Welcome to Disability Rights Advocates
Successfully applying for reasonable accommodations on high-stakes standardized tests, like the SAT and LSAT, is often an extremely challenging experience for students with well documented learning and visual disabilities. If you or someone you know is a person with a documented visual or learning disability who has applied for accommodations on the SAT or LSAT, but has been denied the testing accommodations that you requested, we want to hear your story. If you are a person with a visual disability who needs accessible LSAT preparation materials or has attempted to use the LSAC website to submit law school applications, we would also like to hear about your experiences. Please click here to share your experiences with the LSAC or SAT. Your help is absolutely crucial to our efforts to end discrimination against people with disabilities.
DRA is committed to the fight to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy full access in a variety of contexts, as required by both state and federal law. As part of this commitment, DRA actively investigates barriers facing people with disabilities in the context of standardized testing, and advocates and litigates for the removal of those barriers. Throughout our 15 year history, DRA has championed the rights of people with disabilities in cases against the SAT, the MCAT, and the LSAT. Through the following landmark cases, DRA has helped to successfully improve access for people with disabilities on those tests.
In the 1997 Guckenberger v. Boston University class action lawsuit, students with learning disabilities, represented by DRA and supported by the LD Access Foundation, challenged discriminatory disability documentation requirements at Boston University (BU) that required new testing for students’ learning disabilities every three years. Additionally, the provost of the University, widely known as an outspoken opponent of rights for students with learning disabilities, fired the disability resources staff and put himself in charge of personally reviewing, and routinely denying, all requests for classroom accommodations. DRA successfully litigated this case to trial, winning substantial reforms to the BU accommodations process and increased access to the educational experience.
In the 2001 case Breimhorst v. ETS, DRA teamed up with the International Dyslexia Association to reach a settlement with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), that ended the discriminatory practice of “flagging” students with disabilities who use accommodations on ETS examinations. The ETS exams include the national high-stakes GRE and GMAT. Also, as part of this case, a Blue Ribbon Panel of disability and testing experts similarly concluded “flagging” was inappropriate on the SAT, the “Big Test” for undergraduate admissions owned by the College Board and administered by ETS. Pursuant to this settlement, ETS ended “flagging” on the SAT as well.
In a class action case that could have a sweeping impact on the way many standardized testing companies administer their exams, a judge in California found that policies used to review requests for disability accommodations on the Medical School Admissions Test (MCAT) were too stringent and did not comply with civil rights laws. In a statement of decision issued November 2, 2006, the California Superior Court ordered the administrator of the exam – the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) – to revamp its accommodation review procedures to comply with California law. Because the MCAT is similar in design to other standardized admissions tests, including the SAT and the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), the decision may very well have a ripple effect across the testing industry.
In the case— Turner v. American Association of Medical Colleges—four college graduates with dyslexia and other learning disabilities were denied accommodations on the MCAT when they sought extra time. DRA brought the case as a class action on behalf of individuals with learning disabilities and ultimately prevailed. DRA challenged the discriminatory procedures and criteria that the AAMC used in reviewing potential medical student’s requests for accommodations on the MCAT exam. Among other practices, DRA challenged the AAMC's blanket denial of accommodations to individuals who achieved past academic success, the AAMC's practice of second-guessing diagnoses and recommendations of qualified physicians, and also the AAMC's reliance on unqualified employees to make accommodations decisions. AAMC attempted to defend its procedures by claiming that providing extra time to disabled test-takers would change what the MCAT tests and could provide disabled test takers with a potentially unfair advantage. At the conclusion of the trial, however, the Court found that the AAMC failed to submit any evidence to prove either of those contentions. To the contrary, the evidence showed that the MCAT – like most other standardized admissions tests in the United States – was not designed to measure reading speed, but rather knowledge and problem solving skills. Until this trial, the AAMC was out of touch with the medical facts regarding learning disabilities and why accommodations like extra time make sense. The AAMC no doubt understands this now, and we hope and expect that other testing entities do as well.
If you or someone you know has applied for accomodations on standardized tests, like the SAT, LSAT or MCAT, and feel that your application was wrongly denied, we want to hear your story.
