Posts Tagged ‘testing’

ADA and disabled rights roundup

Feds: Maryland county improperly screened cops for logic, reading ability

Sentences worth pondering, from coverage of the U.S. Department of Justice’s employment-practices suit against Baltimore County: “The exams tested reading, grammar, logic and other skills that the suit alleges are not related to the job of being a police officer or police cadet.” Critics take heart, however: “County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. issued a statement saying the police department has discontinued the test.” [Pamela Wood and Wilborn P. Nobles III, Baltimore Sun]

See something, say something, then get ready for bias charges or a lawsuit

“The common thread among suspects in these mass shootings and terroristic incidents is not merely that they had mental health issues and an attraction to extremist political ideologies. In each case, the concerned people in those killers’ lives failed to speak up or their warnings were dismissed when they did.” And the structure of legal incentives created by wide-sweeping high-penalty discrimination and privacy laws (which cover categories like mental illness by way of the ADA) may not be entirely unrelated to that phenomenon. [Noah Rothman, Commentary] “No Psych Exam for Orlando Shooter Despite Odd Behavior, FBI Probes” [NBC News]

Schools roundup

Children and schools roundup

  • Story of free-range Meitiv kids goes national, cont’d: “Bystanders are forced [sic] to step in and enforce discipline because the parents aren’t around.” [Slate via @bibliographing] Yes, the cited “National Association to Protect Children” is a real group, I looked it up [Washington Jewish Week] “Epidemic of moms getting arrested for leaving children in car 5 mins to run into store.” [Kim Brooks, Salon via @Lorettamalakie]
  • What got buried in a WaPo column arguing that standardized tests for schoolkids are “a civil right.” [Ann Althouse] Testing issue allows teachers’ unions to make friends on the conservative side [NYT via same]
  • Legal costs exceed $100 per student at some Chicago-area public schools; $23 billed for one lawyer’s phone message [Tribune via ABA Journal]
  • Maintenance of Effort laws, meant to insulate school budgets against local voter control, might backfire [Free State Notes post by me, channeling my letter to the editor]
  • A dissent on liberalizing school discipline policies [Paul Sperry, New York Post]
  • Colorado school shootings: why is GOP leading push for emotion-driven, public-fisc-endangering lawsuits? [John Frank, Denver Post]
  • Expensive new playground mandates [Paul Best and Lenore Skenazy, more from Skenazy, Tim Gill via Common Good]

DoJ sues Pennsylvania over trooper fitness tests

The tests “disproportionately screened out female applicants, resulting in a disparate impact against those applicants.” Officers who are highly fit have more options in a situation where force is required — subduing a suspect without resort to a gun, for example. Still, courts have often gone along with demands to weaken tests and standards. [DoJ press release] More: TV and Treadmills (FBI uses higher standards than the ones DoJ is suing over).

Law schools roundup

  • Under DoJ gun, LSAT agrees to end flagging of test scores taken with disabled accommodation, cough up more than $7 million [Justice press release, Caron/TaxProf roundup coverage]
  • “Things law school trustees probably should not do: subpoena their own school’s students for criticizing them” [@petersterne; Danielle Tcholakian, DNAInfo]
  • Should law students graduate without studying the First Amendment? And other thoughts from Justice Scalia’s William & Mary commencement speech [text via Will Baude]
  • “Rank ordering the likelihood of law school reforms” [Prof. Bainbridge] ABA moves forward with law school accreditation changes; tenure, among other institutions, likely to remain sacrosanct [Caron/TaxProf, Fortune]
  • Paul Horwitz reviews James R. Hackney Jr. book on contemporary legal academy [Journal of Legal Education via Prawfs]
  • Alex Acosta dean case: should conservative legal academics steer clear of Florida? [Bainbridge]
  • Orin Kerr vs. Erwin Chemerinsky and Carrie Menkel-Meadow on curricular reform [Volokh Conspiracy]

Disabled rights roundup

  • “US Airways has agreed to pay $1.2 million in fines because it provided inadequate wheelchair service at the Charlotte and Philadelphia airports” [Charlotte Observer, USA Today; on abuses of the right to request wheelchair service at airports, see links in our post last May] Support animals on airplanes, cont’d [NYT]
  • In New York, indefinite leave of absence may be deemed a reasonable accommodation that employer is obliged to grant [Erin McPhail Wetty, Seyfarth] Per Second Circuit in NYC case, timely attendance not essential job function [Mark Kittaka, Barnes & Thornburg]
  • US disability rate fell 25 percent between 1977-87, then more than doubled [Tad DeHaven, Cato via Bryan Caplan] Has a Kentucky attorney found holes in the SSDI system? [Jillian Kay Melchior]
  • Per EEOC, employer may be obliged to grant employee’s request to work from home as reasonable accommodation [Johanna Wise, Seyfarth]
  • Lawprof suspended for allegedly yelling at subordinates sues under ADA [Althouse, Above the Law]
  • “None of the people who complained had even been into the store” [San Diego Reader]
  • And yet more from EEOC: employer “integrity testing” meant to assess applicants’ honesty, trustworthiness and dependability can run afoul of disabled-rights law [link]

Labor and employment roundup

  • Great moments in union contracts: “Many Suburban Cops Allowed To Work ‘Half Drunk'” [NBC Chicago]
  • California high court imposes arbitrary damage-splitting rule on mixed-motive firings [Cheryl Miller, The Recorder]
  • More tales of much-forgiven Broward County bus drivers [Sun-Sentinel, background]
  • Sixth Circuit: SEIU robocalls to harass hospital CEO don’t violate TCPA [Littler]
  • Judge rejects EEOC position against alcohol testing of steelworkers in safety-sensitive posts [Paul Mirengoff, PowerLine, Reuters]
  • “NYFD made written test impossible to fail, but diversity recruits in Academy can’t meet physical standards either.” [Ted Frank/PoL]
  • “The March Toward a Bullying Cause of Action Continues” [Michael Fox, Employer’s Lawyer; TheDenverChannel.com]
  • T’wasn’t easy for White House to find a new Labor Secretary to the left of Hilda Solis, but meet Tom Perez [WaPo]