Your Guide to College Civil Rights Law and Intervention

As a college student with a disability, you have legal and civil rights that guaranty your ability to get an education. We have compiled information from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) that explain your rights and some of the things that you can do to protect them. For further information, we have provided links to other websites.

 

 

If you are a qualified person with a disability at your college, the following may be considered a violation of your civil rights:

  • You are denied an aid, benefit or service that is provided to others.
  • You are provided a different service or other benefit, or provided services or benefits in a different manner from those provided to others under the same program.
  • You are denied the opportunity to participate as a member of a planning or advisory board.
  • You are given eligibility criteria that screens you out or tends to screen you out from fully or equally enjoying any program or activity, unless such criteria is shown to be necessary.
  • You are provided with an aid, benefit or service that is not as effective as those given to another student for simular reasons.
  • A location has been selected for a program that excludes you from benefits or sevices.
  • A program or class is administered using criteria or methods which lead to discrimination or a denial of your recognized reasonable accomodations.

What can you do if you feel that you have been denied your civil rights to a college education?

You first need to attempt a resolution with your DSPS counselor. Give your counselor only a few weeks to fully resolve the problem, because you only have 180 days from the day that your civil rights were violated to file a civil rights complaint outside of the college. Your counselor may want to provide you with an alternate accomodation. You are not obligated to take an alternative accomodation if you do not believe that it will help you. But, you might not know until you try it. Allow only a few additional weeks before determining if the new accomodation will be useful. You may disagree with your counselor. If you believe that your civil rights are still being denied, then you can immediately file a civil rights claim.

You can file a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). This is not a complicated process, but it is very serious. An OCR complaint is a Federal action that will result in the college being investigated by Federal OCR officers. Your college will take notice.

If you decide to file a complaint, you will be asked to provide your name, address, and email address; the name and address of the person discriminated against; and the name and address of the entity you believe discriminated.

You also will be asked which type of discrimination is the basis for your complaint (see above example of violations). You will need to provide a description of the conduct that you believe is discriminatory.

By law, complaints of discrimination must ordinarily be filed within 180 days of the last act of discrimination. If your complaint involves matters that occurred longer ago than this and you are requesting a waiver, you will be asked why you did not file your complaint within the 180-day period.

You will be asked whether you have tried to resolve the matter using a grievance procedure or by filing with another agency.

OCR requires your signed consent authorizing them to process your complaint. After you complete the form but before you submit it electronically, you will be asked to read three additional documents. Two of these documents contain important information with which you should be familiar. The third document is a Consent Form, which you will need to print, sign, and mail to the Enforcement Office with authority for the state where the institution or entity you are complaining about is located.

Once you submit the completed form, it will be routed to the OCR office with authority to handle complaints in the state where the institution or entity you are complaining about is located. A staff person will contact you once your electronic complaint has been received and reviewed.

Online Complaint Form (following link)

http://wdcrobcolp01.ed.gov/CFAPPS/OCR/complaintform.cfm

Additional information at the following OCR websites:

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/qa-complaints.html

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/customerservice.html