1 Millennials and the Americans with Disabilities Act: New Issues in Higher Education. Presenter: Laura Rothstein. >> JACQUIE: Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to today's webcast: Millennials and the ADA. We'll be discussing the general legal requirements applicable to students with disabilities in higher education after the passage of the ADA Amendments Act; how the current generation of students might present new challenges in the context of disability discrimination law; the latest and what the most recent case is; and what agency interpretations in the area of this law are indicating; and practical suggestions for both students and their parents and institutions of higher education in light of millennial students and a framework for policies, practices and procedures to address these issues. Our presenter today this Laura Rothstein. You can read her bio on the website, and I don't want to take up too much time talking about her when I can be talking to her, but I do want to say that she was my mentor in law school, especially, and I had the privilege of being her research assistant for a year. So it's a special joy for me to be able to moderate this webcast for her today. This webcast is sponsored by the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research, NIDRR, who funds your host for today's 2 program, the DBTAC Southwest ADA Center. I'm your moderator, Jacquie Brennan and I'm with the ILRU project DBTAC Southwest ADA Center. I'll be assisting with today's presentation. For those of you listening to the webcast today, to submit your questions, click on the E-mail button on your screen or you can E-mail them directly to swdbtac@ilru.org. If you have any technical difficulties today please feel free to call us at (713)520-0232 and again thank you for joining us today. Now I'm pleased to introduce our speaker, Laura Rothstein and turn it over to her. >> LAURA: Thank you, Jacquie, it's a real privilege and I appreciate so much being invited to this. And, Jacquie, you were one of the very best research assistants I ever had. I could use your help today as I try to insert all the new amendments into the various writings that I have because although there have been -- I don't think the changes profoundly change certain aspects, they change it enough that people need to be updated on what's happening since the amendments of about a month ago. As you probably know, those of you who are listening, there has been an increase in some of the kinds of requests that colleges and universities are seeing from students, and how these requests are coming to institutions of higher education. And some of these new changes or these increases, to me, seem to be related to the new age of millennials. My focus on this topic came about because of my own research and writing on disability issues over the past three decades, my experience as 3 a faculty member teaching law school for 32 years, and my experience as an administrator, both a dean and associate dean and my work within legal education and higher education. What I plan to do today is talk about who are millennials, what's the current law under the ADA and Section 504 as it relates to higher education, why the millennial group presents new challenges under the law and what administrators, policymakers and service providers and faculty can do, and also for parents and students themselves, keeping in mind some of these changes, how they might most proactively approach this. Go to the second slide which talks about who are the millennials? Millennials are students who were born since about 1982, 83, depending on what literature you read and if you think about it, their whole life has included access and use of technology. They use cell phones, iPods, computers, instant messaging, and they are used to instant and constant communication by technology. They are -- and I'm going to make some over generalizations about this generation, and I certainly don't mean to say -- and also I don't view this generation negatively. I have these students in my classes now. I really like the way they think. I like their energy, so anything I say tends to be a generalization, but I think people will have observed common themes. This is based on writings of people who have written about millennials. They are self-absorbed and me oriented. Many of them have parents who have been heavily involved in their lives and making sure everything was okay for their children. These parents are sometimes referred to in higher education as helicopter parents who swoop down and 4 make sure everything is taken care of. Please go to the next slide. As this pie chart demonstrates, approximately 14 percent of the current American population are within this age group or this generation group. And if you could go to the next slide, the book Millennials Rising was written a few years ago, but this book in particular describes the traits of the individuals born after about 1982-83. They are special, sheltered, confident, team oriented and my own comment is and observation is they are often group involved, but they don't necessarily have leaders that come out of the group. They are achieving, pressured and conventional. And the book describes in detail these various attributes. They can often be described as needy. They want reassurance. They want praise. They want instant response by technology, and they often don't recognize social and other boundaries. They have high goals and they want to do whatever is necessary to achieve their goal of being CEO of everything important. And as I said, these are over generalizations and certainly not everyone in this group fits those descriptions. Please go to the next slide. Many of them really believe they are in fact the Time Magazine person of the year as this cover of Time Magazine from a couple of years showed. Some of them are used to not having to be accountable, in other words, if they make a mistake, someone -- usually their parents -- can fix it and things will go on as before. They may not be as attentive to rules, regulations, deadlines and limits and they chafe at having to pay attention to them. They are used to multitasking. They are on information overload and they have not developed the tools to sort out the critical from the 5 extraneous. Please go to the next slide. So what is it that this group is requesting with respect to accommodation issues for those who have disabilities or who think they have disabilities? What this group wants is not -- what millennials want is not that different from what students in earlier generations were requesting. We still have requests for accommodations from students with conditions such as learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, ADHD, depression, and substance abuse, as well as the continuing requests from what are sometimes referred to as the traditional disabilities or conditions of visual impairments, hearing impairments and mobility impairments. The challenging issues for higher education