Education/Schools

DRA reached a class action settlement with the University of California, Berkeley that is resulting in comprehensive access improvements to this leading national University. The Plaintiffs are a class of all students with mobility and/or vision disabilities at U.C. Berkeley. Under the settlement, U.C. Berkeley has been removing thousands of access barriers throughout its facilities. […]

DRA reached a class action settlement with the Santa Barbara School District in improved access to the District’s High School. DRA represented several students with mobility disabilities who had been subjected to discriminatory and dangerous conditions at this high school. One of the students, Liana Mitchum was struck three times by cars on her way […]

The Spieler v. Mt. Diablo Consent Decree negotiated in 2000, represents the most sweeping school access settlement to date under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Consent Decree created equal access to school buildings, educational programs, and social programs. Mt. Diablo School District has committed $20 million over ten years to ensure equal access for […]

The Hayward Unified School District has entered into a comprehensive agreement with nonprofit law firms Disability Rights Advocates and Disability Rights California (formerly Protection & Advocacy, Inc.) and several parents to expand its voter approved District-wide modernization and new building efforts into making all its schools accessible to students with disabilities. The agreement was negotiated […]

The Law School Admission Council’s (LSAC) website is the gateway for aspiring law students to apply to law schools and to register for the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Yet, LSAC operated a website that was not accessible to blind law school applicants who use screen reader software. To challenge LSAC’s inaccessible website, DRA and […]

In January of 2011, the Ninth Circuit Court granted Stephanie Enyart, a blind law school graduate, the right to use assistive technology to take the Multistate Bar Exam and the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. The court issued a landmark ruling that established that testing entities are required to provide accommodations that best ensure exams measure […]

Nationwide, college students with print disabilities – individuals who can­not read standard print because of vision, physical, developmental, or learning disabilities –  face major barriers and disparities to academic success because colleges and universities fail to provide these students with text books, course readers, and library research materials in alternative formats they can read. These […]