[blindlaw] Re Blind Would-be Law Student Says TestDiscriminates -NPR

[RJ Sandefur]

How did Dr. Merror become an aturniey? If he can do it, and he's blind, then 
why are these other folks whining discrimination? Stephanies case is the 
exception. RJ
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Russell J. Thomas, Jr." <rthomas at emplmntattorney.com>
To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Re Blind Would-be Law Student Says 
TestDiscriminates -NPR


> >From what little I have read about this case, I do have concerns:
>
> 1. Did the applicant ever ask for any form of accommodation, and if so, 
> was
> it offered, offered in part, or denied.
>
> 2. Do we know if the applicant was otherwise qualified for admission, or 
> put
> another way, had he been sighted would the admission decisions have been 
> any
> different?
>
> "bad cases make bad law"; is this such a case?
>
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
>
>
> Russell J. Thomas, Jr.
>
> Law Office of Russell J. Thomas, Jr.
>
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>
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Elizabeth Rene
> Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 8:23 PM
> To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [blindlaw] Re Blind Would-be Law Student Says Test Discriminates
> -NPR
>
> I too am appalled that aspiring law students are hindered in their efforts
> to gain law school admission by the structure of the LSAT and by the
> conditions on which the test is given and interpreted.
>
> But something about the NPR article bothers me, and it jumps up to bite me
> right in the first paragraph.
>
> Are blind college grads really getting low LSAT scores because they are
> invited to draw diagrams for themselves in order to ease their approach to
> complex questions?  Or is that just something an uninitiated reporter
> gleaned from a complex interview in hopes of reaching the general public?
>
> Only well into the article did I read that law schools are still warned 
> that
> an LSAT test taken with reasonable accommodations has questionable 
> validity,
> and that top-tier schools decline an option to disregard the LSAT
> altogether.
>
> Granted, one would think that the validity of standardized academic 
> aptitude
> test scores earned under the tightly controlled conditions on which 
> specific
> accommodations have been granted over the past 50 years or so should have
> been proven by now.  If not, why not?  And if there are pictures or 
> diagrams
> in the test questions themselves that can't be replicated tactilely for
> blind
> students, why is that so?
>
> But if the whole thrust of a blind person's argument for higher education 
> or
> employment is that he or she can find alternate means to solve a sighted
> person's problems, why should that blind test-taker balk at being invited 
> to
> draw a picture to help him or her think more clearly?
>
> That diagram's only for ordinary people.
>
> If one doesn't think visually, noone can make him do that for a test.
>
> And what about this concern about top-tier law schools?  Didn't Jacobus
> Tenbroek graduate from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall?  Or was it Stanford?
> Didn't the NFB's own Peggy Pinder get her JD from Harvard or Yale?  What 
> did
> they do with the LSAT?
>
> I took the LSAT in early 1975.  I had to wait three years from leaving
> college for permission to take it in Braille, with an amanuensis to write
> the answers.  The dreaded warning went with my scores.  But I got accepted
> by three of the six law schools I applied to, and waiting listed by the
> other three.  Had my undergraduate grades been better, those other schools
> might have accepted me, too.
>
> After law school, I got to do the work I wanted.  And I had to deal with
> visual evidence, and to make visual evidence understandable to juries and 
> to
> appellate judges every day.  And as every lawyer knows, this had to be 
> done
> in an adversary setting.
>
> Yes, I agree that the LSAT, the GRE, and other such tests have to be made
> more accessible so as not to discriminate unlawfully.
>
> But maybe they're a wake-up call to those who might be confronted for the
> first time with what they'll encounter on the job.  And maybe that second-
> or third-tier law school, with a fat scholarship for those who excel, 
> might
> not look so bad.
>
> One great thing about there being more and more of us blind lawyers and
> other professionals is that no one needs to pull blind test-taking and
> lawyering skills from the air.  They've already been learned, and they can
> be shared.
>
> Elizabeth
>
>
>
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