UAHuntsville Disability Support Services

      Additional Links
      • About Huntsville
      • Administration
      • Alumni
      • Current Students
      • Directories
      • Faculty / Staff
      • Future Students
      • Site Index
      • Visitors Center

Administrative Grievance

Administrative Grievance
A student who has a complaint about DSS services may utilize the "Grievance Procedures" set forth in the Student Handbook. To follow those procedures, the student should first initiate a discussion with the Disability Coordinator about the complaint unless it directly involves the coordinator-in those cases the student can initiate contact with the Director of Counseling.

Most questions and concerns can be easily resolved through such an informal discussion. If not, an appeal can be made in writing through the administrative chain to the Director of the Counseling Center and then to the Vice President for Student Affairs.

Discrimination Grievance
At any time, a student’s administrative grievance about DSS services may be considered either by the student or by the University to be a complaint of discrimination based on disability. In such an instance the matter shall be handled under the "Discrimination Grievance Procedure," also set out in the Student Handbook.

Under that Procedure, a student’s discrimination complaint is to be brought initially to the Vice President for Student Affairs, the designated "receiving official" when the filing party is a student. However, these Procedures also recognize that a claim "regarding discrimination based on disability will ordinarily be referred to, and may be brought initially to, the Disability Coordinator" and that attempts by the receiving official to resolve a complaint informally "shall involve, wherever possible, interaction and consultation by the receiving official with the Disability Coordinator"(sections 4. and 5.c.(iii)).

In an attempt to resolve a student’s discrimination complaint concerning actions by a faculty member, it is usually appropriate for the Disability Coordinator to discuss the allegation(s) with the faculty member and, on occasion, with the faculty member’s departmental chairperson. As specified in the Discrimination Grievance Procedure, resolution by informal means and voluntary agreement among all the parties at this stage is to be pursued.