Section 504 and Extracurricular Activities

QUESTION: Do 504 accommodations extend to sports/extracurricular activities?

Yes. Students who are qualified as having a disability under Section 504 are entitled to the accommodations, services, supports, and modifications under their plan during extracurricular activities, including sports.

Relevant Legal Standards

• Under Section 504, schools that receive Federal financial assistance must ensure that children and youth with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate in the program or activity of the school, including extracurricular activities.
• Section 504 ensures students with disabilities have an equal opportunity for participation in extracurricular and nonacademic services to the same extent as their nondisabled peers. 34 CFR 104.37 (a)(1)
• Districts must provide the assistance a student needs to equally participate in an extracurricular activity, even if the activity is not included in the student's IEP or Section 504 plan. Berkeley (CA) Unified Sch. Dist., 114 LRP 47366 (OCR 08/19/14) (stating that "participation in an ... extracurricular program need not be required by the student's IEP or Section 504 plan ... for the student to receive ... aids, supports, services, and/or modifications").
• Section 504's least restrictive environment mandate also includes nonacademic settings, including extracurricular activities. Districts must ensure that each child with a disability participates with nondisabled children in those services and activities to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs of the child. 34 CFR 104.34 (b)
• Districts must provide reasonable modifications that are necessary to ensure students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate in athletic programs.
• "In the education context, the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act require a covered institution to offer reasonable accommodations for a student's known disability unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of its program, or fundamentally alter the nature of the service, program, or activity." (Dean v Univ. at Buffalo Sch. of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, 804 F3d 178 [2d Cir 2015])

Legal Recourse – Sports Discrimination, State Claim under Section 504

• To establish a prima facie case of discrimination under either the ADA or Section 504, a plaintiff must show the following:
  • (1) Plaintiff is a "qualified individual with a disability;"
  • (2) Plaintiff was "excluded from participation in a public entity's services, programs or activities or was otherwise discriminated against by [the] public entity;" and
  • (3) "Such exclusion or discrimination was due to [plaintiff's] disability." Fulton v. Goord, 591 F.3d 37, 43 (2d Cir. 2009)
• "'Reasonable' is a relational term: it evaluates the desirability of a particular accommodation according to the consequences that the accommodation will produce. This requires a fact-specific, case-by-case inquiry, not only into the benefits of the accommodation but into its costs as well." Fulton, 591 F.3d at 44
• "A plaintiff may recover money damages under the ADA or Section 504 by showing a statutory violation resulted from 'deliberate indifference' to the rights secured the disabled by those statutes." K.M. ex rel. D.G., 381 F. Supp. 2d at 358 (citing Garcia v. S.U.N.Y. Health Scis. Ctr. of Brooklyn, 280 F.3d 98, 115 (2d Cir. 2001))

Source: Gabriella DeRosa, Esq.