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Megan Planovsky watches her daughter, Lydia Dobbs, play with a toy in their home.
Credit: Russell Rain Eldridge/GPB
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Here's what to know about Section 504 protections for Georgia students with mental health needs
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LISTEN: For over 50 years, the federal Rehabilitation Act has provided a way for parents to make sure schools accommodate the special needs of their kids. In May 2024, a piece of the Act called Section 504 was expanded to include "gender dysphoria," leading to a 17-state lawsuit joined by Georgia. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge explains.
For over 50 years, the federal Rehabilitation Act has provided a way for parents to make sure schools accommodate the special needs of their kids. In May of 2024, the Biden administration expanded a piece of the Act, called Section 504, to include “gender dysphoria.”
Last September, 17 attorneys general, including Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, filed a lawsuit, Texas v. Becerra, that challenges Biden’s expansion of the rules.
This lawsuit is gaining attention because constitutional protection is important to parents and those who advocate on behalf of people living with physical and mental disabilities in Georgia and across the country.
Some parents are concerned that the lawsuit could remove protections for support services their children need in public schools.
Federal laws protect the rights of people with disabilities to access appropriate in-school support to meet their physical, social, emotional and academic goals.
This article has been updated to clarify Carr’s position.
In email statement this month, Carr’s office clarified that he “has stated many times that he is not — and has never attempted — to eliminate Section 504 on its face, particularly given this is clearly articulated in the Joint Status Report [issued by the 17 plaintiffs]. To reiterate once again: This lawsuit does not threaten Section 504 — it protects it. The case is stayed at this time, and the rule is not currently in effect. We expect the new administration will reverse Biden’s action, putting an end to this case. With this anticipated resolution, Section 504 will still remain in place, and the Biden administration’s rule will be removed. Attorney General Carr is proud to support Georgia’s students and families with existing 504 plans, and he will continue to do so.”
How Section 504 works for Georgia families
Lydia Dobbs knows about 20 words, but she doesn’t like to speak much. If you want to hear her voice, play some music.
“She loves to sing Taylor Swift,” Megan Planovsky said. “Music makes Lydia come alive.”
The 12-year-old communicates better by singing and making gestures because she has autism, her mother said.
She understands things like a screwdriver is used to open and replace her toy's batteries, but Lydia cannot change the batteries herself. She knows what is inside the pantry. When Lydia wants peanut butter, she'll grab a jar and hand it to someone as if she were saying, “It's time. I need some peanut butter.”
Planovsky’s once-sleepy, calm and quiet newborn can communicate in her own ways.
“Alexa, play ‘Wildest Dreams,’” Planovsky said on a recent Saturday, while getting ready for a birthday party on Feb. 22. Lydia dressed in pink and wore a purple bow in her brown ponytailed hair.
She skirted past the kitchen into the living room, hunting for the remote control. When she found it, Lydia raised the volume on the television, even though the sound competed with the Swiftie’s favorite songs. Then Lydia sat on the couch and investigated her toy as a green glow lit her face.
Planovsky said her daughter seeks out stimuli whereas some children with autism more often need quiet space without distraction.
When she was diagnosed at age 2, doctors didn’t know whether Lydia would ever speak. Now, she knows the alphabet and can recognize upper and lowercase letters as well as shapes and colors.
All this, Planovsky said, is because of early childhood education designed for kids with autism and support from the public school system.
The lawsuit
Texas filed a complaint last September against then-Health and Human Services Administration (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra after the phrase “gender dysphoria” was introduced by the Biden administration into the rules and regulations for Section 504.
HHS occasionally updates its rules about how anti-discrimination laws passed under the spending clause are interpreted and enforced.
The updated final rule for Section 504 matched language used in Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and added “gender dysphoria” and Long COVID as potentially qualifying disabilities that did not exist when the Rehabilitation Act passed in 1973.
Diagnoses of Long COVID or gender dysphoria aren’t enough to qualify for anti-discrimination protection under Section 504. Conditions without physical impairment are not considered disabilities under Section 504, but “restrictions that prevent, limit, or interfere with otherwise qualified individuals’ access to care due to their gender dysphoria, gender dysphoria diagnosis, or perception of gender dysphoria may violate Section 504,” Biden's final rule stated.
Georgia and another 15 Republican-led states joined Texas’s lawsuit because they agree that the Biden administration’s final rule, published in the Federal Register on May 9, 2024, was an attempt at dismantling Section 504 by extending accommodations to people in the transgender community.
Biden's 130-page rule doesn’t change the anti-discrimination law; it directs states as to how federal funds can be used under the spending clause.
“That's why the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21,” Atlanta-based attorney and disability rights advocate Leighton Moore said. “Congress passed a highway appropriations bill saying, ‘Hey, we think drunk driving is a big problem and we think it'll be helped by bumping the drinking age up to 21.’ So, if you want to get federal highway funds, you have to do that. You have to say the drinking age is 21.”
