Requiring a high school diploma of applicants for a given job may improperly screen out those with learning disability, according to the federal agency. I’ve got more at Cato at Liberty.
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Posts tagged as:
disability & schools
Assisted by a foundation, Baltimore has proposed putting Nook e-reader devices in some school libraries, but a complaint from the National Federation of the Blind says that would violate Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). [Business Wire]
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- Students respond to L.A.’s “healthful” school lunch initiative with a loud “yuck” [L.A. Times, Michelle Malkin/NRO]
- L.I.: School suspends students for “Tebow” kneeling in hallway [Newsday]
- “Growing number of college students asking for wiggle room with their academic workloads due to mental health issues.” [WSJ]
- Proposal to address “learning disability” tangle: give all test-takers extra time [Ruth Colker, SSRN, see p. 126] A.D.H.D. diagnosis and the academic struggle for advantage [Melana Zyla Vickers, NYT "Room for Debate"] “Pediatrician Group Seeks to Boost ADHD Diagnoses” [Sullum]
- Will distance technology defeat the teachers’ union? [Larry Sand, City Journal]
- Time to repeal Maryland’s awful “maintenance of effort” law on school funding [WaPo, Baltimore Sun] Contra: MSEA, PDF.
- French-language cops: “Montreal schools move to scan playground chatter” [Ottawa Citizen]
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“The Department of Justice has begun an investigation into Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction, probing whether Milwaukee’s state-administered voucher system is discriminating against students with disabilities.” [Joy Resmowits, Huffington Post]
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According to one expert, “special education’s share of school budgets has jumped to an average of 21% in 2005, from just 4% in 1970.” A major contributor: “hidden disabilities” like chronic fatigue syndrome, ADHD, migraines, multiple chemical sensitivity and fibromyalgia that can precipitate demands for expensive accommodations such as home tutoring at school district expense. [Amy Dockser Marcus, WSJ]
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The ghastly incentives created by the federal SSI dependent disability program [Boston Globe series first, second, third parts, more]
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When several universities put out word that they were considering lightening the textbook load on their student body by moving to e-book formats, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division put them under investigation for possible violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The targets soon buckled: “The schools denied violating the ADA but agreed that until the Kindle was fully accessible, nobody would use it.” [Byron York, Examiner]
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- “Trademark Infringement Suit by AAJ Against Another Trial Lawyer Group to Go to Trial” [Qualters, NLJ]
- NPR covers SLAPP suits [On the Media]
- Wi-fi, junk science, loser-pays and lawsuit lunacy [Popehat, Chicago Tribune, earlier here and here]
- Metro-East Illinois attorney Rex Carr told to pay $635K in sanctions for bad faith suits against former partners [Belleville News-Democrat, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Courthouse News]
- Sheep with the bends: “Animal Rights Groups Getting Clever With the Law” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Canada: “Comedian Charged With Human Rights Violation By Lesbian Insulted At Club” [Turley]
- Princeton freshman sues after being denied extra time to complete test [Princeton Packet via Obscure Store]
- Eric Turkewitz: why my April Fool’s prank wasn’t an ethical violation under NY rules [New York Personal Injury Law Blog] Update: Colin Samuels recounts the whole affair at Infamy or Praise.
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“A prospective law school student who alleges he has a disability filed a suit in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Texas, seeking a court order to force the Law School Admissions Council to provide him with accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act for the Law School Admissions Test.” [Texas Lawyer via ABA Journal]
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It’s happening in central Pennsylvania too. [Harrisburg Patriot-News]
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“Two organizations representing the blind have settled a discrimination lawsuit against Arizona State University over its use of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader device. … The university, which denies the pilot program violates any law, agreed that if it does decide to use e-book readers in future classes over the next two years, ‘it will strive to use devices that are accessible to the blind,’ according to their joint statement.” [AP/ABC News; earlier] Related: Berin Szoka, “An Internet for everyone” [L.A. Times/City Journal]
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A suit against Princeton is the latest in a long succession to make headlines. [Kerr, Volokh]
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“A federal appeals court has restored a lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin teacher who claims her district failed to accommodate her seasonal affective disorder by providing her a classroom with natural light.” [Amy Hetzner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
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Last week the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the parents of an Oregon student diagnosed with ADHD and other problems could send him to an expensive private school and bill the government for the cost, even if he had not previously been enrolled in a public school special education program. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders discusses the case and quotes me on a couple of points:
Walter Olson of overlawyered.com nailed the problem with the majority ruling when he opined in an e-mail, “The impulse to get a better shake for one’s kid is universal, but it’s disproportionately wealthy and clever parents, with their hired lawyers and experts, who succeed in using these rules to obtain a private school education at public expense. In this case, the question was whether parents should at least try the public schools’ proffer of special-ed services before declaring them inadequate, which doesn’t seem to me to be too much to ask.” …
Noting that Souter’s dissent was joined by conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Olson noted, “I’m still trying to figure out why being progressive on this issue means siding with the private schools and affluent parents, while the conservative justices are the ones to defend the public school ideal of universal service.”
Saunders also quotes my distinguished Manhattan Institute colleague Jay Greene, who takes a different view. It’s worth noting, by the way, that parents of non-disabled students continue to have no right at all to obtain reimbursement for private alternatives should they decide the public schools are failing their kids. More: Tamar Lewin, New York Times; Zach Lowe, American Lawyer.
And: Scott Greenfield also takes a different view, and Jay Greene explains his reasoning further in comments and at his site.
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“A Massachusetts federal judge recently ruled that Americans with Disabilities Act and related claims against New England Law | Boston can move forward in a lawsuit against the school for expelling a student with learning disabilities who failed two courses. … According to court papers, the plaintiff, Seva Brodsky, was expelled after failing two courses in the spring of 2005, and later learned from medical testing that his ‘memory and organizational deficits’ likely stemmed from an accident in the early 1980s.” He was denied readmission even though, he alleged, he presented medical evidence of his disability and had completed satisfactory work in a law program in Israel. [Sheri Qualters, NLJ]
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- Topic we’ve covered before: should the MCAT exam for prospective M.D.s grant extra time to applicants with learning disabilities? [KevinMD]
- Virginia blogger Waldo Jaquith fighting subpoena seeking identities of anonymous commenters [Citizen Media Law, earlier]
- A free marketer’s case for why fired professor Ward Churchill might deserve to win his case against the University of Colorado [Coyote Blog]
- She videotaped cops arresting her son. They took her camera. Could she have it back, please? [Ken @ Popehat]
- Despite Obama campaign hints of Second Amendment truce, lower-level appointees far from gun-friendly [Dave Kopel] And new State Department legal advisor Harold Koh pushed international curbs on small-arms trade [Fonte, NRO "Corner"]
- U.K.: “Man Who Attempted Suicide Sues Hospital that Saved Him” [Telegraph via Lowering the Bar]
- National media jump on Luzerne County, Pa. judicial scandal, some details I hadn’t seen in earlier coverage [NYT, ABA Journal]
- Atlanta jury — of 11 women and one lone guy — awards $2.3 million for circumcision injury [Fulton County Daily Report]
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“Naomi Gadian, 21, from Manchester, claims that multiple choice testing discriminates against people with dyslexia” and is suing Britain’s General Medical Council and her college, the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Plymouth, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the U.K. equivalent of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (”Dyslexic medical student takes legal action against multiple choice exams”, Plymouth Herald, Jul. 30).
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