The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 1990

With the passage of the ADA, this mandate from the Rehab Act was expanded to include any public or private institution. Subpart E of the Rehab Act requires an institution to be prepared to make reasonable academic adjustments and accommodations. This would allow students with disabilities full participation in the same programs and activities available to students without disabilities. The ADA further reinforces these statutes. With relation to college and university settings, a qualified person with a disability is one who meets the academic and technical standards required for admission or participation in the institution’s educational programs or activities.

The following requirements of the laws are of major importance to students:

  • Institutions must ensure accessibility of programs and activities to students with disabilities. Architectural barriers must be removed where the program is not accessible by other means. Students with disabilities are entitled to equal access in the selection of courses and majors.
  • Tests must not discriminate against a person with a disability. Tests must be selected and administered to measure the student’s aptitude or achievement levels unless that is the skill the test is designed to measure.
  • Students with a disability must be provided with auxiliary aids and accommodations in their academic activities. Auxiliary aids and accommodations may include interpreters or other effective methods of making orally delivered material available to students with hearing impairments; taped textbooks, classroom equipment for use by students with mobility impairments; and other similar actions or accommodations. Colleges and universities need not provide personal attendants, individually prescribed devices, readers for personal use or study, or other devices or accommodations of a personal nature.
  • Reasonable modifications must be made where necessary in nonessential academic requirements to ensure full educational opportunity for students with disabilities. Such modifications may include the extension of time for completing degree requirements, substitutions of courses in nonessential degree requirements, adaptation of the manner in which specific courses are conducted, permission to tape record lectures, and the use of assistance animals on campus.

Overall, modifications need not be made for academic requirements that can be demonstrated to be “essential to the program of instruction” being pursued or to any directly related licensing requirement.