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

Mon Jun 20 17:40:59 UTC 2011

I would like to point out a flaw in your logic.

The fact that a particular blind person, or subset of blind persons, have been able to enter law school does not mean that the entrance policies, or tests, are equitable.

For the policies and tests to be equitable any person should have the same opportunities be they blind or not.

Everett Zufelt
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On 2011-06-20, at 1:18 PM, RJ Sandefur wrote:

> 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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>> 
>> Follow me on Twitter:  EmplmntAttorney
>> 
>> -----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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