A landmark US case on examination of reading and writing-disabled students:
full text article and annotation.
Annotation:
The past couple of months saw various debates on the reasonable adjustments
that are made and or should be made for the examination of writing and or
reading-disabled students at the school and or post-school levels in various
disability-related lists such as Dyslexia and Dis-Forum among others in the
UK. This debate has a particular importance with the introduction of the
Special Educational Needs and Disability Act(2001) (SENDA) and its
accompanying Codes of Practices for both School and Post-school levels,
operational from September 2002 (for policies), September 2003 (for
adjustments exlcuding physical adjustments) and September 2005 (for physical
adjustments to buildings).
An important case, involving the adjustments to be made for these students
during their examinations, has been at the forefront of this debate in the
US for last a couple of years reaching the highest court of the US, the
Supreme Court, the equivalent of the House of Lords in the UK. A federal
District Court, the roughly equivalent of the High Court in the UK, found
for this student.
An article published on 20 August 2001 in the Chronicle of Higher Education
in the US, equivalent of the Times Higher Education Supplement in the UK,
provides useful information about this case. This article is presented
full-text below for information purposes. Thanks are to Ms. Sonntag of the
US for alerting about this article in the DSSHE-L list in the US on 21
August 2001. Dr. Jo Anne Simon, the lawyer representing Ms. Bartlett, as
well as Ms. bartlett in this case are also congratulated for the success of
the landmark case regarding the examination of disabled students with
important public policy implications for disabled students at all levels of
education not only in the US, but also in the UK and other countries.
The key public policy issue emerging from this case is that disabled
students who have developed succesful strategies at schools and universities
and have thus obtained good level of academic achievement should not be
denied access to the reasonable adjustments during their examination,
especially in the "high-stake examinations" such as the final examinations
and doctoral examinations in the universities or the GCSE or A-Level
examinations or the entry level examinations as a part of the employment
processes such as professional qualification exams.
________________________
Article:
The "disabled students in higher education: an institutional theory
perspective" research web site,
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~cx639/index.htm would host the full text
copies of the legal materials on disabled students in higher education, such
as statutes, landmark cases, codes of practices, regulations among others in
an accessible and annnotated form for information purposes all in one web
site following the request for such purpose after the hosting of the Special
Educational Needs and Disabiltiy Act at this web site especially for
disabled students and their parents as well as other related parties.
"Hebel, S. (2001). "Graduate with dyslexia is entitled under ADA to extra
time on bar exam,Judge rules" Chronicle of Higher Education 20 August 2001.
A law-school graduate who has been diagnosed with dyslexia and has failed
the New York State bar examination six times over the past 10 years is
entitled, under the Americans With Disabilities Act, to extra time and other
accommodations on the test, a federal judge has ruled.
Marilyn J. Bartlett, a 53-year-old education professor at the New York
Institute for Technology at Old Westbury, had won earlier federal-court
battles in the case, which dates to 1993. But in June 1999, the Supreme
Court sent the lawsuit back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit -- which then sent much of the case to the U.S. District Court
--after issuing a trio of decisions that said the ADA does not protect
people whose conditions can be "mitigated" with medication, eyeglasses, or
similar corrective measures.
Specialists hired by the New York State Board of Law Examiners have disputed
that Ms. Bartlett has a disability, as defined under the ADA, because she
had performed reasonably well on some reading tests. Throughout her academic
career Ms. Bartlett also had made her own accommodations, such as asking
friends to read to her, that allowed her to improve her skills and to obtain
a law degree from Vermont Law School and a doctoral degree in educational
administration from New York University.
However, in her ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor said
that those factors did not disqualify Ms. Bartlett from receiving special
treatment on the test under the ADA.
The law provides that people whose conditions "substantially" limit at least
one "major life activity" are entitled to accommodations, and the judge
ruled that Ms. Bartlett's dyslexia limited her major life activities of
reading and of working.
The judge said that the Board of Law Examiners must provide Ms. Bartlett
extra time on the bar exam, large-print questions, and the use of a computer
for the test. The state's failure to accommodate Ms. Bartlett's reading
impairment, Judge Sotomayor ruled, had been a substantial factor in her
inability to pass the tests.
A spokesman for the lawyers who represented the testing board said they were
"disappointed" in the ruling. The board is still weighing whether to
appeal,said Brad Maione, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer, whose office represented the law-examiners board.
Jo Anne Simon, who represented Ms. Bartlett, said she was especially pleased
that Judge Sotomayor used "fairly strong language" to tell the board that
its concerns about protecting the test's legitimacy could not justify any
kind of bias against people with learning disabilities.
That issue has arisen in other, similar cases. In May, the U.S. Supreme
Court rejected a challenge to an appeals-court ruling that a University of
Michigan medical student who had been diagnosed with a reading and writing
impairment was not entitled, under the ADA, to extra time on a
medical-licensing test.
A lawyer for the National Board of Medical Examiners had said that the
board's members denied the student's requests for extra time because they
had wanted to protect the credibility of the test."
__________________
Ozcan Konur
Rehabilitation Resource Centre, City University, London, the UK.
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~cx639/index.htm
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