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ADA Title III · Title II · Section 504
Camps, classes, races, leagues and memberships run on a form, a deadline and a fixed day. A disability-related request arrives as one person's question, and each answer has to come before the cutoff, hold up later, and reach the people who are there on the day.
Here's what the rules require when a request arrives, where registration programs most often fall short, and what the practice performs.
Title III covers private businesses and nonprofits that operate places of public accommodation. A program that receives federal financial assistance carries Section 504 as well, and a public entity's program answers to Title II, so both citations are shown.
Most requests ask a program to change a policy, practice or procedure: a different start, an extra break, a companion, a guide, another way through the venue. The change has to be made when it's needed, unless it would fundamentally alter what the program offers.
28 CFR 36.302(a) and 35.130(b)(7)
Age bands, qualifying times, health questions and equipment rules can screen people out. They stand only when they're necessary to provide what's offered, and a safety rule has to rest on actual risks, not speculation, stereotypes or generalizations about people with disabilities.
28 CFR 36.301(a) and (b); 35.130(b)(8)
The cost of an interpreter, a modified setup or a changed policy can't be charged to the person who needed it, or to people with disabilities as a group.
28 CFR 36.301(c) and 35.130(f)
Registration pages, confirmations, safety briefings and announcements on the day have to reach people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or have low vision. The program chooses the method, asking the person where it can, and the method has to work, arrive in time and protect the person's privacy and independence.
28 CFR 36.303(c)
Staff may ask two questions about a service animal and may not demand documentation. Wheelchairs and manually powered aids go wherever people on foot can go, and other power-driven mobility devices are allowed unless the program can show that type of device can't be operated within its legitimate safety requirements.
28 CFR 36.302(c)(6) and 36.311
For communication aids, a Title III program should ask the person what will work whenever it can, and the choice is the program's as long as the method works. A public entity gives primary consideration to the person's request.
28 CFR 36.303(c)(1)(ii) and 35.160(b)(2)
None of these is a building problem or a code problem. Each one is a process that was never written down.
Registration asks for a shirt size and an emergency contact, and nothing about access. Requests arrive by email to whoever reads the general inbox, and nobody can say later how many came in or how each one was answered.
The rule lives in one person's memory, so two staff members answer the same request differently, and the second person to ask gets a different program than the first.
The request arrives three weeks out. The decision comes after registration closes, and the person loses the spot while waiting. Communication aids have to be provided in a timely manner, and a rule change that arrives after the program has started is too late to help.
The request was granted months ago. The volunteer at check-in has never heard of it, and the person explains it again in front of a line.
The practice runs the process and writes the record. It doesn't make the decisions the rules leave to the organization.
Title III doesn't require a written decision on a request. The practice writes one anyway, because it's the record of what was asked, what was offered and why.
Yes. Title III reaches private entities that operate places of public accommodation, whether or not they make a profit, and places of recreation, exercise and education are among its categories. Religious entities and private clubs are exempt from Title III. A nonprofit that receives federal financial assistance carries Section 504 as well.
28 CFR 36.102(e) and 36.104; 29 U.S.C. 794
No federal rule requires it. Title III sets the duty to change a rule and to communicate effectively, not a request form, so a request made at the front desk gets the same handling as one made on a form.
28 CFR 36.302(a) and 36.303(c)
The organization. The practice runs the process and keeps the record; the decision on each request, and any finding of fundamental alteration, stays with the organization.
28 CFR 36.302(a)
ADA Access for All is not a law firm. The work is built to be usable by counsel.
A 30-minute call walks one request through your registration, from the form to the day of the program, and shows where the record stops.
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