{"id":24192,"date":"2026-04-07T15:53:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=24192"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:07:07","slug":"the-higher-education-accommodation-mistake","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-114\/volume-114-issue-2-december-2025\/the-higher-education-accommodation-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"The Higher Education Accommodation Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A university may deny a disabled student\u2019s reasonable accommodation <\/em><em>request if it decides that the accommodation would fundamentally alter <\/em><em>its academic programs. In practice, the fundamental alteration defense <\/em><em>works like a silver bullet. In evaluating the defense\u2019s application, courts <\/em><em>defer to universities\u2019 judgments about what exactly is fundamental about <\/em><em>their programs. This deference is a mistake, and one that has had wide-<\/em><em>ranging consequences for generations of disabled students whose accom<\/em><em>modation requests were denied. This Article describes how <\/em>Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine<em>, a First Circuit decision inter<\/em><em>preting Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, invented a standard for <\/em><em>reviewing how the fundamental alteration defense applies to requests for <\/em><em>reasonable accommodation in higher education, and how that standard <\/em><em>then became the leading approach. <\/em>Wynne <em>imported its problematically <\/em><em>deferential standard from an unrelated and inapplicable body of law\u2014<\/em><em>qualified immunity. The result is a test that mistakenly grants super-def<\/em><em>erence to certain Section 504 and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) <\/em><em>defendants in a way that the law does not permit. The Supreme Court has <\/em><em>unequivocally held that ADA defendants do not receive special deference <\/em><em>with respect to a court\u2019s determination of what aspects of their programs <\/em><em>and services are fundamental. Yet for decades, <\/em>Wynne <em>has gone unques<\/em><em>tioned, and its influence has only grown. It is now creeping into work-<\/em><em>place discrimination cases, where it unjustifiably advantages employer-<\/em><em>defendants. This Article is the first to contend that <\/em>Wynne <em>was wrongly <\/em><em>decided. If courts recognize that <\/em>Wynne <em>is incorrect, more accommoda<\/em><em>tions will be provided to the very students who need them\u2014and as a <\/em><em>result, those students will be more likely to stay in school, graduate, and <\/em><em>have a chance at the self-fulfillment the ADA was intended to facilitate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/04\/Macfarlane_The-Higher-Education-Accommodation-Mistake.pdf\"><strong><em>The Higher Education Accommodation Mistake<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/04\/Macfarlane_The-Higher-Education-Accommodation-Mistake.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">Macfarlane_The-Higher-Education-Accommodation-Mistake<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A university may deny a disabled student\u2019s reasonable accommodation request if it decides that the accommodation would fundamentally alter its academic programs. In practice, the fundamental alteration defense works like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13871,"featured_media":0,"parent":24190,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-24192","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24192"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24205,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24192\/revisions\/24205"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}