Student Sues Princeton Over Learning Disability Accommodations

Parents Forum
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<p>CalMom- excellent point (#313) regarding te slippery slope fear and bureaucracy, especially in a public school. There is no one business owner in a public school, the buck stops no where. They have to have a set of rules and go by the rules and be careful not to set too many unusual precedents.</p>

<p>My non-LD needed some unusual accommodations on transferring some course credits senior year to a large public. We worked with the people for a year ahead of the final decision and having been through the entire minutia of it, what worked was my helping them see how they could look at the situation from outside the box and defining the extremely limited number of people to whom the precedent could apply. </p>

<p>When you factored in some additional points of my DDs history there are not likley to be many if any people to whom they would have to apply the same rule. But until I pointed that out in very specific language and also after DD having gained great credibility over the course of a year working with them and performing at a high level on every single requirement they had, only then did they make the unusual exception. She earned the respect of the adviser who had to present her case to the decision makers and we gave them a very specific limiting factor that clearly showed they were not setting a widespread precedent.</p>

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<p>Twistedx, I commend you for your efforts to raise awareness at Michigan – but I think that even though you might be inspired by the Princeton lawsuit – your approach (surveyed student attitudes toward students with LD at your college; started a student org. to promote awareness and advocacy; contacted other universities to form a state-wide awareness project) - is far MORE productive and self-empowering. Rather than simply viewing your problems through the lens of how you can convince your school to give you the help you feel you need – you have stepped outside and looked at the bigger problem, and initiated action that will help others in the future. I am 100% in support of such actions – plus, I’d note that this approach is far more likely to get you positive results at your school. (You are raising your own profile as a LD advocate without putting the school in the position of needing to frame a strategy to defend itself in court.)</p>

<p>I have a question – what is the difference between the Spanish classes at Michigan and the ones at your former college that make you feel that you can’t succeed if you continue your studies? Have you sat in on a class at the level you would be entering next semester to get a sense of the teaching approach they use? </p>

<p>I see from the U.Michigan web site that the department DOES offer accommodations to LD students: “LSA students who believe they have a learning disability that interferes with their learning a foreign language may petition the LSA Academic Standards Board to be allowed to substitute culture-based classes in English as a means of finishing the language requirement. To do so, as one part of the petition process, they must take the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT)” [Romance</a> Languages - Language Placement Test](<a href=“http://www.lsa.umich.edu/rll/langinstruct/placementtest.html]Romance”>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/rll/langinstruct/placementtest.html)</p>

<p>I can understand how the fact that you have 3 semesters of Spanish from your community college might make that task more difficult – but I was thinking that if you could articulate specific differences in the teaching methodology or level of difficulty that it might help you present your case. </p>

<p>Also – I found out on the UM web site that you can take the all but the 4th course in the language sequence pass/fail – “Unless you are concentrating in the language or are using the language courses for part of your concentration, you may take the first three courses in the four course sequence of elementary language on a Pass/Fail basis. You must take the fourth term itself on a graded basis in order to satisfy the requirement. This fourth-term course must be completed with a C- or better.” [College</a> of Literature, Science, and the Arts : Students](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/yjyfwz6]College”>http://■■■■■■■.com/yjyfwz6) – so if you think you can pass, but just barely – I think you should take advantage of that option. </p>

<p>Then talk to the prof at the beginning to the course and explain your disability in very specific terms, so he or she knows exactly what your limitations are and what kind of in-class support would be most helpful to you. Don’t blame your teacher for the decisions of the Department – instead, consider that if you develop a good relationship with the person who teaches the class, that person might become an ally and a supporter. The teacher may give you some flexibility or informal accommodations in class that will get you past specific barriers – or, if the teacher can see that you are struggling despite putting in significant effort, then the teacher might help you document the disability and get the language requirement waived after the first semester.</p>

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<p>Happy thanksgiving to everyone!</p>

<p>I’ve been following along and reading this thread and wanted to put in a quick word.</p>

<p>My D has found individual teachers, with a few really rotten to the core individuals, to be far more accomodating than actual administrators. It’s case by case, in a lot of situations, and so…small classes, better, just in general.</p>

