Course Substitutions and Waivers

Course substitutions are the accommodation where the law is clearest and the outcome is least predictable. The regulation names them explicitly. The leading case says a university must genuinely consider them. That same case, on its second trip through court, upheld the university’s decision to refuse them anyway.

Understanding why is the key to using this accommodation well.

What it is

Substitution — replacing a required course with a different one that meets the same educational objective. Most commonly a foreign language requirement replaced with courses in the culture, history, or linguistics of a language region; or a quantitative requirement replaced with logic, statistics, or a quantitatively oriented course in another department.
Waiver — removing the requirement without replacement. Far rarer, and much harder to obtain.
Modification of method — keeping the course but changing how competency is demonstrated, for example satisfying a language requirement through reading and writing rather than oral proficiency.

What the regulation says

34 C.F.R. § 104.44(a) is explicit. Academic requirements must be modified where necessary to ensure they do not discriminate, and the regulation gives examples: extending time for degree completion, adapting how a course is conducted, and substitution of specific courses required for completion of degree requirements.

The same sentence contains the limit. Academic requirements that the institution can demonstrate are essential to the instruction being pursued, or to any directly related licensing requirement, are not regarded as discriminatory. Everything turns on that phrase, and particularly on the words can demonstrate.

The Boston University litigation, and why it matters to you

The Guckenberger v. Boston University cases are the reference point in this area, and the two decisions tell opposite halves of one story.

In the first, the court found that a foreign language substitution can be a reasonable modification in principle for students with documented language-based learning disabilities, and that the university had acted unlawfully — not by denying substitutions, but by refusing to consider them at all. The remedy was not an order to grant substitutions. It was an order to run a real deliberative process: convene faculty, examine the question, and decide it on an academic record.

The university did exactly that, concluded that the foreign language requirement was essential to its liberal arts degree, and refused the substitutions. In the second decision, the court upheld that conclusion as a genuine exercise of professional academic judgment.

The lesson is uncomfortable but useful. The actionable wrong is usually procedural. A blanket policy, an unreasoned refusal, or a decision made by an administrator rather than by faculty with academic authority is vulnerable. A documented faculty determination that a requirement is essential is very difficult to displace, and the practical remedy for a bad process is often a better process rather than the substitution itself.

Set your expectations accordingly — and put your effort into the record before the decision rather than the appeal after it.

When substitution requests succeed

The disability is directly and specifically linked to the requirement. Dyslexia and foreign language acquisition; dyscalculia and quantitative requirements. A general learning disability paired with a general dislike of the subject is not the same case.
The documentation addresses the requirement itself. The strongest evaluations explain, in terms an academic committee can follow, why this specific competency is inaccessible while others are not.
You have tried. Committees are much more receptive where a student has attempted the course, used tutoring and accommodations, and still failed. A request made before any attempt reads as avoidance, fairly or not.
The proposed substitute is serious. Arrive with a specific alternative course that meets the same stated objective. Do not ask to be relieved of a requirement; ask to meet it differently.
The school already substitutes for other reasons. If transfer credit, study abroad, or placement testing can satisfy the requirement, the case that it is inflexibly essential is weaker.

When they fail

The requirement is tied to licensure or accreditation. The regulation’s own carve-out covers requirements essential to a directly related licensing requirement, and this is a strong defense.
The requirement defines the degree. A language requirement in a language major. A statistics requirement in a psychology major. Courts do not second-guess this.
The request is really a grade appeal. Asking for a substitution after failing twice, framed as an accommodation, will usually be treated as what it is.
The documentation is generic. A letter that recites a diagnosis without connecting it to the specific competency gives the committee nothing to work with.

