Pregnant and Parenting Students

Accommodating Pregnant Students 

Under the Department of Education’s (DOE) regulations implementing Title IX of the Education 

Amendments of 1972, a college or university “shall not discriminate against any student, or exclude any student from its education program or activity, including any class or extracurricular activity, on the basis of such student’s pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, and termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom.” This directive has been highlighted recently in a Dear Colleague Letter from the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), and a 30 page “pamphlet” from DOE entitled “Supporting the Academic Success of Pregnant and Parenting Students.” 

A college must excuse a student’s absences because of pregnancy or childbirth for as long as the student’s doctor deems the absence medically necessary. According to these materials, not discriminating against a pregnant student means granting her leave “for so long a period of time as is deemed medically necessary by the student’s physician,” and then effectively reinstating the student “to the status which she held when the leave began.” For instance, if a faculty member adjusts grades based on class attendance, the pregnant student cannot be penalized for her excused absences and must be given the opportunity to earn back the credit from classes missed due to pregnancy. 

This generally means that pregnant students should be treated as if they had a temporary disability, given excused absences, and then given an opportunity to make up missed work wherever possible. Extended deadlines, makeup assignments, and incomplete grades that can be completed at a later date, should all be employed. To the extent possible, pregnant students should be placed in the same position of academic progress that they were in when they took leave. 

The plausibility of doing so is not governed by an individual faculty member’s class rules or policies, but by the nature of the work. Whenever the class work is of a type that it can be completed at a later date—such as papers, quizzes, tests, and even presentations—that option must be made available to the student. 

In situations where the temporal particularities of the task do not allow for a “break,” such as clinical rotations, large performances, and some lab or group work, the institution should work with the student to devise an alternative path to completion. 

Faculty cannot have their own policies regarding attendance and make-up work as to pregnant students, as Title IX requires compliance institution-wide. A student has the following options in completing their coursework after returning from leave deemed necessary by her physician. 

• Retake the class at the next available offering at the student’s expense. (Students should be aware that class offerings vary by program and may not be available at regular intervals.) 
• Take the course online. 
• Receive an incomplete and extend the course until 30 days into the next long semester. The 30-day timeframe may need to be shortened or lengthened depending upon the length of the time missed due to medical necessity, and what is reasonable under the circumstances. (Professors should work with students to establish timelines, be available to meet and answer questions, and plan for any hands on or face to face course requirements.) 

The Title IX Coordinator should be contacted and consulted when an accommodation request from a pregnant and/or parenting student is received. The Title IX Coordinator should oversee the process of receiving and reviewing necessary medical documentation and determining if and what accommodations are necessary.