Posts Tagged ‘disability & schools’

Disabled rights roundup

  • Per The Economist, long-awaited Justice Department rules decreeing ADA accessibility for websites (earlier here, here, etc.) expected any day now, “in June. For example, each picture must have text describing it, so that screen-reader programs can tell blind people what is there.” Individual enforcement actions, as against Peapod, aren’t waiting [DoJ press release] Settlement with MOOC firm signals DOJ plans to deal with online education providers [Cooley] Contributor believes it’s a snap to include online captioning in all online Harvard and MIT courses, so what’re they waiting for? [Time]
  • Rest of the Economist article is of interest too, especially on ADA filing mills in Florida and elsewhere;
  • In Sheehan v. San Francisco, Ninth Circuit created right to ADA accommodation in confrontations with law enforcers, SCOTUS reversed on other (qualified immunity) grounds [Mark Pulliam, City Journal; Richard Re, Prawfs]
  • Commemorations of 25th anniversary of the ADA — here’s what I had to say about the 20th — include plans “to hold [various Chicago institutions] publicly accountable for their commitments” to, inter alia, “increase civic engagement around disability issues” [Michael Waterstone, Prawfs]
  • Sacramento: “Squeeze Inn owner joins fight against costly ADA lawsuits” [KCRA]
  • Spread of fake service dog paraphernalia alarms groups that work with actual service dogs [BBC]
  • Intended class-action plaintiff sues McDonald’s over new style Coca-Cola Freestyle dispensers, saying touchscreen format unfair to disabled users [BigClassAction.com]

Schools roundup

  • New report: “Schools Cut Back as Litigation Costs Eat into Budgets” [California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, PDF] “Swings too dangerous for Washington schools” [AP; Richland, Wash.]
  • “Appeals Court Ruling Paves Way for Gender Quotas in High School Sports” [Saving Sports, Ninth Circuit on Title IX] More: Alison Somin [Ollier v. Sweetwater Union School District]
  • “College and university administrators demolishing freedom of religion and association” [Bainbridge]
  • “Grenade Launchers: The Newest Must-Have School Supply” [Jason Bedrick/Cato, earlier]
  • “It was against the school policy for elementary kids to have Chapstick” [Amy Alkon; Augusta County, Va.] “Mom Tells Therapist About Briefly Leaving Kids Alone, Shrink Calls Cops” [Lenore Skenazy]
  • Disability and school discipline: “Wondering why a preschooler would ever need to be suspended? Here’s an explanation.” [Amy Rothschild, Greater Greater Washington]
  • Civic education needed: some Greendale, Wisc. parents and educators wonder why non-parents are allowed to vote on school matters [Lenore Skenazy]

As always, reducing liberty is the answer

A Connecticut state commission charged with coming up with policy recommendations after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre is considering a draft proposal that would slap new regulations on homeschooling families. “Parents who home-school children with significant emotional, social or behavioral problems would have to file progress reports prepared by special education program teams” under the scheme. [Connecticut Post]

Disabled rights roundup

  • Willingness of Connecticut courts to order accommodation of mental disorders is not limitless, as in case of “dazed and confused” teacher who “frequently reported to the wrong school or for the wrong class” [Chris Engler at Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog; Langello v. West Haven Board of Education]
  • “‘Seinfeld’ diner sued for not being handicap-friendly” [NY Post] Florida lawyers descend on New Jersey to file ADA suits [N.J. Civil Justice Institute]
  • “Plaintiffs want to expand lawsuit against Disney for how it treats guests with autism” [Orlando Sentinel]
  • It’s “sad that we need a federal appellate court to remind us” that ADA’s protection of alcoholism does not actually immunize worker fired after repeatedly driving municipal employer’s vehicles drunk [Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer Law Blog]
  • “Employers beware: EEOC appears to be stepping up disability discrimination enforcement” [Hyman] EEOC sues Wal-Mart over firing of intellectually disabled employee [Rockford Register-Star, EEOC]
  • Nice crowd your ADA racket attracts, California [Modesto Bee]
  • Argument: Employers that use “emotional intelligence” measurement in evaluating job applicants may be violating ADA rights of those with autism [Michael John Carley, HuffPo]