How to run the request properly

Find the actual process. Substitutions usually are not decided by disability services. They go to a college curriculum committee, an academic standards committee, or a dean. Ask who decides and what the standard is.
Ask whether the requirement has ever been substituted. For any reason — transfer, study abroad, placement, prior degree. Ask in writing.
Submit documentation that names the competency. Have the evaluator address foreign language acquisition or quantitative reasoning specifically.
Propose the substitute course by number. Explain how it meets the published objective of the requirement.
Ask for reasons in writing. If the answer is no, the reasoning is what tells you whether there is anything to challenge. A decision that says only “the committee declined” is itself a problem worth naming.
Start early. These processes take months. A request made in the final semester will be denied on timing alone.

Other accommodations students ask for

Which accommodation fits depends on the barrier, not the diagnosis, and most students need more than one. These pages cover the others most often requested:

The law that governs a college accommodation request

Two statutes do the work. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, reaches every school that takes federal money — which is very nearly all of them. The ADA covers the rest: Title II for public colleges and universities, Title III for private ones as places of public accommodation. In the Eleventh Circuit, which governs Florida, claims under the two are analysed under the same standards.

The regulation that actually decides most disputes is 34 C.F.R. § 104.44, and it is worth knowing what it says on both sides of the line.

What it requires. A college must modify academic requirements where necessary so they do not discriminate — and the regulation names examples: changes in the length of time permitted to complete a degree, substitution of specific courses, and adaptation of how a course is conducted. It requires modified examination formats so that results measure achievement rather than the disability, unless the disability is what the test is measuring. And it requires auxiliary aids — taped texts, interpreters, library readers, adapted classroom equipment.

What it expressly does not require. The same regulation says a college need not provide attendants, individually prescribed devices, readers for personal use or study, or other devices or services of a personal nature. A student who asks for a personal aide or a personal reader is asking for something § 104.44 does not oblige the school to supply, and it is better to know that at the outset. The regulation also provides that academic requirements the school can demonstrate are essential to the instruction, or to a directly related licensing requirement, are not discriminatory.

“Otherwise qualified” — and where Florida students lose

Protection runs only to a student who is “otherwise qualified.” Under Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397 (1979), that means able to meet the programme’s requirements in spite of the disability, and the statute does not require substantial modifications to the programme itself. The Eleventh Circuit put it plainly in Goldberg v. Florida International University, 838 F. App’x 487 (11th Cir. 2020): a qualified student is one who can meet the programme’s academic standards with or without accommodations.

The recent Florida cases show where that bites. In Nehme v. Florida International University Board of Trustees, 121 F.4th 1379 (11th Cir. 2024), a medical student who failed at least eight courses — five of them after being placed on academic probation — was held not to be a qualified individual, and it counted against him that he conceded he had received proper accommodations for four of the failed exams. In J.A.M. v. Nova Southeastern University, 646 F. App’x 921 (11th Cir. 2016), repeated extended leaves of absence, exam rescheduling and excusal of misconduct were held to be accommodations that would fundamentally alter an osteopathic medicine programme.

The practical lesson runs the other way, though, and it is the reason timing matters more than almost anything else: accommodations are forward-looking. A request made after a run of failures is fighting the record those failures created. The same request made before them is a different case entirely.

The school has to actually think about it — the strongest student-side rule

Deference to academic judgment is real. Courts will not override a genuinely academic decision unless it is “such a substantial departure from accepted academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or committee responsible did not actually exercise professional judgment” — Regents of University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214, 225 (1985) — and courts in Florida give the same respect to a school’s judgment about the qualifications its programme requires. But deference is earned, not assumed, and that is where cases are won.

Under Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, 932 F.2d 19 (1st Cir. 1991) (en banc) — applied in Florida in Forbes v. St. Thomas University, 768 F. Supp. 2d 1222 (S.D. Fla. 2010), aff’d, 456 F. App’x 809 (11th Cir. 2012) — a school has “a real obligation” to “seek suitable means of reasonably accommodating” a student with a disability, and has to put in a factual record showing that its officials “considered alternative means, their feasibility, cost and effect on the academic program” before concluding that no reasonable accommodation was available. A conclusory assertion, with no evidence of deliberate consideration, is not enough. So the question to ask of any denial is not only “was this decision right?” but “is there any record that anyone actually weighed the alternatives?” Often there is not.

