Continuum of disabilities
The Virginia Postrel column you quote in your Nov. 11 item ("Accommodations in the Emergency Room") contains the following quote: "'You're disabled or you're not,' says Stephen Tollafield, an attorney with Disability Rights Advocates in Oakland, Calif."
Actually, no. Many disabilities fall on a continuum. Some people are very dyslexic, some less so. At whatever point you set the cut-off for the level of disability that justifies special accommodations, you are disadvantaging people that don't quite make the cut-off.
Not to mention that, if dyslexic medical students get accommodations for the medical school entrance exam, they will demand them for the finals too, and for their internship and medical licensing exams. Being treated by an emergency room physician who needed all these accommodations seems a little too severe a punishment even for Tollafield. -- Mark Moss