[Nfbk] FW: Federal Appeals Court Upholds Blind Woman's Right to Use Technology to Take Professional Examinations

[Cathy]

-----Original Message-----
From: Freeh, Jessica [mailto:JFreeh at nfb.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 4:14 PM
To: Alpidio Rolon; Amy Buresh; Angela Wolf; Art Schreiber; Beth Rival; Bill
Packee; Bob Kresmer; Carl Jacobsen; Cassandra McNabb; Cathy Jackson;
Charlene Smyth; Christine G. Hall; Dan Hicks; Daniel Burke; Don Galloway;
Donna Wood; Elsie Dickerson; Frank Lee; Franklin Shiner; Fred Schroeder;
Garrick Scott; Gary Ray; Gary Wunder; Grace Pires; J.W. Smith; James
Antonacci; Jennelle Bichler; Jennifer Dunnam; Joe Ruffalo; John Batron; John
Fritz; Joyce Scanlan; Ken Rollman; Kim Williams; Larry Posont; Lynn
Majewski; Mary Willows; Melissa Riccobono; Michael Barber; Michael Freeman;
Mika Pyyhkala; Nani Fife; Pam Allen; Parnell Diggs; Patti Chang; Rena Smith;
Ron Brown; Ron Gardner; Sam Gleese; Scott LaBarre; Selena Sundling-Crawford;
Terry Sheeler
Subject: Federal Appeals Court Upholds Blind Woman's Right to Use Technology
to Take Professional Examinations


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


CONTACT:

Chris Danielsen

Director of Public Relations

National Federation of the Blind

(410) 659-9314, extension 2330

(410) 262-1281 (Cell)

cdanielsen at nfb.org



Federal Appeals Court Upholds Blind Woman's Right
 to Use Technology to Take Professional Examinations
National Federation of the Blind Applauds Ruling


Baltimore, Maryland (January 5, 2011): The National Federation of the Blind
(NFB), the oldest and largest nationwide organization of blind people, today
applauded a federal appellate court ruling affirming the right of a blind
California woman to use screen access technology to take professional
examinations required for her to receive a license to practice law.  The
ruling, handed down yesterday by a unanimous three-judge panel of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, upheld preliminary
injunctions granted by a federal district court requiring the National
Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) to provide electronic copies of its legal
examinations to Stephanie Enyart so that she could read the questions with
text-to-speech and magnification software.  The NCBE had appealed the
injunctions, arguing that the law did not require it to provide electronic
copies of the examinations and that Enyart must choose from the menu of
accommodations it was willing to provide.



Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: "The
National Federation of the Blind welcomes this ruling, which means that
testing agencies must afford the accommodations and auxiliary aids that are
most likely to level the playing field for the blind and other test takers
with disabilities.  The court made it clear that law and equity simply do
not permit the NCBE to dictate a one-size-fits-all solution for all bar
candidates with disabilities.  The ruling stands solidly for the principle
that the NCBE and all testing organizations must consider the individual
needs of each examination candidate and that accommodation policies must
change as access technology continues to improve.  It is our sincere hope
that the NCBE will change its rigid and outdated accommodation policies to
reflect the letter and spirit of this ruling, and that other entities that
administer educational and professional examinations will take note and do
likewise.  The National Federation of the Blind stands ready to fight for
the rights of blind students and aspiring professionals and to make sure
that this ruling is faithfully followed."



According to the ruling, Ms. Enyart established that screen reader software,
which speaks text on the screen out loud and/or magnifies it visually, is
her primary reading method and the way she took most of her law school
examinations.  The court upheld the validity of a Department of Justice
regulation, promulgated pursuant to Title III of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA), requiring that "the examination is selected and
administered so as to best ensure that when the examination is administered
to an individual with a disability . . . the examination results accurately
reflect the individual's aptitude or achievement level . . . rather than
reflecting the individual's [disability]."



The judges rejected the argument of the NCBE that the court should
invalidate the regulation and rule that NCBE need only provide a reasonable
accommodation, pointing out that "reasonable accommodation" is not any part
of Title III of the ADA, which applies to testing entities, but is only a
concept applicable to Title I of the same law, relating to employment.
While the court acknowledged that Ms. Enyart had taken prior examinations
with a human reader, it ruled that this prior history was relevant, but not
conclusive, and added: "Moreover, assistive technology is not frozen in
time: as technology advances, testing accommodations should advance as
 well."



The court concluded that denying a preliminary injunction would have likely
caused Ms. Enyart irreparable harm because having to take the examinations
under discriminatory conditions would likely cause her to fail and therefore
to lose the chance to pursue her chosen profession.   Even a delay in her
career, the court said, is "productive time irretrievably lost."



The plaintiff is represented with the support of the National Federation of
the Blind by Scott C. LaBarre of LaBarre Law Offices, P.C., of Denver,
Colorado; Daniel F. Goldstein of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP, of Baltimore,
Maryland; and Larry Paradis of Disability Rights Advocates of Berkeley,
California.


###





About the National Federation of the Blind



With more than 50,000 members, the National Federation of the Blind is the
largest and most influential membership organization of blind people in the
United States.  The NFB improves blind people's lives through advocacy,
education, research, technology, and programs encouraging independence and
self-confidence.  It is the leading force in the blindness field today and
the voice of the nation's blind.  In January 2004 the NFB opened the
National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, the first research and
training center in the United States for the blind led by the blind.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20110106/65f0dc55/attachment.html>