June 12 roundup

  • John McGinnis: As information technology disrupts the legal profession, will lawyers’ clout decline? [City Journal]
  • Law schools, especially of the more leftward persuasion, collecting millions of dollars in cy pres lawsuit diversions [Derek Muller]
  • Who’s still defending embattled medical examiner Steven Hayne? Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood, for one [Radley Balko, earlier here, here, here]
  • Life in America will become more drab if Campaign for Safe Cosmetics gets its way [Jeffrey Tucker via @cathyreisenwitz, earlier on “CPSIA for soap”]
  • LSAT settled with DoJ demands re: disabled accommodation back in 2002 and again just now, and the differences between the two settlements tell a story [Daniel Fisher, earlier] Some prospective students will be losers [Derek Muller]
  • “‘Swoop and Squat’: Staged car accidents, insurance fraud rise in L.A.” [Los Angeles Times]
  • Toughen duty for California psychiatrists to inform on dangerous patients? Awaiting backfire in three, two, one… [Scott Greenfield]

Law schools roundup

  • Under DoJ gun, LSAT agrees to end flagging of test scores taken with disabled accommodation, cough up more than $7 million [Justice press release, Caron/TaxProf roundup coverage]
  • “Things law school trustees probably should not do: subpoena their own school’s students for criticizing them” [@petersterne; Danielle Tcholakian, DNAInfo]
  • Should law students graduate without studying the First Amendment? And other thoughts from Justice Scalia’s William & Mary commencement speech [text via Will Baude]
  • “Rank ordering the likelihood of law school reforms” [Prof. Bainbridge] ABA moves forward with law school accreditation changes; tenure, among other institutions, likely to remain sacrosanct [Caron/TaxProf, Fortune]
  • Paul Horwitz reviews James R. Hackney Jr. book on contemporary legal academy [Journal of Legal Education via Prawfs]
  • Alex Acosta dean case: should conservative legal academics steer clear of Florida? [Bainbridge]
  • Orin Kerr vs. Erwin Chemerinsky and Carrie Menkel-Meadow on curricular reform [Volokh Conspiracy]

DoJ: school discipline must follow disparate-impact standards

The Justice Department and Department of Education have sent out a Dear Colleague letter discouraging schools from pursuing strict discipline policies against student misbehavior, especially against “routine” or “minor” infractions; Education Secretary Arne Duncan cited tardiness and disrespect as examples of the latter. [Christian Science Monitor]

Assuming that the federal government has somehow acquired the legitimate constitutional authority to begin dictating the fine points of disciplinary policy to local schools in the first place — a big if — it might seem at first that much of this is innocuous. Some early coverage, for example, makes it sound as if the letter is mostly aimed at obtaining a reconsideration of zero-tolerance policies, long criticized in this space, as well as the sorts of suspensions and expulsions that are based on far-fetched dangers like finger guns or forbidden hugs.

Unfortunately, there’s much more. The letter represents the culmination of a years-long drive toward imposing tighter Washington oversight on school discipline policies that result in “disparate impact” among racial or other groups. Policies that result in the suspension of differentially more minority kids, or special-ed kids, will now be suspect — even if the rate of underlying behavior is not in fact uniform among every group. (Special-ed kids, for example, include many placed in that category because of emotional and behavioral problems that correlate with a higher likelihood of acting out in misbehavior. Boys misbehave more than girls.)

If the policy helps speed the correction of some overly harsh, mechanical school policies, both under the zero-tolerance rubric and otherwise, it may have some positive side effects. But the disparate-impact premise is a pernicious one that’s sure to create many new problems of its own. [Andrew Coulson, Cato; Scott Johnson, PowerLine]

More: in 2012 Senate testimony, Andrew Coulson pointed out that 1) compared with the alternatives, the use of out-of-school suspensions appears to improve the learning environment for other (non-disciplined) students by protecting them from disruption; 2) zero-tolerance policies were adopted in the first place in part as a defense for administrators against disparate-impact charges. In other words, the new supposed remedy (disparate-impact scrutiny) helped cause the disease to which it is being promoted as the cure. (& welcome Andrew Sullivan, Scott Greenfield, Hans Bader readers; cross-posted at Cato at Liberty)

Schools roundup

  • Organizers of college conference on “intersection of health, humanities and disabilities” forget to make it accessible [Inside Higher Ed]
  • Law forbade disclosure re: sex offender classmate, now Seattle schools are paying assault victim $700,000 [KIRO]
  • Update: Lehigh U. student who sued over C+ grade won’t get a new trial, judge rules [Allentown Morning Call, earlier]
  • U.K.: “Refusal to allow your child to attend this trip will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child’s education record…” [Althouse]
  • Truly awful idea SCOTUS has helped us dodge so far: constitutional right to education [Andrew Sullivan]
  • Washington Monthly interviews Zach Schrag on institutional review boards (IRBs) [earlier here and here];
  • Oldie but goodie: dissent from Second Circuit chief judge Dennis Jacobs on College of Staten Island student politics complaint [Husain v. Springer, alternate]