Opinion ID: 480434
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sec. i504

Text: 21 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 794, provides in pertinent part: 22 No otherwise qualified handicapped individual ... shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.... 23 29 U.S.C. Sec. 794 (emphasis added). The parties' principal dispute over Sec. 504 stems from the fact that the specific programs in which Gallagher participated did not receive federal financial assistance. Defendants argue that Sec. 504 thus does not apply. 24 Courts have split over the issue of whether program-specific federal financial assistance is a prerequisite to a Sec. 504 claim. One of the leading cases for the proposition that Sec. 504 is limited to program-specific financial assistance is Brown v. Sibley, 650 F.2d 760 (5th Cir.1981). The Brown court stated: 25 [W]e hold that it is not sufficient, for purposes of bringing a discrimination claim under section 504, simply to show that some aspect of the relevant overall entity or enterprise receives or has received some form of input from the federal fisc. A private plaintiff in a section 504 case must show that the program or activity with which he or she was involved, or from which he or she was excluded, itself received or was directly benefited by federal financial assistance. 26 650 F.2d at 769 (footnotes omitted). See also Doyle v. Univ. of Alabama in Birmingham, 680 F.2d 1323, 1326-27 (11th Cir.1982); Jones v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., 681 F.2d 1376, 1382 (11th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1099, 104 S.Ct. 1591, 80 L.Ed.2d 123 (1984); Simpson v. Reynolds Metal Co., 629 F.2d 1226, 1232 (7th Cir.1980); Ferris v. Univ. of Texas at Austin, 558 F.Supp. 536, 541, 543 (W.D.Tex.1983). 27 Other courts have adopted a wider, institution approach rather than a program-specific approach. In Wright v. Columbia Univ., for example, the court stated: To the extent that the University receives federal funding, component entities thereof benefit indirectly through the reallocation of funds received from other sources. 520 F.Supp. 789, 792 (E.D.Pa.1981). That court, therefore, held that Sec. 504 applied even though the discrete program in which plaintiff sought to participate did not receive funds. Id. See also Arline v. School Bd. of Nassau County, 772 F.2d 759, 763 (11th Cir.1985), cert. granted in part, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1633, 90 L.Ed.2d 179 (1986) (holding the relevant program is the entire school system); Poole v. South Plainfield Bd. of Educ., 490 F.Supp. 948, 951 (D.N.J.1980). 28 The Supreme Court has not ruled on this precise Sec. 504 issue. We find, however, that the program-specific approach is most consistent with Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit rulings in the Title IX context, which is closely analogous to Sec. 504 in both language and underlying policy. The relevant language of Title IX reads: 29 No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.... 30 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681(a) (emphasis added). The overwhelming similarity of these quoted passages is no accident. Congress expressly modeled the discrimination prohibition contained in section 504 after the prohibitory language contained in Title VI and Title IX. Brown v. Sibley, 650 F.2d at 768. 31 The Supreme Court has ruled that an agency's authority under Title IX ... is subject to the program-specific limitations of Secs. 901 and 902. See Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555, 570, 104 S.Ct. 1211, 1220, 79 L.Ed.2d 516 (1984) (quoting North Haven Bd. of Educ. v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 538, 102 S.Ct. 1912, 1926, 72 L.Ed.2d 299 (1982)) (emphasis added). We have also expressly rejected the institution-wide, ripple effect reasoning asserted in Wright. 32 We do not believe that Congress intended, in enacting Title IX, to authorize [regulation of] entire colleges and universities because federal money benefits the entire institution.... [P]rovided that the 'program-specific' limitation in Title IX is met, [Hillsdale] is subject to regulation. 33 Hillsdale College v. Dept. of Health, Educ. & Welfare, 696 F.2d 418, 429-30 (6th Cir.1982) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). 34 Because Title IX is closely analogous to Sec. 504, the precedent cited indicates a similar rule with respect to Sec. 504. We therefore adopt a program-specific approach, and dismiss Gallagher's Sec. 504 claim because he never sought to participate in any particular program that received federal financial assistance.