Two further points help. Whether an accommodation would impose an undue burden or fundamentally alter a programme is generally a question of fact — Redding v. Nova Southeastern University, 165 F. Supp. 3d 1274 (S.D. Fla. 2016) — which means it is not something a school can simply assert its way past. And to establish fundamental alteration a school has to identify the essential requirement, show that modifying it goes to the core of the programme, and show it considered whether any lesser alternative existed.

The interactive process, and a warning about how students lose it

Section 504 and the ADA do not use the phrase “interactive process” for college students the way employment law does, and the Eleventh Circuit has not held in a published decision that failing to engage in one is independently actionable — that remains unsettled. What Florida courts do recognise, from Forbes, is that the process is genuinely two-sided: the student carries the initial burden to identify the disability and make the case for specific accommodations, after which the school must consider the request and make a reasoned decision.

Here is the warning. In Amy v. Florida International University Board of Trustees, 2024 WL 5323717 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 20, 2024), the court found that the student broke down the interactive process by insisting on one particular accommodation and resisting any alternative. Where a school does not obstruct the process and makes reasonable efforts to communicate and to accommodate on the information it has, liability does not follow. Refusing every alternative on offer is a way to lose a case that could have been won — ask for what you need, but engage with what is proposed, and put the reasons in writing.

Technical standards

Published technical standards get real deference. Following Southeastern Community College v. Davis, the Eleventh Circuit treats a school’s academic standards as entitled to deference as the statement of the qualifications its programme requires: Wood v. President & Trustees of Spring Hill College, 978 F.2d 1214, 1222–23 (11th Cir. 1992); see also Redding v. Nova Southeastern University, 165 F. Supp. 3d 1274, 1285 (S.D. Fla. 2016). They are not untouchable. The Section 504 regulation shields only the academic requirements a school can demonstrate are essential to the instruction or to a directly related licensing requirement, 34 C.F.R. § 104.44(a), so the showing is the school’s to make. And under Wynne, the school has to show that the people responsible actually considered the alternatives — their feasibility, cost and effect on the programme — rather than simply pointing to the standard. Courts will not second-guess curriculum or clinical content on a thin record, but a standard that appears nowhere until the moment it is used to exclude a student is a different matter from one published and applied consistently for years.

Retaliation

Asking for accommodations is protected activity, and so is complaining about how a request was handled. A retaliation claim requires protected activity, the school’s knowledge of it, an adverse action, and a causal link — with but-for causation, and the familiar burden-shifting that follows. Retaliation claims sometimes survive where the underlying accommodation claim does not, because they turn on what the school did after the request rather than on whether the student was qualified.

Where to complain, and what it is worth

There are two routes and they are not alternatives you have to choose between carefully — a student may do both.

The Office for Civil Rights. A complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s OCR must be filed within 180 days of the discriminatory act. It costs nothing and needs no lawyer, though what you put in it matters.

Court. A postsecondary student does not have to exhaust administrative remedies before suing under Section 504 or the ADA. Filing with OCR is not a prerequisite.

On remedies, be realistic. Injunctive relief — reinstatement, the accommodation itself, correction of a record — and attorney’s fees do not require proof of intentional discrimination. Money damages do, generally shown through deliberate indifference: that the school knew of a substantial risk of discrimination and failed to act.

And one recent development that changes what these cases are worth. In Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, 596 U.S. 212 (2022), the Supreme Court held that emotional distress damages are not recoverable under Section 504, because it was enacted under the Spending Clause and funding recipients never consented to that exposure. The Eleventh Circuit extended that to ADA Title II in A.W. v. Coweta County School District, 110 F.4th 1309 (11th Cir. 2024). Earlier Eleventh Circuit authority allowing emotional distress damages, Sheely v. MRI Radiology Network, 505 F.3d 1173 (11th Cir. 2007), no longer holds. For most students this means the value of a case lies in getting the accommodation, the place, or the record put right — not in a damages award for the distress of the fight.

