Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: Di Sabled, a law student, requests accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).Di suffers from a minor case of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)1 and lazy-graphia2-the combination of which make her handwriting almost illegible.Throughout her undergraduate career, Di took mitigating measures to help keep her up in class.She wore corrective splints to alleviate the symptoms of CTS, and she developed study habits that allowed her to overcome her writing difficulties.Di took her Law School Aptitude Test (LSAT) without accommodations, scored a 150, and was accepted to Aco Modate U. School of Law.After her first semester at Aco Modate U., Di scored poorly on her exams and feared that she might fail out of school.She talked to her dean and presented a letter from her personal doctor attesting to her disabilities and requesting the accommodation of extra time on her second semester exams.The dean approved her accommodation, and Di received an extra two hours per exam.With the extra time, Di excelled on her tests.In fact, her high second semester scores raised her cumulative grade-point-average (GPA) to the top 15% of her class, thereby meeting the grade-on requirements of Aco Modate U. School of Law Law Review.Was the ADA enacted to give average students the opportunity to excel beyond their aptitude levels?How can schools combat the misuse of the ADA by students with correctable impairments?
Author: J. J. Knauff
Institution: Brigham Young University
Language: English
Topic: Legal Issues in Education
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W241614143