## Facts

- Ronald Sandison and Craig Stanley were Michigan public high school students with documented learning disabilities that delayed their academic progress by about two grades, making them older than typical seniors.
- Michigan High School Athletic Association, Inc. (MHSAA) regulated interscholastic athletics for member schools and enforced an age-eligibility rule: any student who turned nineteen on or before September 1 of the school year was ineligible to compete that year.
- The age rule was applied uniformly and provided no waiver mechanism.
- Both students turned nineteen before the relevant September 1 cutoff and were barred from senior-year cross-country and track participation, despite prior participation in earlier years.
- The students sued under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Titles II and III of the ADA, alleging the age disqualification resulted from disability-related educational delay and therefore constituted unlawful disability discrimination.
- The district court issued a preliminary injunction allowing them to compete and prohibiting MHSAA from penalizing their schools for permitting participation.
- MHSAA appealed; by the time of the appellate decision, the sports seasons had ended and both students had graduated.

## Issues

1. Whether the portion of the preliminary injunction requiring the students be allowed to compete was moot after the seasons ended and the students graduated.
2. Whether the district court properly enjoined MHSAA from penalizing member schools for permitting the students’ participation.
3. Whether, under § 504 and the ADA, the students were excluded “solely by reason of” disability (or “by reason of” disability) and were “otherwise qualified” such that waiver of the age rule was a required reasonable modification rather than an impermissible fundamental alteration.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit dismissed as moot the appeal from the portion of the preliminary injunction ordering that the students be allowed to compete, because the seasons had ended and both students had graduated.
- The Sixth Circuit reversed the portion of the preliminary injunction barring MHSAA from penalizing the schools for allowing participation.
- The court held the students had not shown a sufficient likelihood of success on the merits to justify that injunctive relief.

## Legal Principles

- Claims for injunctive relief are moot when the challenged season has concluded and the affected students have graduated, leaving no effective relief as to participation.
- A facially neutral eligibility rule applied evenhandedly does not violate § 504 merely because disability-related circumstances make compliance harder; exclusion based on failure to meet the neutral criterion is not exclusion “solely by reason of” disability.
- § 504 and the ADA require reasonable modifications for otherwise qualified persons but do not require changes that would fundamentally alter the nature of a program.
- Where an age-eligibility rule is treated as central to competitive fairness and participant safety, requiring a disability-based waiver may be viewed as a fundamental alteration rather than a reasonable modification.
- At the preliminary injunction stage, failure to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits defeats injunctive relief.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that the students’ request to waive MHSAA’s neutral age-eligibility rule was unlikely to succeed under § 504 and the ADA because the exclusion was based on age and a waiver would alter an essential eligibility condition; it therefore reversed the no-penalties portion of the preliminary injunction and dismissed as moot the participation portion after the students graduated.


Sandison v. Michigan High Sch. Athletic Ass’n, Inc., 64 F.3d 1026 (6th Cir. 1995)