A lawsuit involving 17 states is threatening to end 504 protections. This was started by Texas in a lawsuit called Texas v. Becerra in response to a change in 504 regulations made by Biden last year. It started with the lawsuit wanting gender dysphoria to be removed from the list of disabilities. As the lawsuit transpired, the goal changed to ridding Section 504 completely and labeling it unconstitutional. Kansas is one of the states signed onto the lawsuit.
“A 504 plan comes out of a civil rights law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, that provides students with a disability some accommodations within their general education setting to be successful in the classroom,” assistant principal Amy Baldwin said.
However, not just anyone can get a 504 plan and Baldwin helps us understand the process,
“They have to have a major life disability that affects a major life action, so it could be anything from walking, talking, to actually learning,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin says that the elimination of 504 support would be very damaging to the school and the public in general.
“I think it would be detrimental to public schools to lose the 504 system… It does help. I’ve seen it in the 30-some years I’ve been in education,” she said.
Warren Bartsch, a freshman student with a 504, says his accommodations for autism and ADHD help him to succeed.
“One of my accommodations is an mp3 player so I can listen to music during individual work. Another is alternate passing where I can pass five minutes before the bell,” he said. “Before I had my 504 plan it was hard. School in general was just flat-out hard.”
Despite joining the suit, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said that his goal is not for 504 plans to be eliminated entirely.
“We have already asked the coalition to remove the constitutional claim from the complaint…It was entirely unnecessary. This case is a statutory claim, not a constitutional one,” Kobach said in a statement to The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Kobach’s goal, then, is to exclude sexuality and gender identity disorders from the list of disabilities. However, as currently written the lawsuit would threaten all 504 protections. The lawsuit is currently paused but is scheduled to continue in court in late April.
