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Does Section 504 require single‐room accommodations?
Author(s) -
Masinter Michael R.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
disability compliance for higher education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1943-8001
pISSN - 1086-1335
DOI - 10.1002/dhe.31146
Subject(s) - accommodation , anxiety , covid-19 , section (typography) , psychology , civil rights , psychiatry , internet privacy , business , medicine , advertising , political science , law , computer science , disease , pathology , neuroscience , infectious disease (medical specialty)
A May 2019 column noted a rise in requests for single‐room accommodations for anxiety, observing that given the choice, most students, with or without a disability, would prefer a room of their own to a double room with a roommate, particularly when offered at a reduced rate. Since publication, spurred by fear of COVID‐19 as well as by emotional and psychiatric disorders, even more students appear to be seeking single‐room accommodations, supported by letters from health care providers that diagnose various emotional or psychiatric disabilities and identify some therapeutic or privacy‐based benefit that a single room may provide. In considering these no‐roommate accommodation requests, institutions should review whether, and if so when, Section 504 regulations require single rooms as a disability accommodation. Surprisingly, Office for Civil Rights letters do not answer that question.