Educators, Reasonable Accommodations, and COVID

Teachers and professors returning to in-person instruction, particularly in areas of the country where COVID is running unchecked among the unvaccinated, face a difficult choice between returning to the classroom they love and protecting their health.  Since remote teaching was the norm in many places in the past year, educators particularly vulnerable to COVID because of some other health condition may wish to keep doing so, as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and similar state and local laws.  However, many schools, despite the EEOC’s guidance expressly permitting remote work where appropriate [https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/work-hometelework-reasonable-accommodation] are resisting providing those accommodations.  This article https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-dystopian-delta-university (reg. required) details how one university routinely denies such accommodations and understates the risks of COVID transmission in the classroom, particularly where testing of students and mask compliance is spotty.  This is likely to be a systemic problem, as schools are eager to return to in-person learning, and may be reluctant to make any exceptions.  

But, the ADA and other laws require that an employer make an individual, fact-based decision about an accommodation, and fear of setting off a wave of other accommodation requests is not a lawful excuse for denying one.  So far, there have been no reported decisions in cases brought by teachers or professors denied a remote work accommodation because of a school’s one size fits all policy of in-person learning, but there are likely to be many. 

As part of our Higher Education and Professionals Practice, we represent educators with underlying health conditions seeking remote teaching reasonable accommodations. Contact us if you are an teacher, professor or educator seeking a COVID-related reasonable accommodation.