On April 28, 1977, the Secretary formally signed the regulations without change.

The protests at the Department’s San Francisco office lasted nearly a month. They demanded the immediate approval of the long-delayed regulations implementing Section 504 to protect the civil rights of people with disabilities. In April 1997, hundreds of people with disabilities and their supporters held protests at several regional offices of the predecessor agency of the Department of Education. In July 1976, a federal district for Washington DC ruled that the regulations should be issued “with no further unreasonable delays.”

In 1975 a federal lawsuit was filed to force the agency to act. Demonstrations were also held by disabled activists in Washington D.C.ĭisability rights groups, especially the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD) advocated to keep the regulations of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in place unchanged. In 1972, Disabled in Action demonstrated on Madison Avenue, New York City with a sit-in protest. The delay in signing touched off protests in several states. The Nixon and Ford administrations sought to stall the regulations due to concerns about costs and enforcements. The law prohibited any entity receiving federal funding (such as government offices, schools, universities, hospitals, and post offices) from discriminating against someone because of a disability. Section 504 brought the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The earliest legislation benefitting people with disabilities was the Civilian Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1920, passed after World War I, that provided services for all Americans with disabilities. Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in public and private programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, including schools and postsecondary institutions. Department of Education announced plans to gather public input on possible amendments to those regulations in order to strengthen and protect the rights of students with disabilities. Forty-five years after publication of the regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the landmark disability civil rights law, the U.S.

Federal laws of 504 accommodation plan