New Guidance on Disability Accommodation

To help colleges ensure that their approach to disability documentation and accommodations requests is appropriate and equitable, in the wake of multiple federal guidelines changes that have made the work more complicated, the Association on Higher Education and Disability released new guidance on Monday. “Although the amendments and regulatory revisions occurred through separate federal processes, together they reflect a more mature understanding of disability that is essential for fostering a positive campus perspective on disability,” AHEAD wrote. “The concepts described in this document are interrelated components of a comprehensive, professional approach to using disability documentation to make informed decisions.” The guidance notes that requiring “extensive” medical and scientific evidence of a disability is “inappropriate and burdensome,” and explains how accommodations should be made on a case-by-case basis using a “commonsense standard” and “relevant but not necessarily ‘recent’" information.