Parent and Educator Resource Guide to Section 504 in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
Athletics and Extracurricular Activities
School districts must provide non-academic services and activities in a manner that provides students with disabilities an equal opportunity for participation.101 This requirement includes activities such as extracurricular athletics and special interest groups or clubs sponsored by the school district.102
School districts must afford qualified students with disabilities an equal opportunity for participation in extracurricular athletics in an integrated manner to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs of the student.103 This requirement means that a school district must make reasonable modifications to its policies, practices, or procedures whenever such modifications are necessary to ensure equal opportunity, unless the school district can demonstrate that the requested modification would constitute a fundamental alteration of the nature of the extracurricular athletic activity.104
The fact that a student has a disability does not mean that the student must be allowed to participate in any selective or competitive program offered by a school district. Rather, school districts may require a level of skill or ability of a student in order for that student to participate in a selective or competitive program or activity, so long as the selection or competition criteria are not discriminatory.105
In considering whether a reasonable modification is legally required, the school district must first engage in an individualized inquiry to determine whether the modification is necessary. 106 As a result of this inquiry, a school district may find, for example, that a hard-of-hearing sprinter needs a visual cue at the start of each race because he or she cannot hear the starter’s pistol, or that staff must administer a glucose test and insulin, as necessary, to a student with diabetes in order to facilitate his or her participation in an afterschool club activity.
On the other hand, a modification might constitute a fundamental alteration if it alters such an essential aspect of the activity or game that it would be unacceptable even if it affected all competitors equally (for example, removing a base from a baseball diamond). Alternatively, a change that has only a peripheral impact on the activity or game itself might nevertheless give a particular player with a disability an unfair advantage over others and, for that reason, fundamentally alter the character of the competition (for example, allowing a student with a disability to start a race a few seconds before his non-disabled peers). Such changes would not be required under Section 504.
101 34 C.F.R. § 104.37.
102 Id.
103 34 C.F.R. §§ 104.37(a), (c), 104.34(b), 104.4(b)(1)(ii).
104 See Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 300-01 (1985) (Section 504 may require reasonable modifications to a program or benefit to assure meaningful access to qualified persons with disabilities); Se. Cmty. Coll. v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397 (1979) (Section 504 does not prohibit a college from excluding a person with a serious hearing impairment as not qualified where accommodating the impairment would require a fundamental alteration in the college’s program); PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 (2001) (under Title III of the ADA, waiver of a particular rule for an athlete with a disability deemed by the Supreme Court to be a reasonable accommodation because an individualized analysis revealed that the waiver did not result in a fundamental alteration of the athletic activity); see also OCR, Dear Colleague Letter: Students with Disabilities in Extracurricular Athletics (Jan. 25, 2013), www.ed.gov/ocr/letters/colleague-201301-504.html.
105 34 C.F.R. §§ 104.37(a), (c), 104.34(b), 104.4(b)(1)(ii); see also OCR, Dear Colleague Letter: Students with Disabilities in Extracurricular Athletics (Jan. 25, 2013), www.ed.gov/ocr/letters/colleague-201301-504.html.
106 34 C.F.R. § 104.37; see also OCR, Dear Colleague Letter: Students with Disabilities in Extracurricular Athletics (Jan. 25, 2013), www.ed.gov/ocr/letters/colleague-201301-504.html.
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