This page describes how these rules work in general. It is not legal advice about your situation, and no outcome can be promised in any individual case.

Common questions

Will a substitution show on my transcript?

Your transcript shows the courses you took. Some institutions note that a requirement was satisfied by substitution; that notation does not identify a disability.

Can graduate programs or licensing boards object later?

Rarely for undergraduate general education requirements. It is a real consideration where the substituted course is a prerequisite for a professional program — check the downstream requirements before you substitute.

Is a waiver ever granted?

Occasionally, most often where a program has an existing exception mechanism. Substitution is nearly always the better request because it asks the institution to preserve the requirement’s purpose rather than abandon it.

What if my school says it has never done this?

Novelty is not a legal answer, and a stated policy of never considering substitutions is the specific failure the Guckenberger litigation addressed. Put the request in writing and ask for the institution’s reasoning on the merits.

Does this apply to graduate and professional programs?

The regulation does, but the essentiality defense is much stronger there, particularly where accreditation or licensure is involved. See clinical placements and technical standards.

This is an individualized, fact-specific inquiry

Every determination described on this page is individualized. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights says so directly: asked whether there is a list of all possible academic adjustments, OCR answers no — adjustments “must be individualized,” and “sometimes the most effective and practical academic adjustment for a given situation is a new solution rather than an off-the-shelf response.”

The lists on this page are examples. They are not comprehensive, they are not a menu, and they are not a ceiling. Two students with the same diagnosis can need entirely different adjustments, and OCR’s own guidance uses paired examples to make that point — one student whose treatment plan calls for supervision, another whose plan calls for privacy, same condition, opposite accommodation. A school that applies a fixed package to everyone with a particular condition has already made an error, whatever the package contains.

Nothing here predicts what any particular school will do, or what any particular student is entitled to. That depends on facts this page cannot know.

This practice is student-side only

A Students’ Lawyer represents students and families. It does not advise, defend, or consult for colleges, universities, testing agencies, or licensing boards. Knowing how a school is supposed to run this analysis is what makes it possible to show when it has not — where the interactive process was skipped, where an essential-requirement finding was assumed rather than made, where a denial rests on a blanket policy rather than on this student’s documentation. The standard reads the same from either chair. The reason to know it cold is to hold the institution to it.

When it is time to call a lawyer

Most accommodation requests should never involve counsel. Register, document, ask, receive. The moments that actually warrant a call are narrower and more specific:

The denial rests on a policy rather than on you. “We don’t do that” and “that isn’t one of our accommodations” are not individualized assessments, and OCR has said as much.
An essential requirement is invoked but cannot be found in writing. A technical standard or program requirement that appears for the first time in your denial letter is worth examining.
The school offers withdrawal, a leave, or a lighter program instead of a modification it never evaluated.
Something changed after you asked. Requesting a modification is itself protected activity, and a grade, a referral, a schedule, or a tone that shifts afterward raises a separate retaliation question that does not depend on whether the original request was correct.
A deadline is running. Internal appeal windows are short, an OCR complaint is generally due within 180 days, and a graduation or licensure date does not wait.
The stakes have escalated. Once probation, dismissal, a conduct referral, or a technical-standards determination is on the table, the matter is no longer an accommodation request.

These are fact-specific questions, and the answer usually turns on details — what was asked, in what words, to whom, and what the file says. If you are not sure whether your situation is one of these, that uncertainty is itself a reasonable reason to ask.

Get in touch to talk through a specific situation, whether you are a student or a family.

General information about disability law in education. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and it cannot account for the facts of your situation or the law of your jurisdiction. Guidance documents from the Office for Civil Rights are cited throughout; OCR guidance does not itself have the force and effect of law, and OCR states that its enforcement determinations are based on the particular factual circumstances of each individual case.