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Disability, Accessibility, and Civil Rights

The Recipient on Both Sides: Section 504 and the Two Harms Only a University Can Produce with a License Plate Camera

Publisher: Real Safety AI Foundation

Legal research article.

Written
July 2026
Version
v0.3
Pages
29
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Abstract

At least one hundred fifty American colleges and universities have connected their campuses to a private, nationwide automated license plate recognition network. The civil liberties literature treats this as a privacy, immigration, and First Amendment problem. It is also a disability discrimination problem, and no institution has been asked to answer for it. This Article argues that campus deployment violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act through two mechanisms that exist only in higher education. The first is documentary. The federal uniform system for disability parking puts the International Symbol of Access on the face of a special license plate, sized like the plate’s own characters and physician-certified, which places a disability marker in the exact field the reader is built to capture. A municipality that photographs that field holds a photograph. A university holds the parking permit registry that maps every plate on its grounds to a name and an address, so the same photograph resolves to a person. The register is not built by decision. It is what one covered entity can assemble from components it already holds, and only a university holds all of them.

Keywords

  • Section 504
  • automated license plate recognition
  • campus police
  • disparate impact
  • failure to accommodate
  • methods of administration
  • Alexander v. Choate
  • Alexander v. Sandoval
  • program or activity
  • disability surveillance

Plain language slides

First slide of the plain language summary of The Recipient on Both Sides: Section 504 and the Two Harms Only a University Can Produce with a License Plate CameraOpen the 38-slide summary (PDF)

Suggested citation

Gilly, Travis. "The Recipient on Both Sides: Section 504 and the Two Harms Only a University Can Produce with a License Plate Camera." Real Safety AI Foundation Legal Research Article, July 2026. https://realsafetyai.org/research/recipient-on-both-sides/

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SSRN version

References (36)

This paper cites its sources in footnotes. Each authority is listed once, where it is first cited, with its footnote number.

  1. Footnote 1.Torin Monahan, Flock on Campus: University Police as Appendages of a National Policing Apparatus, Policing & Soc’y 1, 2 (2026), https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2026.2702635.
  2. Footnote 2.23 C.F.R. § 1235.2(b)–(c) (2026).
  3. Footnote 7.29 U.S.C. § 794(a).
  4. Footnote 8.23 C.F.R. § 1235.2(c) (2026) (Symbol of Access sized like the plate’s characters), with Torin Monahan, Grounding the Flock: Confronting Police Surveillance of Mobilities, Mobile Media & Comm. 1, 5 (2026), https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579261453519 (quoting the vendor’s public statement that its readers “take a point-in-time image of the rear of vehicles on public roadways”).
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  7. Footnote 11.29 U.S.C. § 794(b)(2)(A).
  8. Footnote 30.Grove City Coll. v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555 (1984).
  9. Footnote 37.42 U.S.C. § 12132.
  10. Footnote 40.34 C.F.R. § 104.4(b)(1) (2026).
  11. Footnote 42.45 C.F.R. § 84.68(b)(3) (2026).
  12. Footnote 42.89 Fed. Reg. 40066 (May 9, 2024).
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  16. Footnote 54.34 C.F.R. § 104.4(b)(4)(i)–(ii) (2026).
  17. Footnote 55.Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 304 n.25 (1985) (quoting 45 C.F.R. § 84.4(b)(4)(ii) (1984)).
  18. Footnote 56.34 C.F.R. § 104.4(b)(5)(i)–(ii) (2026)
  19. Footnote 56.45 C.F.R. § 84.68(b)(4) (2026).
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  21. Footnote 62.34 C.F.R. § 104.4(b)(4)(ii) (2026)
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  25. Footnote 69.S.B. 6002, 69th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Wash. 2026)
  26. Footnote 69.Gov. Ferguson Signs SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act, into Law, ACLU of Wash. (Mar. 30, 2026), https://www.aclu-wa.org/press-releases/gov-ferguson-signs-sb-6002-the-driver-privacy-act-into-law/ (last visited July 24, 2026)
  27. Footnote 69.Washington Adds Safeguards for Flock Cameras, Wash. State Standard (Mar. 30, 2026), https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/03/30/washington-adds-safeguards-for-flock-cameras/ (last visited July 24, 2026).
  28. Footnote 70.Flock Safety, What Does Washington Senate Bill 6002 Mean for ALPR Use in Washington?, https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/what-does-washington-senate-bill-6002-mean-for-alpr-use-in-washington (last visited July 24, 2026).
  29. Footnote 71.34 C.F.R. § 104.61 (2026).
  30. Footnote 72.Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 293 (2001) (“Neither as originally enacted nor as later amended does Title VI display an intent to create a freestanding private right of action to enforce regulations promulgated under § 602. We therefore hold that no such right of action exists.”).
  31. Footnote 73.Payan v. Los Angeles Cmty. Coll. Dist. (Payan I), 11 F.4th 729, 737–38 (9th Cir. 2021).
  32. Footnote 75.Payan v. Los Angeles Cmty. Coll. Dist. (Payan II), 169 F.4th 971 (9th Cir. 2026).
  33. Footnote 76.Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U.S. 212, 221–22 (2022).
  34. Footnote 77.Payan II, 169 F.4th 971, 977 (9th Cir. 2026) (“[W]e hold that emotional distress damages are not available under Title II of the ADA, as the remedies available under Title II of the ADA are defined by the statutory text’s reference to the Rehabilitation Act.”)
  35. Footnote 77.J.W. v. Coweta Cnty. Sch. Dist., 110 F.4th 1309, 1314 (11th Cir. 2024).
  36. Footnote 81.20 U.S.C. § 1092(f)(1), (f)(1)(F), (f)(4)(A)–(B), (f)(13).

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