Guidelines for Filing a Grievance on Discrimination Based Upon Disability
Students have the right to file a grievance on discrimination based upon disability. These guidelines provide information on how to proceed if a student believes he/she has been denied equal access in the form of appropriate accommodations, modifications, auxiliary aids, or effective communication or suffered discriminatory harassment as described in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These guidelines are not mandatory and students may proceed with their complaint at any of the levels listed below. A complainant is not required by law to use the institutional grievance procedure before filing a complaint with The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education, however, both the OCR and the university encourage using internal grievance procedures before filing a complaint with OCR.1
Level One
Discuss Concerns with the Director of Disability Support Services or the DSS Coordinator.
DSS will attempt to resolve the issues causing concern by assisting the student in discussing issues with the faculty member, department, or program, participating in such discussions, or calling the faculty member and/or head of the department in an effort to clarify and resolve issues. In some instances, other DSS staff and the DSS Director may be consulted or a meeting convened in order to develop a resolution. Most situations are positively resolved through coordinator support and mediation. The student and involved parties will be notified by the coordinator or Director of progress, findings or resolution within 10 business days. Due to the urgency of many issues, it is likely that many problems will be resolved much sooner.
When a student has a grievance against DSS and/or one of its staff members, the student should first discuss the grievance with his/her DSS coordinator. If for a specific reason the grievance cannot be discussed with the coordinator, the student may proceed directly to Level Two
A student who is not satisfied with the resolution at Level One, may choose to proceed to Level Two.
Level Two
If a student believes that a satisfactory resolution has not been reached regarding his/her grievance at Level One, the student may file a grievance with the CUA Equal Opportunity Director. The CUA Discrimination Complaint Policy is online at http://policies.cua.edu/EEO//discrimcomplpolicyfull.cfm and the Discrimination Complaint Procedure can be found at http://eeo.cua.edu/Procedures/complaintprocedure.cfm.
A student who is not satisfied with the resolution at Level Two may choose to proceed to Level Three.
Level Three
If the grievance is not resolved at the university level, the student may choose to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. The Office of Civil Rights investigates timely filed complaints for which they have jurisdiction.