<p>There will always be one or two people who believe someone is trying to “get away” with something. And, perhaps, there are people who are “trying to get away with something,” though I can think of far better things to try to get away with than to have to spend more time taking a test, honestly. </p>

<p>Don’t most of us WISH our kids would spend a little more time reviewing thier answers before handing in the tests? I mean, really?</p>

<p>Good luck twisted. I hope it doesn’t come down to a lawsuit, just because, yuck! Who’s got time for that kind of thing?</p>

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<p>What that actually means is that you have to prove to the academic standards board that you are literally incapable of learning a foreign language, or else you do not get any sort of substitution or exemption. So my case to the ASB is going to be that the curriculums differ and while I am perfectly capable of learning a foreign language-- even in Michigan’s curriculum, it is not without these supports. The hope, according to my adviser, is that the ASB will be able to help me get accommodations for the class that I might not have had otherwise, as they do not alter the curriculum or rigor of the course whatsoever anyway.</p>

<p>“I have a question – what is the difference between the Spanish classes at Michigan and the ones at your former college that make you feel that you can’t succeed if you continue your studies? Have you sat in on a class at the level you would be entering next semester to get a sense of the teaching approach they use?”</p>

<p>The difference is that at my old school all listening components were with another person-- we were graded based on participation for our communication with our classmates on group assignments in complete Spanish, and our willingness to stay in complete Spanish for the class-- i.e. only asking or answering questions during lecture in Spanish, etc. For our exams, we very rarely had a tiny bit of recording to listen to that amounted to maybe 5% of the entire exam, but for most of my classes the professor actually gave us the information verbally herself so I was able to lip read. Our final oral exam involved speaking for five minutes in complete Spanish to the professor, and then having a question and answer session in complete Spanish with her for three minutes afterward. So I very rarely ever had to hear a recording. On the placement test I was not even able to hear the Spanish being spoken to know if I knew what it meant before it moved on to the next question. I have been speaking to students taking Spanish at Michigan and they have much more of their course listening to recordings, and their oral exams consist of speaking with a student whose spanish may very well be awful, adding an additional serious difficulty in my ability to hear and process even if I do know the Spanish. All I have asked for is to be allowed a laptop for my physical disability, and to have a human being speak to me instead of listening to a recording for exams, so that I can compensate myself with lip reading. It does not help that nobody at the department is willing to talk to me. They will not respond to my emails or return my calls. All I have asked is what accommodations they might be willing to provide, if any, for disabilities such as mine and they will not speak to me. Which, I notice, is exactly what people are stating Diane should have done-- clearly that doesn’t always work out. </p>

<p>And to clarify, I have no intention of running into this guns blazing with an attorney. The only reason this was brought up was because I was showing that there ARE legitimate reasons why someone would end up taking legal action in their first semester at a school. Because if all else fails, that may be what this comes to. My greatest hope is that that will not be the case, since I don’t have the money or the time to sue them anyway and really would rather not go there. But I am not just going to accept it if they leave me the options of dropping out or failing out.</p>

<p>As for taking pass/fail, that is in consideration. My pre-law adviser and I are concerned that it would not behoove me to apply to law schools with transcripts from three colleges, and a quarter of my time at Michigan only being pass/fail. I have to attend a third college this summer to take 8 credits to replace the Spanish I am losing and can’t afford to come to Michigan to do that, and they won’t let me transfer the credits from a CC. I am hesitant, given that as a transfer from a community college I only get 60 credits at a 4 year university to begin with, to take 12-14 of those credits out of my GPA calculation. And if I am entitled to some accommodation, which I guess we are trying to figure out now, I don’t think it’s right that I should have to take a class pass/fail without accommodation if I don’t want to. That is a potential opportunity to raise or lower my gpa, like it is for anybody else, and it shouldn’t be held out of reach IF I am entitled to accommodations.</p>

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<p>Why do you need to lip-read/ work with a live person? Do you have a hearing impairment? Language processing disorder? Both? Do you have recent, specific documentation of the diagnosis, specific to your ability to listen to recordings?</p>