Federal laws protect the rights of people with disabilities to access appropriate in-school support to meet their physical, social, emotional and academic goals.
When word about the lawsuit started spreading, Planovsky said mental health therapists, parents, teachers and disabilities advocates started contacting the offices of the attorneys general who joined Texas v. Becerra.
As Lydia sat on the couch, she hunched over her toy, which encouraged her eye muscles to work together. Sometimes, she rocked back and forth, flapping her fingers or putting them near her mouth to soothe herself.
When Lydia goes to school, her teachers understand that Lydia might need to move around the classroom or fidget in a way that could distract others.
That's because Lydia’s 504 plan is a communication tool for educators, school administrators, parents and therapists designed to protect students with certain disabilities. These plans also cover how the school can reasonably accommodate special needs.
Dobbs's stepsister has her own 504 plan for educational support for dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia, which affect ability to read, write and do math.
“She gets easily overwhelmed by the amount of information on the paper,” Planovsky said. So, she gets extra test-taking time and her assignments are broken down into smaller pieces.
In a Feb. 14 email to GPB, Carr’s office said it expected the new administration to reverse Biden’s rule. In a Feb. 19 joint status report, the 17 states said that calling the whole law unconstitutional was a mistake.
But the language in the suit stands unchanged.
The next day, Carr posted a statement on his official Facebook page clarifying his position on the lawsuit:
“Make no mistake, our lawsuit is all about one thing: fighting the Biden-Harris administration's obsession with promoting a radical, progressive transgender ideology,” Carr said in the video.
Biden’s interpretation of Section 504 is unconstitutional, Carr said, adding that, in the context of this lawsuit, HHS could not revoke funds it oversees for the state’s failure to comply with Biden’s unlawfully imposed “gender dysphoria” rule.
“We joined the lawsuit to protect the state’s existing 504 program, and the funding it receives, by blocking this rule,” Carr said.
Mental health and anxiety
Mental health disabilities are often treated by licensed professional counselors like Marina Delaine-Siegel, who regularly works with schools to create 504 plans for students with special needs.
Their academic plan doesn’t change, but students under Section 504 protection might be permitted to move to a quiet space during class or carry medication for chronic disease such as Type 1 diabetes, she said.
A kid who has asthma is allowed to bring an inhaler and not be required to participate in sprints in physical education class, Delaine-Siegel said.
Win Beeler first used a 504 plan to take her Milestones test in eighth grade.
She needed extra time because she could only type with one hand after surgery to repair a severed tendon in her pinky finger.
“I was cutting a pattern for sewing,” Beeler said of the accident, “but I was also watching a horror movie while I was doing it, and I just kind of jumped and cut myself with the scissors.”
Now a junior at Maynard Jackson High School in Atlanta, Beeler uses a 504 because she has ADHD and anxiety.
Beeler uses a 504 plan in high school to let her instructors know ahead of time why she might need an extension on a project deadline. Two of her teachers currently have 93 students each, so Beeler understands their difficulty managing requests and explaining why some students get more time and others don’t.
“The 504 is there to support the students for what their academic needs are, which may be connected to their anxiety of living in a world where people are judging them or bullying them,” Delaine-Siegel said.
She said she also counsels students with trauma, depression, anxiety and eating disorders, which could be affected if the whole program was at risk.
February status report
The 17 attorneys general filed a joint status report Feb. 19, clarifying the lawsuit’s intention and asking for a continued stay.
“It kicks the can down the road in terms of any substantive decision,” Moore said.
Carr’s office emphasized that the lawsuit is only arguing against the Biden administration's attempt to change Section 504 — a change that, if gone unchallenged, would have stripped existing resources away from students with Down syndrome, dyslexia, autism, and other disabilities.
This is also made clear in their joint status report filed last month: “Plaintiffs clarify that they have never moved—and do not plan to move—the Court to declare or enjoin Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, as unconstitutional on its face."
The joint status report doesn't amend the complaint, including Count III, which asked the Court to hold Section 504 unconstitutional.
The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) called the language in the status report deliberately confusing and distracting.
In the second-to-last paragraph, the states mention specific parts of the final rule that they contend are unconstitutional applications of Section 504: Such alleged unconstitutional applications include the requirements the Final Rule imposes on recipients to adopt the "most integrated setting" and the "at serious risk of institutionalization" standards of care.
If successful, this action would invalidate students’ right to a 504 plan in school, patients’ right to accessible kiosks in their doctor’s offices, and the accessible transportation that people with disabilities need to work and take care of themselves, DREDF stated.
“The [attorneys general] also continue their claims involving gender dysphoria as a disability,” DREDF stated. “Thus, the attorneys general’s sweeping attack on the rights of people with disabilities remains as dangerous as it was when filed.”
The next status report on the lawsuit is due March 21.
Correction/clarification
This story has been updated to reflect Lydia Dobbs is the correct name. The most recent update includes a statement from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and clarifications from his office.
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