[nfbmi-talk] LSAT law school exam discriminates against the blind, lawsuit says" | MLive.com

[Kane Brolin]

Hi, fellow listers.

I've read references to this sort of thing in "The Braille Monitor,"
but don't know what to make of the validity of such a discrimination
case.  For me, however, this is more than just an exercise in
speculation.  I am planning to take the LSAT in December of this year,
with an eye toward expanding or altering my present career path.  I am
addressing Michigan Federationists with this, because the lawsuit in
question has as its plaintiff a man from the Detroit area who
graduated from Wayne State and who apparently has tried this before.

"A blind West Bloomfield man says he's being denied a fair chance to
attend law school because of an admissions test geared toward the
sighted.

"Angelo Binno unsuccessfully sued the American Bar Association, the
body that helps establish entrance guidelines for law schools, on
similar grounds in 2011. That lawsuit was filed by Richard Bernstein,
formerly of the Sam Bernstein law firm, a blind attorney who was
elected to the state Supreme Court in 2014.

"U.S. District Judge Denise Hood found in favor of the American Bar
Association and dismissed the case in 2012.

"Represented by Southfield-based civil rights Nyman Turkish law firm,
Binno is now suing the test's creator and administrator, the Law
School Admission Council.

"The lawsuit says the admissions test, known commonly as the LSAT,
contains a "logic games" or analytical section that "is totally
inaccessible to the blind because it requires test-takers to draw
pictures and diagrams in order to be successful."

"Binno, who graduated from Wayne State University with an
undergraduate degree in political science, has taken the admissions
test twice unsuccessfully, most recently in December, according to the
lawsuit.

"'On both occasions, Mr. Binno attempted to answer the questions in
the analytical reasoning section, but was forced to guess the answers
to most of the questions because of his inability to draw and use
diagrams,' the lawsuit claims."
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2017/05/lsat_law_school_exam_discrimin.html

Who is this Mr. Binno?  Is he associated with or has he ever been
associated with the Federation?  Why does he think he has a shot at
winning this suit if it already has been dismissed once before?

On the one hand, I understand that the questions applying to the logic
part of the Law School Admission Test might be more difficult for a
blind person to visualize than for a sighted person.  But I have a
blind friend who did well enough on the LSAT a couple of years ago
that he got a full ride offered to him by a couple of highly-ranked
law schools, and he now is concluding his second year at The Ohio
State University and is about to intern with a rather prestigious law
firm in Columbus.  Certainly there are quite a few blind lawyers out
there--Scott LaBarre being perhaps most notable among them--and I even
am familiar with a blind judge who was serving in the Bay City,
Michigan area when I lived in Midland back in the late 1990s.  I never
got to meet him, but I know this is all very doable.

My friend at Ohio State says I must stick to my guns when asking for
reasonable accommodations: that they will even provide a means for me
to use a computer with Microsoft Excel to "map out" factors from the
logic exercises so I don't have to remember everything in my head or
just ask for constant repetition by a human reader/recorder.  They
even allow for headphones, if one thinks to ask them for some.

So what gives?  Thinking about joining the list for the National
Association of Blind Lawyers and asking them.

Thank you for your insight.  Hope I haven't stirred up too big a
hornet's nest, but of course I welcome diverse opinions.

Kind regards,

Kane Brolin