In American higher education, "nondiscrimination" is required on behalf of students with disabilities and students from minority groups. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not apply; rather, the legal standards are those of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

Formal plans such as IEPs are not used. Rather, in colleges and universities, the student is required to bring any special needs or preferences to the attention of a college official usually known as a "special services coordinator" (sometimes called a "section 504 coordinator"). This person, often assisted by a staff of specialists, acts at the student's instigation. The  difference from K-12 education is stark: if the student does not make a request, no accommodation is even considered by the special services coordinator's office, let alone provided. If the student makes such a request, this office arranges sign language interpreters, tutors, personal-care assistants, etc., to work with the student. As a teacher, you do not need to be involved in this process. The special services coordinator will alert you, possibly in a memo or perhaps in an in-person meeting, about any accommodations that will be made. If you have questions about it, the special services coordinator can answer them.

If the student has not "self identified" (advised the special services coordinator of his or her disability and needs), it is very possible that no record of disability exists anywhere on the campus. Accordingly, if you discover that a student in one of your classes has a severe hearing loss, or some other significant disability, all that you can do is to ask the student (privately, please) if he or she has discussed this with the special services coordinator. If the answer is no, you must accept that answer. You have no right, and no responsibility, to do anything more. Accordingly, the student may fail your course if he or she is not mature enough to accept personal responsibility for the disability. This is, of course, a big difference from K-12 education. In the United States, we treat college students as the adults they are. This is one element of that larger policy.

The college's legal liability, and yours as a professor, ends if the student does not request accommodations. If, on the other hand, the student does ask for an accommodation (say, to take tests in a separate room so as to make effective use of a magnifying device to read the test questions), the responsibility to choose, and implement, the appropriate accommodation rests with the college's special services coordinator, not with you as teacher. Your role is to accept such modifications. (If you object to one or more such adjustments, take the issue up with the special services coordinator.) To refuse to allow such changes would be to subject yourself and the institution to possible legal action.

College and university professors enjoy far more academic freedom than do K-12 teachers. Accordingly, the extent to which you choose to respond to the preferences or desires of students with different learning styles is almost completely up to you. A college student who learns much better through reading than through listening to classroom lectures enjoys no legal protection by virtue of that learning style. As a professor, you can insist upon regular attendance in class, or you can excuse the student from that, or you can require the student to attend some but not all classes. Similarly, the extent to which you respond to differences in behavior and preference on the part of students from minority groups is largely up to you. What you cannot do is to discriminate against any student on the basis of race, ethic group membership, religion, or gender. If you have questions, consult your provost's office.

 

Learning disabilities which present input and output issues are quite common in colleges, but much less so than they are in PreK-12 programs. As a professor, you may have a student with a learning disability once or a handful of times each academic year. College students who have no disabilities, but who do have different learning styles, generally have made whatever adjustments they are going to make. (Those who made ineffective adjustments usually did not make it to this level of education.) As a college or university professor, you should expect that the student knows what to do and how to do it: you should expect the same level of academic performance from this student as you do from other students. Academic freedom allows you considerable leeway in how much, if any, changes you will accept (e.g., allowing a student to write a paper in lieu of taking a test).