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<p>I have an auditory processing disorder, and my evaluation was around this time last year. Whether or not my documentation is sufficient, which it certainly should be, has not even come into play yet because when I asked the disabilities office what specifically would be expected for those sorts of accommodations they told me it was not happening no matter what, and the department wont talk to me to say one way or the other. Apparently the disabilities office has been going back and forth with the department for years about it and the language department feels that its way of doing things is the only way to do so, and any accommodation would alter the essence of the program too much, in summary. The disabilities office recommended I talk to my adviser about petitioning the board, and my adviser has been going back and forth between the head of advising and the board itself figuring out what we could possibly get out of this. He thinks that if I get the chance to present my case the board may be more forthcoming with the accommodations I am requesting. Though less likely, they could also allow a cultural substitution. The issue is that I guess a fair number of transfer students come in and bomb the placement test for whatever reason and have to retake courses, and the board doesn’t want there to be word on the street, so to speak, that exemptions and substitutions are possible. I don’t care as long as I get to graduate without screwing up my gpa because of an unaccommodated disability. I am VERY seriously displeased that I have to retake the classes when I could be taking classes that actually interest me or are relevant to my intended career, I won’t lie about it, but I will do it without a single word of complaint if they just give me a chance to be successful at it. I don’t really think I could be more willing to cooperate.</p>

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<p>Twisted, it seems to me that you are on the way to making a good record, and that it is a plus if you have the support of the disabilities office. I think that your attitude is great – you are willing to do the work with the accommodations, and the accommodations you are asking for are very specific to your needs. That being said, I can see why they may not be able to offer you what you seek-- I can’t see a problem with a laptop, but a human speaker during exams could be an issue in terms of personnel. (Who is the speaker? the prof? a t.a.? someone hired specifically for the task?) – so there may be a practical reason they can’t/won’t offer that accommodation – but in that case they really ought to allow you to go with the cultural substitution.</p>

<p>Don’t give up – but keep in mind that your efforts are something that distinguishes your situation from the Princeton case. You may feel frustrated (you are asking, they aren’t giving) – but as I pointed out above, from what we have seen, the Princeton girl is very likely to LOSE her case because of an inadequate record to support her position. </p>

<p>One weakness I see in your “case”, from a legal point of view, is that you can’t rely on what other students you’ve talked to have told you about the classes. That’s hearsay, and inadmissible in court. Plus – I know from experience that the complaints that some students make about profs or classes are not always uniformly shared. I would also tend to assume that at a college the size of UM, the Spanish language department must be huge, and must rely heavily on grad students, lecturers and TA’s - so there must also be tremendous variability in terms of the quality of the actual classes. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that, in your life, this is a problem that needs to be solved. The issue for YOU isn’t whether the department follows the law - but rather, what you need to do to graduate and also preserve the kind of academic record that you want for law school admissions. (But don’t despair: if you end up taking language classes pass/fail because of lack of accommodations, but continue your advocacy with the student organization you start – you may have great material for your law school admissions essay – the story you have to tell about the language requirement and how you end up dealing with it may actually help establish your creds as a good candidate for law school)</p>

<p>Since you are pre-law, I have to tell you: if you look at law practice simply in the context of law suits and litigation, you are missing the meat of what good lawyers do. The problem-solving, negotiation & mediation process is far more important in day-to-day practice of law than lawsuits. Yes… sometimes the lawsuit is the only avenue – but I always counted it as a good day if I could resolve my client’s problems with a series of letters and phone calls, even though of course I got paid less that way. But lawsuits are often an all-or-nothing affair, and my experience was that when cases were settled on the brink of trial, it was usually more of a lose-lose situation than a win-win. That is, each side ended up giving up something that they were unhappy about… but they settled out of fear that the trial outcome would be even worse. </p>

<p>So what you are doing NOW is what the REAL practice of law is all about. Not the lawsuits, but all of that negotiation and documentation and even the sending emails that don’t get a response.</p>

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<p>No, it’s not, and I say this as someone who was prevented from taking a beloved foreign language at college (one in which I had done extremely well in during HS and extracurricular competitions) due to physical disability. Well, okay, it may be illegal, but that doesn’t mean you can expect to win, sad as that may be. The ADA is an EXTREMELY weak law in my opinion, and people are going to find every loop hole possible in the law to avoid accommodating you and others with disabilities. Good for you for fighting, and I sincerely wish you the best of luck, but it’s not so cut and dry.</p>

