Sat. Session 3 S12 I M Dancing As Fast As I Can from Courtroom to Practice

AHEAD

SAT. Session I

AHEAD CONFERENCE 2004

Sat. session 2

AHEAD

Sat. session 3\ S12 I’m Dancing as fast as I can from courtroom to practice

Jane Jarrow Disability Access Informaiton and Support

Jean Ashmore, Rice University

This presentation discusses how these cases are translated into practice?

We may review some of the facts of the cases we have already heard. This is NOT about reviewing case law it is about what we do on a daily basis with our students

Jean AShmore will give a frame work for doing this

We need to have a decision tree to organize all of the information that we are given on a daily basis

SOMETIMES LAWS MAY SEEM MORE RELEVANT THAN WE MIGHT THINK

Ask yourself these questions

To who does or could the cases apply? Students, faculty, visitors

Where can I get a good case summary on this?

At ahead we are working on increasing our information on out to members perhaps a legislative newsletter.

Look to LRP or other sin our Niche who is experts

Sam Goodin and others

I am putting out a legal disclaimer. This is not legal advice. How do we go about managing this information?

In what ways may this decision apply to my school? Is it applicable directly or indirectly?

How can I explain or summarize the key features to others on campus especially if I am not an attorney?

Develop a regular relationship with compliance officer or general counsel

How am I am g going to spread the information on campus?

Sam Goodin

Decision points made across the number of cases to decide if a case is relevant to my work

Whether or not I like a ruling should NOT have a bearing whether or not a case is relevant

As you make decisions whether or not you like a ruling has no relevance on whether it’s relevant to the work

How complicated is it to apply the ruling to the work

To adjust practice to confirm to rulings is in some cases would be impractical.

Is this decision reflecting ideology?

This means you don’t need to decide what is right or what is wrong.

Subjectivity enters into this a great deal. Man times our decisions reflect who we are rather than the legal standard.

Is this or is this not a reasoned decision

You need to get your hands on the case and get behind the thinking that went into the thinking

Paul Grossman is able to look at decions and finds teachable moments in them

The courts are often not as helpful as OCR.

In summary don’t let personal opinion get in your way

Jane Jarrow

Let’s pick some court cases and if you ask yourself these questions what would you come up with? No one could agree on a case at firs so we decided we would start out with Garrett

Woman who was a nurse she had cancer when she went to get treatment they pushed her out the door when she returned

T he issue was not whether or not she was discriminated against BUT whether or not she had standing to sue the state. They made a narrow decision and denied she had the right to sue the state under Title I She brought the suit on 504 and it was decided she can pursue it under her 504 claim.

None of three of us are attorneys this is not legal advice

To whom does this case apply?

This was a straight discrimination case. She was not asking for accommodations.

Maybe there are some issues her I don’t know

In what ways does this case apply to my school or to anything we are going to do around here>

If you are at a private school

No problem

This won’t have much to do with DSS because we don’t deal with employees. This is more a case for human resources.

Because it was specifically employment issues and because it dealt with immunity issues.

It has implication in terms of the climate in which we exist. But is does not have to do with day to day practice.

It might happen in student employment and they would have to deal with it not DSS

Toyota verses Williams

A woman with carpal tunnel working on an assembly line and asks for some accommodations then the jobs changed and she was given a different tone but she had to do so meeting that hurts her. She requested a different kind of position. She asked for leave when her leave was up she was terminated.

When students have Observable limitations, we sometimes operate differently.

Sometimes our professional judgment comes in.

Court says her carpal tunnel syndrome did not rise to the level of a disability.

The court ruled that HER carpal tunnel syndrome was a substantial limitation rather than that carpal tunnel syndrome is general is not substantial limitation.

In the grand scheme of things, if giving the key to the adaptive lab is helpful, we will do this.

If we think it is going to help and not hurt anyone. However, this changes when the person ahs an invisible disability. We are often inconsistent. We may demand more from people who have learning disability. This is even different among invisible disability for instance many people accept less documentation from people with psychiatric disability.

The issue in Toyota that could applicable is what constitutes a substantial limitation? It reexamines who is eligible for services through your program.

Sometimes we funnel these things because of resource utilization

Sometimes the concern is if you assess the documentation in a standardized way things can spiral out of control.

How do you choose how much extra time students get?

Jane sys sounds like it’s a cases a by case.

Sam suggests collaborating with the faculty.

Sometimes they can provide me information that can inform the process. We should suggest that these things are guidelines.

This should be cases by cases and even course by course

What we do in those individual situations in order to be fair and equitable?

Sometimes we declare people ineligible. Documentation gridlines can screen people out instead of dealing on a case by case basis.

Access oriented services can become success oriented services.

My point on the discussion of Toyota.

How should this apply?

There are things because the case is about whether or not someone would be considered eligible to ask for accommodations.

WE HAVE TO PUT THE LIMITATION INTO CONTEXT.

IF YOU’RE ROLE IN LIFE IS TO BE A STUDENT. That is your major life activity.

Toyota she leigibled that she was substantially limited in performing manual tasks.

She said that the task that she did at work because they were repetitive activities.

The case martin decision is the case that has impacted us the most. It had to do with a guy with a bad leg who w anted to participate in a golf tournament. The basic issue whether or not riding a cart was a fundamental alternation of the game. We were not arguing if he had a disability or if he could sue but rather if the cart altered the game.

Making accommodations is about providing equal access.

The decisions technically a technical standard.

We look at technical standards and assume that the people who put them together were thoughtful when they put them together.

There are tremendous challenges out there in terms of technical standards.

In order to have equal access to the tournament he needed to be able to ride the cart.

This is the first case that deal with and accepted access to competitions and excellence.

We can make sure that they can get C’s but do we have to give them a chance at A’s

We do not meet a mathematical average. It is condition amount and duration.

Another case that does apply is the settlement with the Davis case.

The Davis case is a settlement agreement and NOT an OCR ruling. This was done to make this thing go away not because the school had a legal obligation to do so.

In addition to asking yourself question use cases as forum builders.

Much of the agonizing we do we be resolved if we think about what our mission is instead of the law.