[blindLaw] LA Times: College disability rights case could go to Supreme Court — a possibility advocates fear

[Nightingale, Noel]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-02/disability-rights-case-against-laccd-could-go-to-supreme-court
Excerpt:

Roy Payan and Portia Mason, both blind, needed help from their community college: audio recordings of texts, computer screen reading software, classroom materials in a format they could understand, when lecture notes on a whiteboard are the norm.
The students said the college was unprepared to support them and failed to provide the timely accommodations to which they were legally entitled. In 2017, they and the National Federation of the Blind filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Community College District, alleging discrimination under federal laws that guarantee equal access to education for those who are disabled.
They have won twice in federal court. A Ninth Circuit appeals panel<https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/19-56111/19-56111-2021-08-24.html> said the lack of equal access to a college education, though unintentional, violated the students’ civil rights. But LACCD — in a strategy that has outraged disability rights activists and students who are disabled — has not conceded defeat and will decide by Thursday whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The district argues that because it did not intentionally discriminate against the two students, it did not break federal laws that protect people with disabilities.