## Facts

- Students with learning disabilities and disability-rights organizations brought a class action against Boston University (BU) and university officials under the ADA, § 504, and related state-law theories.
- Earlier proceedings required BU to abandon a blanket refusal of course substitutions and to use a reasoned academic process to decide whether substituting courses for the College of Arts and Sciences foreign-language requirement would fundamentally alter the liberal arts degree.
- BU convened the College’s Dean’s Advisory Committee, a faculty body responsible for advising on academic standards, to conduct the required review.
- The Committee deliberated for over two months, considered the educational role of the foreign-language requirement and potential alternatives, and concluded the requirement was fundamental to the liberal arts program.
- The Committee further concluded that allowing course substitutions for the foreign-language requirement would fundamentally alter the nature of the degree and that English-taught courses could not perform the same educational functions.
- BU identified other accommodations for students with learning disabilities (including individualized instruction options, tutoring, and testing/note-taking adjustments) to assist students in meeting the foreign-language requirement.
- Plaintiffs challenged both the adequacy of BU’s deliberative process and the substantive conclusion that substitutions would be a fundamental alteration.

## Issues

1. Whether BU complied with the court-ordered requirement to use a sufficiently deliberative, academically grounded procedure to evaluate course substitutions for the foreign-language requirement.
2. Whether BU met its burden under the ADA and § 504 to show that permitting course substitutions would fundamentally alter the nature of the liberal arts degree, excusing BU from providing that specific accommodation.

## Decision

- The court upheld BU’s determination that course substitutions for the foreign-language requirement would fundamentally alter the liberal arts degree.
- The court found BU’s use of the Dean’s Advisory Committee, and the Committee’s extended faculty deliberations, satisfied the required deliberative procedure.
- The court accepted the Committee’s academic judgment that the foreign-language requirement was fundamental to BU’s conception of a liberal arts education.
- Because substitutions were shown to be a fundamental alteration, BU was not required by the ADA or § 504 to provide course substitutions for the foreign-language requirement.

## Legal Principles

- Under the ADA and § 504, an institution must provide reasonable modifications unless the requested modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the program or impose an undue burden.
- A university may maintain essential academic standards if it demonstrates, through reasoned academic judgment, that the standard is fundamental and that the requested modification would fundamentally alter the program.
- Blanket prohibitions on accommodations are disfavored; the institution must ground its refusal in a careful, professionally supported analysis rather than stereotypes or reflexive assumptions.
- The availability of alternative accommodations may support the conclusion that an institution can comply with disability law while preserving a fundamental academic requirement.

## Conclusion

The court held that BU complied with disability law by using a faculty-driven, deliberative process to determine that the foreign-language requirement was fundamental to its liberal arts degree and that course substitutions would fundamentally alter the program, so BU was not obligated to grant substitutions while still providing other reasonable accommodations.


Guckenberger v. Bos. Univ., 8 F. Supp. 2d 82 (D. Mass. 1998)