[Iabs-talk] NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BAR EXAMINERS (NCBE) DISCRIMINATES AGA...

[AZNOR99 at aol.com]

Excellent! I only wish we sued back when I was preparing for the Bar.   
Illinois, like California, does provide appropriate accommodations for the IEE  
(Illinois Essay Exam) and Skills portion.  It's just the national portion  
that is created and facilitated through a national entity that  
discriminates.  The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) which is  refusing to 
provide reasonable accommodations to blind applicants is  incidentally 
affiliated with ACT.
 
 
 
In a message dated 11/3/2009 9:54:16 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
JFreeh at nfb.org writes:


NEWS  
RELEASE 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 3,  2009





CONTACTS:

Chris Danielsen, Director of  Public Relations, NFB, (410) 659-9314, ext. 
2330

Scott Labarre, Labarre  Law Offices, P.C., (303) 504-5979

Daniel Goldstein, Brown, Goldstein  & Levy, LLP, (410) 962-1030

Larry Paradis, Disability Rights  Advocates, (510) 665-8644





NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BAR  EXAMINERS (NCBE) DISCRIMINATES AGAINST 
BLIND AND LOW VISION LAW SCHOOL  GRADUATES



OAKLAND, Calif. - A suit filed today in Federal court  alleges that 
The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) discriminates  against 
blind and low vision law school graduates. The suit charges that  the 
NCBE is violating Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act  
(ADA) and California's civil rights law by denying accommodations on  
the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) and the Multistate Professional  
Responsibility Exam (MPRE) to a law school graduate who is  blind.



The Plaintiff is represented with the support of the  National 
Federation of the Blind ("NFB") by Labarre Law Offices, P.C., in  
Denver, CO, and by Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP, in Baltimore, MD.  
The Plaintiff is further represented by Disability Rights Advocates  
(DRA), a non-profit law center that specializes in civil rights cases  
on behalf of persons with disabilities, based in Berkeley,  CA.



The NCBE provides standardized examinations for the testing  of 
applicants for admission to the practice of law. Two of the tests it  
controls, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) and the Multistate  
Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) are required for  
admission to the bar by most states. The California Bar examination  
has two sections; a California section and the MBE. Although both  
parts of the exam are administered by the California State Bar, the  
NCBE controls the type of accommodations each state can offer test  
takers with disabilities for the MBE portion of the bar  exam.



Even though the California State Bar is a named Defendant  in the 
suit, they have offered to provide the Plaintiff with all the  
accommodations she requested for the California section of the bar  
examination. However, the NCBE refuses to allow the California Bar  
Examiners to give the Plaintiff certain of the accommodations that 
she  needs on the MBE portion of the bar exam. The California State 
Bar is  fulfilling its legal obligation and is only named in the 
complaint as an  indispensable party. Plaintiff hopes that the lawsuit 
will convince the  NCBE to follow the California State Bar's example 
and provide the  requested accommodations on the MBE portion of the bar  
exam.



The NCBE has also denied Plaintiff the accommodations at  issue on the 
MPRE exam.  This is a separate exam that bar applicants  need to pass 
to be admitted to practice.  The ACT is also named in  the complaint 
since it administers the MPRE examination for NCBE and is  thus also 
an indispensable party.



The Plaintiff Stephanie  Enyart is a law school graduate who is 
legally blind and requires  accommodations to take the MBE and MPRE. 
She has requested to take the  exams on a laptop computer equipped 
with screen reading (JAWS) and screen  magnification (ZoomText) 
software. Ms. Enyart has relied on this  combination of assistive 
technology as an accommodation on her exams  throughout law school and 
in her current legal work.



The  NCBE has refused to allow Ms. Enyart these reasonable 
accommodations for  the MBE and MPRE on several occasions during the 
past years. In recent  discussions with Plaintiff's counsel, the NCBE 
has indicated that it will  continue to deny Ms. Enyart her requested 
accommodations.  Instead,  the NCBE has offered alternative 
accommodations that are not suited to Ms.  Enyart's disability and are 
not effective. The NCBE's denials of  accommodations are preventing 
Ms. Enyart from obtaining admission to the  bar, impeding her career.



Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the  National Federation of the Blind 
(NFB), supporting the lawsuit, said "Too  often law students who are 
blind or have low vision have to prolong their  prospects for 
licensing while they fight to get the same accommodations  they've had 
throughout their educational history. Those that opt to settle  for 
inadequate accommodations usually struggle to pass or sometimes do  
not pass at all. Those who control admission to the practice of law  
must obey the law."



Janice Ta, President of the National  Association of Law Students with 
Disabilities (NALSWD), which expressed  support for the lawsuit, said 
"The legal profession must recognize and be  prepared for the spectrum 
of conditions and disabilities that law students  have. Testing 
entities need to be open to a wide range of accommodations.  But we 
find that time and again they don't seem to understand their  
obligation for providing individualized accommodations and adaptive  
technologies that reflect the way real law students with disabilities  
get tested, study, and make their way around the  world."







###
_______________________________________________
Iabs-talk  mailing  list
Iabs-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/iabs-talk_nfbnet.org
To  unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for  
Iabs-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/iabs-talk_nfbnet.org/aznor99%40aol.com