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<p>To Twistx</p>

<p>when you spoke to this young woman, did you express the feelings/sentiment of many here?</p>

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<p>No, I did not mention anything about this thread. I considered asking her to clarify a few of the matters that we are speculating on, but decided she has enough on her plate without this website contributing. I think this is a situation in which unless you have something supportive to say, it’s best to leave her alone.</p>

<p>“No, it’s not, and I say this as someone who was prevented from taking a beloved foreign language at college (one in which I had done extremely well in during HS and extracurricular competitions) due to physical disability. Well, okay, it may be illegal, but that doesn’t mean you can expect to win, sad as that may be. The ADA is an EXTREMELY weak law in my opinion, and people are going to find every loop hole possible in the law to avoid accommodating you and others with disabilities. Good for you for fighting, and I sincerely wish you the best of luck, but it’s not so cut and dry.”</p>

<p>Well, I didn’t necessarily mean that I would absolutely win if I sued–the way laws are interpreted in court is almost never cut and dry, but that it is illegal for them to offer no accommodations or alternatives, particularly when the class is required for a degree. Which, unless I am misreading, doesn’t contradict your post. </p>

<p>Ironically I think the only way I could avoid foreign language is in engineering, maybe pharmacy and/or nursing, which are some of the worst possible courses of study for a dyscalculic. Oh well. :P</p>

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<p>“whenever a lawsuit is filed, if the plaintiff has good counsel, it is reasonable to presume that the plaintiff has exhausted all other remedial alternatives”</p>

<p>Speaking as someone who used to read and evaluate federal complaints for a living…most counsel is not good.</p>

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<p>Twisted, they DO offer an alternative --they allow people whose disability prevents them from learning a language to “to substitute culture-based classes in English” instead. Your problem is that you are having a hard time establishing a disability when you already have completed several semesters of Spanish with a good grade at your community college. So you are mistaken in asserting that the department is clearly violating the law by offering “no” accommodations. </p>

<p>Your university DOES offer accommodations for LD students - you just appear to be having difficulty demonstrating that you are entitled to those accommodations based on your record. You seem to think that means that the University owes you a different set of accommodations… but I see that as an uphill battle in a court of law. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that there is a difference between the concept of “disability” and “difficulty.”</p>

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<p>I have a DISABILITY that keeps me from learning a language in their exact way, but in order to get accommodations I have to prove I can’t learn a language at all. How does that work? </p>

<p>If they’ll give me the cultural substitution instead I’ll gladly take it, but I am not being offered that at this point either and have been told it’s very unlikely.</p>

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<p>I might be mistaken, but I don’t think that there are any cases under ADA that address instructional methodology. I do think that if you can PROVE by your documentation that you can NOT learn a language in “their exact way” – that you would be entitled to the waiver. But I don’t see the proof. I just see the fear.</p>

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<p>The lawsuit is absolutely ridiculous. For one, if the student has a learning disability that they need special accomodation, then they do not belong at Princeton. I’m sure professors will not go out of their way to personally accomodate said student, and they shouldn’t.
I personally have seen students who pay to get ‘diagnosed’ with ADHD so that they are rewarded more time when taking tests, and I suspect that this student may be doing the same. If she is, then she definitely does not deserve the extra time. If she isn’t, however then there is still no need to be further accomodated. Princeton was being entirely fair to the student, asking for anything more is superfluous.</p>

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<p>A key part of any disability related litigation is “doctor shopping”. You “doctor shop” do so until you get the diagnosis your lawyer wants. And the lawyer representing the plaintiff will always suggest a very cooperative referral. And the accused entity will do the same. The system is a very bad joke.</p>

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<p>While I’m not automatically sympathetic or antipathetic to the lawsuit here, since there’s a lot that we aren’t told, I’ve got two reactions to it.</p>

<p>First, as a university professor, I’ve found that the time alloted for a test is seldom all that important to how well students perform on it. For that reason, I readily make accommodations when I am convinced by a student that she needs added time. For example, students whose native language is not English – in those cases, I will readily grant a bit more time for the students to write essay exams. I’m not teaching English, and I want to give the students adequate time to express their ideas in English. Where’s the inequity in granting such students a bit more time? I would willingly grant added time to a student with some other documented “disability.”</p>

