By Cyndi Jones, Publisher
Where was 504 when I needed it?
The year was 1973, and I was a senior at the University of California, San Diego. I had managed to make my way through three years of college without assistance. This was essential back then, because if you couldn't make it through college unassisted, you couldn't make it. While my classmates had the luxury of selecting their classes by who the professor was, I always selected my classes by their location.
The most important factor in my class selection was, could I get to the class?
I was able to navigate the maze and complete the required courses at accessible locations -- until my senior year. But then Winter quarter came, my next-to-last quarter. When the class schedule came out, I knew I had hit a road block. My three required senior classes (which were offered only once a year) were back-to-back, with the middle class at the opposite end of the campus. This was not going to work.
I went to the Dean of Students and asked if the middle class could be moved. "We couldn't do that! That would involve changing five hundred students." Yes, I thought, and they would all thank you! The difference for the other students was the inconvenience of walking back and forth across campus; for me the trek was impossible. There was no Office of Disabled Students back then. There was no law that said they had to make "reasonable accommodations." And there really was no reason why they couldn't move the classes -- they just didn't want to bother.
Because I couldn't make that trek, I couldn't meet the graduation requirements. Their decision meant that I had to wait another year to graduate. There should have been a law!
There was -- almost. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 might have been passed when this incident happened. But it wasn't enforceable. That's because the regulations to implement the law were not yet approved.
That took another four years!
What we are celebrating this month is the 20th anniversary of the sit-ins that forced the federal government to finally sign the regulations of 504. (See Remember 504 in this issue.)
Today, colleges and universities are required to make "reasonable accommodations." And most college campuses now have an Office of Disabled Student Services to assist students through the bureaucratic red tape of college.
But accessible colleges aren't the only benefit of Section 504. Following serious litigation and demonstrations, 504 gave us access to public transportation, Amtrak, the courts, high school gym classes (thanks to Scot Hollenbeck), and medical services, among other things.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs and activities conducted by the federal government or conducted by recipients of federal financial assistance. No one with a disability should ever have to say, "There ought to be a law!"
Cyndi Jones is Publisher of MAINSTREAM.
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