Skip to main content

Disability Services

Federal Laws Related to College Students

Disability Law is a Civil Right

Northeast is committed to ensuring that students with disabilities civil rights are protected by upholding the principles contained in both the spirit as well as the letter of laws. We prohibit all discrimination on the basis of disability, and we provide appropriate academic adjustments, auxiliary aids, services, and reasonable accommodations to qualified students in all programs and activities which include accessing college websites and online instructional material. If you experience barriers to participating in programs, activities, and services to include Northeast websites, please contact Disability Services office.

Northeast is committed to incorporating accessibility standards to help ensure individuals do not experience barriers accessing to their educational material and or participating in activities and services.

Three reasons are:

  1. It is the right thing to do.
  2. It is the smart thing to do.
  3. It is the law.

Federal Laws and Legal Precedents Pertinent to Post-Secondary Education

These laws were designed to prevent discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Section 504(a) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 states: “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 7(20), 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.” Section 504 prohibits exclusion of qualified students with disabilities from any course or area of concentration based on a disability. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) prohibits state and local governments from discriminating based on disability.

Resources
U.S. Department of Education
Americans with Disability Act

Definitions pertaining to the law

Impairment: Section 504 regulatory provision at 34 C.F.R. 104.3(j)(2)(i) defines a physical or mental impairment as any physiological disorder or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body systems: neurological; musculoskeletal; special sense organs; respiratory, including speech organs; cardiovascular; reproductive; digestive; genitourinary; hemic and lymphatic; skin; and endocrine; or any mental or psychological disorder, such as mental retardation, organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness, and specific learning disabilities.

Major life activity: Major life activities include the major bodily functions such as normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, immune system, and reproductive functions, as well as other major life activities such as caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, standing, lifting, bending, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, communicating, eating, sleeping, working, concentrating, and thinking.

At the postsecondary level, the recipient must provide students with proper academic adjustments and auxiliary aids and services that are necessary to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to take part in a school's program. Recipients do not have to adjust or provide aids or services that would result in a fundamental alteration of a recipient's program or impose an undue burden. CFR 104.44

Title II-2.8000 of the ADA defines the term "qualified"

To be an individual protected by Title II, the individual must be a "qualified" individual with a disability. In college, a qualified student with a disability is a student who meets the academic and technical standards requisite for admission or participation in the institution's educational programs or activities.