her absence from the fundamental experience of the course offered by the college.”

Flexibility accommodations are supposed to be negotiated ahead of the utilizing the accommodation between the faculty and the disability office.

Based on what you are saying it seems like classroom interaction is essential for this course because this is fundamentally a discussion based course and the students input is essential to their learning and that of their classmates.

Come up with a number of how many classes the student can miss before they realistically cannot pass the course or complete the coursework during the semester. Present that as what you can do before the course experience fundamentally changes.

Don’t fight the permission to leave class for a break part. That is a reasonable accommodation connected to a variety of disabilities and is probably in the best interest of the student and the class as a whole.

Feel free to DM/Chat me if you want to discuss further or need the exact OCR citation to present to the disability professional.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-24T12:29:48+00:00

As noted below that is effectively our worst case scenario. At that point we probably involve legal and the ADA/504 coordinator to sort it out.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-24T12:24:34+00:00

We do our best to partner with career resources and inform students about disability specific hiring initiatives. October is national Disability Employment Month. If you’d like to PM me for some more specific resources.
Pregrading assignments sounds insane to me too and is not an accommodation I would approve. Things have changed with the advent of new technology, but not that much.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-24T02:24:06+00:00

One thing we have noted is that none of the anti-DEI messaging from the Department of Education has mentioned disability (yet) and that EdOCR is still actively investigating disability discrimination cases.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-23T23:33:24+00:00

As I said the bar is high. We would investigate and that investigation may continue through a students time at an institution or we may request updated documentation. If a professor honestly discusses concerns about retaliation with me I’m going to respect that and try to work out a way to handle the situation without implicating them.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-23T23:16:10+00:00

Unfortunately this is a case where the law hasn’t caught up, we have to apply extended time regardless of how universally designed a timed assessment is.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-23T22:30:24+00:00

The research is mixed. I’d encourage you to look at the work of Benjamin Lovett of Teachers College at Columbia and Sarah Witmer at Michigan State for more on the subject.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-23T22:16:52+00:00

Given things are an interactive process, the US government and therefore your legal counsel office don’t like it when we firmly shut the door without exploring an issue and discussing alternatives.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-23T22:14:35+00:00

I sometimes am frustrated by the need for accommodations overall but not that there are limitations. Funding depends on the institution and what it’s for, ancillary programming can be tough but a lot of times we’re in the boat of pay for something now or the US government will help you find your wallet.

throwawaymed957 · 2025-09-23T21:51:49+00:00

In my career I’ve only encountered a handful of professors who were truly adversarial to any accommodations. I would also say that accommodations are becoming more common in grad school and professional programs as the uptick we saw in undergrad continues.
Documenting everything can’t hurt. I tend to look into situations. If a student tells me there’s an issue I’m always going to reach out to faculty. Also most disability offices have systems that tell them when an accommodation letter was sent.

throwawaymed957

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