Defining Accommodations

A disability accommodation is:
  • Legally mandated
  • Confidential
  • For students who are qualified 
  • Reasonable
  • Prevention of discrimination
  • Decided by professional disability services providers, through a holistic process of negotiation with the student and faculty
  • Based on medical documentation
  • An attempt to "level the playing field" for students with disabilities so they can get the same education as their nondisabled peers
  • Required to follow professional standards for fields (e.g., becoming a doctor), if those standards are documented and in compliance with federal law
  • The bare minimum of what a campus can do for students with disabilities​
A disability accommodation is not:
  • Something optional, based on faculty judgment
  • An unfair advantage
  • Unreasonable
  • Compromising essential components of courses
  • A decision about whether or not someone can get an "A"
  • The same for all courses (e.g., accommodations for a chemistry lab and a music course will probably be different)
Definition of accommodations is adapted from Imperial Valley College's "Facts on the ADA, Disability, and Accommodations - Information About Disabilities," developed with funding from the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, (Cooperative Agreement No. (H324M980109).