The American Bar Association is working to seek more accommodation for disabled students who need to take the Law School Admission Test.
The association unanimously approved a resolution urging the Law School Admission Council to “ensure that the exam reflects what the exam is designed to measure, and not the test taker’s disability.”
The resolution asks for the council to make sure that policies are clear to applicants with disabilities, that applicants are informed of decisions in a timely manner and that enough time is provided for appeals when accommodations are denied.
Each year people ask for extra arrangements for the LSAT and the council makes a decision on a case-by-case basis.
Wendy Margolis, the Law School Admission Council’s director of communications, said the council believes the American Bar Association’s commission based their report on “outdated and incomplete information” and considers the resolution an “oversimplification of the issues regarding what is needed of the test takers.”
“A lot of attention is being paid to a small number of people who are suing us about it,” Margolis said. “There are a high number of requests that are addressed in one way or another and the ABA is only focusing on high profile law suits. They do not seem to be taking account of all the facts.”
The council has been sued many times by test takers who have been denied accommodations, such as being given extra time on the test or a separate testing room.
Kelsii Dyer, a testing coordinator at the UA, said the council believes that everyone should have the right to take the test, and if they need accommodations, testing coordinators will “enjoy accommodating them.”
Dyer said the issues being addressed by the association relate to problems that may have been relevant in the past, but are not the “problems of today.”
“The resolution seems vague and like it won’t do much. I don’t disagree with the fact that it would be more accommodating, I just don’t think it would be more effective,” said Dyer.
Diedre Lamb, the manager of curricular access at the UA Disability Resource Center who works with law school students, said the James E. Rogers College of Law has a long history of accommodations for students that go back to the 1980s. Lamb said that the law school was accommodating disabled students who wanted to enroll in law school before many of Ivy League colleges.
“I’m really glad the association is really wanting to resolve these issues,” Lamb said. “That was the barrier in the past, that disabled students had to jump through so many hoops just to get the accommodations.”