Food, Water and Medication Access

Food, water, and medication accommodations sound minor and are not. For a student with diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, migraine, sickle cell disease, or a severe food allergy, a “no food or drink” classroom policy is not an etiquette rule — it is a barrier to being in the room safely. The Office for Civil Rights has said so in a series of condition-specific fact sheets, and those sheets are the most concrete, most quotable material available on this subject.

Eating during instruction

OCR names permission to eat during class as an example modification for several conditions:

Diabetes. Allowing a student to eat a snack or a source of fast-acting sugar, such as candy, during instruction.
Gastroesophageal reflux disease. Allowing the student to eat snacks during instruction.
Inflammatory bowel disease. Allowing the student to consume water and snacks during instruction.
Cancer. Allowing the student to consume water and snacks during instruction, alongside adjusted schedules and rest periods.
Migraine. Allowing the student to consume water and snacks during instruction in order to prevent a migraine attack — note the preventive framing, which matters when a school asks why you need to eat now rather than later.

One caution worth stating plainly: several of these fact sheets pair the snack provision with a separate option to go to lunch early or late, and OCR expressly limits that second half to elementary and secondary settings. The snack-during-instruction half is not so limited.

Water

OCR names access to water during instruction for sickle cell disease, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, and migraine. For sickle cell in particular, hydration is not comfort — dehydration is a recognized trigger for a pain crisis.

Where a laboratory or clinical setting has a genuine safety rule against open containers, the question is not whether the rule is legitimate but whether a modification exists: a lidded container, a designated area immediately outside, a scheduled break. A rule can be essential and still admit an accommodation.

Medication

The strongest and most specific OCR language in this area concerns carrying and self-administering medication:

Diabetes. Allowing a student capable of doing so to carry the emergency medication glucagon, and to carry and self-administer other medications such as insulin.
Asthma. Permitting a student to carry and self-administer quick-relief medication through an inhaler or otherwise.
Food allergies. Permitting students capable of carrying and using an epinephrine auto-injector at school and school-related events to do so.
Epilepsy. Allowing a student to carry and self-administer medication at prescribed times or if they sense a seizure may be coming on — the clearest statement anywhere in this material that timing flexibility is part of the accommodation, not an extra.
Migraine. Permitting access to a student’s medication to prevent or treat a migraine attack as needed.

OCR’s disability discrimination FAQ goes further on food allergies specifically, naming administering epinephrine according to a doctor’s orders even where the school has a no-medication policy. A general policy is not an answer to an individualized need.

Dining halls, meal plans, and campus food service

This is where postsecondary institutions get into difficulty, and it comes up in two distinct ways.

Food allergies. OCR names designating allergen-free eating areas and providing clearly labeled dairy-free or other allergen-free options in cafeterias, dining halls, and at school events; prohibiting certain foods in classrooms or buildings with notice to the community; and keeping eating and learning environments free of allergens, including on field trips and at extracurricular events, by measures as ordinary as wiping down surfaces before use. OCR also notes that because the severity of allergic reactions varies over time, past mild reactions do not mean a person will not have a more serious reaction later — which disposes of the “but you were fine last year” response.

Eating disorders. OCR names, as postsecondary modifications, excusing a student from required participation in a meal plan, and allowing the student to take food out of the cafeteria so they may eat in privacy. Mandatory meal-plan requirements at residential colleges are a live compliance problem, and this is the guidance that addresses it.

Bathroom access, which travels with all of this

OCR names permission to leave class to use the restroom as needed for diabetes, GERD, inflammatory bowel disease, sickle cell disease, and cancer. For inflammatory bowel disease it goes further, naming preferred seating or a preferred testing location to facilitate access to the restroom and pausing the clock if the student needs to use the restroom during an exam. On that last point see stop-the-clock breaks, which are a different accommodation from extended time.

How to ask

Ask for the function, not the object. “Access to fast-acting glucose at any time, without asking permission” is durable across instructors. “Permission to have candy in Professor X’s class” is not.
Get it into the accommodation letter, not a side agreement with one instructor. Verbal permission does not survive a substitute proctor.
Name the settings. Lecture, laboratory, clinical placement, examination room, and any proctored or remote exam. Testing centers routinely prohibit food and drink and will apply that rule to you unless told otherwise.
Address discretion if you want it. Several OCR sheets note that harassment in these cases often attaches to precisely these visible behaviors — frequent bathroom trips, eating a different snack. You are entitled to the accommodation without being conspicuous about it, and the arrangement can say so.

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 analyzed 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 program’s requirements in spite of the disability, and the statute does not require substantial modifications to the program 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 program’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 program.

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 program 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 program 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 program, 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 recognize, 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 program 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 program — 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

My school says food is banned in all classrooms. Does that end it?

No. A neutral policy that limits the participation of a student with a disability is precisely what an accommodation modifies. The school may consider alternatives, but it has to consider them.

Do I need a doctor’s note?

A school may ask for documentation, but OCR states in every one of these fact sheets that a school may always accept that a student has a disability without any documentation or medical tests, and that medical tests are often not required where a symptom history is sufficient.

Can a testing center refuse to let me bring water or glucose tablets?

Not if it is an approved accommodation. Confirm before the exam and bring the letter; the failure here is almost always logistical rather than substantive.

What about a lab or clinical rotation with a real safety rule?

Ask for the alternative rather than the exception. There usually is one, and asking for it makes you easy to accommodate.

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.