<p>Second, the granting of added time in the Princeton case perhaps ought to depend on the type of test (multiple choice vs. essay, for example). More generally, however, in smaller classes – and outside of some disciplines such as math where solving number or logic problems is the central part of a test – I don’t think in-class, timed tests are the best way to proceed most of the time. Give assignments in which the student can use as much time as they need, namely papers or projects, where the main “timing” has to do with due dates.</p>

<p>I’ve had some students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia who have written some strange papers. They only revealed these disabilities to me after I marked them down for poor grammar or syntax or spelling. In such cases my practice is to allow the students to rewrite their papers on their own time. I’ll then regrade the paper, focusing ultimately on the substantive arguments rather than the “corrected” grammar. I think this is a reasonable accommodation. I don’t give the student a break other than that chance to fix the writing itself. Most of the time these students are unaware of the mistakes that they make in the first place. So I also urge them to do such things as read their papers aloud or let a friend or roommate read the paper before submitting it.</p>

<p>Added: In my earliest days as a professor – long before the ADA – I faced the issue of how to test students who were blind. My university was known as being accommodating but I never received any instructions or requests except from the students themselves. These were the only students who I allowed to tape-record my lectures (with the half-joking admonition that they not seek to “profit” from this by selling the tapes to other students). But I gave them the same tests as other students, that is, I asked the same “essay” questions, except that I was willing in some cases to administer the exams orally. I had little difficulty figuring out how well they knew the material.</p>

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<p>“I might be mistaken, but I don’t think that there are any cases under ADA that address instructional methodology. I do think that if you can PROVE by your documentation that you can NOT learn a language in “their exact way” – that you would be entitled to the waiver. But I don’t see the proof. I just see the fear.”</p>

<p>Well, I haven’t shown you my proof, have I? I didn’t know I was trying to convince YOU. I not only have my full evaluation complete with all the exact scores on all the different tests I was given, plus the doctors commentary on how that translates to the classroom in various subjects (I was tested for a variety of things at once and came out with three diagnoses), and I even have an additional document on file from the doctor (a psychologist who specializes in these issues and is well known to the university) even more specifically outlining why the specific scores I got on different test areas indicate major auditory processing deficiencies, and what that means I can and cannot do in a foreign language classroom and why. I also have a document from my neurologist, a doctor from an extremely reputable practice in the area, explaining how she tested for my neuropathy, what she found, how it affects me, and why exactly I need a laptop to take notes and complete written assignments-- also done within the last year. I would think that should be all I need, but I am also taking the MLAT and getting my former professor to write a supporting letter explaining the differences in curriculum. SO, hopefully the academic standards board will be able to propose a solution for me. I’ll happily learn the language if they’ll let me, or take whatever substitution they suggest.</p>

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<p>calmom,</p>

<p>I don’t think Twisted is just “afraid”–no person will know the impact of their disability better than the person him/herself, after all, and she/he seems to have strong documentation supporting this.</p>

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<p>jerseypie, There <em>are</em> disabled students with accommodations at Princeton and probably every other top university in the country. Just because they have a disability does not mean they don’t belong there. And there are professors (like mackinaw) who are willing to give accommodations because they feel that they want to give their students the best opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the material.</p>

<p>toblin, Many students are tested and diagnosed through the public school system. </p>

<p>mackinaw, What you wrote is exactly what my mother (a lifelong teacher with a PhD) said. </p>

<p>Twistedxkiss, You really, really need to sit down with someone in the Spanish department, explain your situation and see what they can offer. I also attended a large university and it was often difficult to get through the bureaucracy. Is there a way you can visit the dept in person and ask for an appointment to speak to the head of the department? He or she would know best if anyone could accommodate or if any class does not depend on tape recorders. I would also ask to see syllabi for the classes you need to take. </p>

<p>One thing you should look for is to see what percentage of your grade will depend on these recordings. It may be possible to pass the class even if you lose a number of points on the recordings. And I totally feel for you-- one of my kids has language processing issues and I have found out it quite challenging to deal with.</p>