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

[christine Boone]

There was a time when blind people could not even sit for the LSAT, instead
having to procure a waiver from the Educational Testing Service to submit
with their applications to law school. Because of the National Federation of
the Blind's efforts, the LSAT is now accessible to us through the avenue of
reasonable accommodation. First we were able to get only a reader and an
scribe for the test, then Braille and eventually the use of a computer. To
argue that we are unable to master the logic portion of the test because it
requires us to understand pictures, would open a Pandora's box in my
opinion. If we cannot master the test that is required In the law school
admissions process, then what about the required curriculum? Would a blind
person be able to manage all parts of that grueling work? 

I would ask someone who has taken the test more recently than I, what may
have changed in the last 20 years about the logic portion of the LSAT. It
has always been considered the most challenging part of the test for most
people, blind and sighted alike. It did not used to require pictures to be
drawn, but offered the usual multiple choice of answers. Certainly sighted
people often draw diagrams in this portion because it is one of those
mind-bending exercises that asks you ... if a train travels 46 miles in 30
minutes when traveling west, and 36 miles in 10 minutes when traveling
East,, and it leaves Chicago at 8 in the morning, New York Time, what time
will it be in Tokyo when the train arrives in Bangladesh?      

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBMI-Talk [mailto:nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kane
Brolin via NFBMI-Talk
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2017 9:33 AM
To: NFB of Michigan Internet Mailing List <NFBMI-Talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kane Brolin <kbrolin65 at gmail.com>; Joe Harcz <JoeHarcz at comcast.net>
Subject: [nfbmi-talk] LSAT law school exam discriminates against the blind,
lawsuit says" | MLive.com

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_dis
crimin.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

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