have come more recently from students with Asperger's, bipolar and other conditions because these can affect behavior, mood and conduct and often the higher education setting can exacerbate or intensify some of those pressures or feelings. The kinds of accommodations that they are requesting are generally the same accommodations as they asked for in the past. They want exceptions to attendance. They want extra time on exams. They want to take them in separate rooms. They like private residence hall rooms so they can concentrate or for some other reason. They are requesting note takers, reduced course loads or even waivers of courses such as math or foreign language. They want books on tape or in some other formats. They want tutors, and the more recent one I find interesting and why I have this picture on the slide, the emotional support pets, the comfort animals. This slide shows a ferret in a cute collegiate sweater and hat and there 6 has been some recent awareness and attention to that. And in fact, some draft Department of Education regulations have sought to kind of do some better interpretation of what kind of animals are allowed in various settings, but that is one of the more recent areas that people are finding kind of interesting. Next slide. So why does it feel different or more troubling? I've given this talk at many higher education conferences, and I've always given it live where I have an audience in front of me, and I can't see who I'm talking to today, but when I ask, does it seem different? Does it seem -- people who have been service providers for many years -- and I get lots of nodding and body language that says, yes, it is different. There does seem to be more troubling kind of issues. And so my thought is that the reason it seems different or more troubling is that millennials have this intense approach and sometimes their parents take to various issues. They want answers quickly. They don't want to follow directions or they want someone to hold their hand to walk them through everything. And in my own teaching, I notice that students are more likely to E-mail more frequently about a variety of things more often than was the case in the past. Next slide. But it's important I think to recognize, and this is perhaps why I view this generation positively and perhaps with some patience, is that they are on communication overload. As a former administrator, I'm aware of the challenges of communication generally. You have so many requirements and policies and we expect students to know them all and the means of getting at them is much more different. When I was a 7 student, you got a student handbook or a brochure or one piece of paper. Something that was manageable. Next slide. What we get today is students on information overload. This picture shows someone sitting in front of about 20 computer screens. We get information on websites, listservs, electronic communication and we expect our students to be aware of all of it. And you combine that with the mass amount of information out there on blogs and Google and other Internet sources. Next slide. And it's not surprising that this results in stress overload. The student with a stress related disability on top of that makes it even more challenging. So while administrators and faculty members in higher education can be sympathetic perhaps when they consider that everyone is handling information overload, even experienced student professionals who are accustomed to dealing with demanding students find themselves at a new level of being amazed when a student says he should be excused from an honor code violation because his disability made him do it or the student wants to bring her ferret to the exam for emotional support or the student wants one on one tutoring from the professor, or to take the exam at home with unlimited time or a student with impulse control issues presents classroom management issues in a number of ways. So those who work in counseling and advising and other roles in higher education find ourselves challenged about how to respond, what do we do? Next slide. So now let's talk about -- we've talked about who these people are, but what are the legal requirements that apply not just to this group, but to all students with disabilities? I'm going to talk a 8 bit about not only what the statute provides and the regulations, but how the Department of Education and the courts have been interpreting those provisions. The outline that you have access to from the webcast has lots and lots of case law and OCR opinions, Office of Civil Rights opinions, letter citations on various things and I encourage you to go back and look at those and find some that may be on point or of interest. I'm not going to go through each and every one of those cases. I'm going to talk about generalities. And basically give you some guidance, but in a nutshell, not much has changed in recent years regarding the legal response to ADA issues in the context of higher education generally and legal education specifically. The individual who wants an accommodation still has to -- than has not changed at all -- has to meet the definition of being disabled. I'll talk in a minute about how that definition has been reinterpreted, but they have to fall within that definition. They have to have appropriate documentation from a qualified professional that's appropriately current and that identifies the condition, how it manifests itself and what the accommodations are needed. And the individual has to be otherwise qualified. The ADA and the Rehab Act both apply to virtually all institutions of higher education and protect individuals who are, as the definition of disability is, and is that the slide that we have in front of us, the definition of disability? >> JACQUIE: It is. >> LAURA: They have to be substantially limited in one or more 9 major life active Is, have a record of such impairment or being regarded as having such an impairment. And that basic definition has not changed. It was interpreted narrowly and so that has changed in the last month. Go to the next slide, please. The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 which was signed by President Bush -- and most people didn't notice that it was signed. It didn't receive the kind of attention that sometimes these signings do because it was during the week of the Wall Street rescue, and everyone was focusing on that and this kind of got missed; but it did clarify some key aspects of the definition of coverage. And most of us who work in this area really believe it meets what was intended all along and tries to go back to what the statute was intended to do before the Supreme Court in 1999 and then in 2002 narrowed the definition. The definition had been narrowed in those cases first in '99 when the Supreme Court said we're going to decide if you're substantially limited by taking into account mitigating measures. So if you wear eyeglasses or you take medication for epilepsy or a mental illness or something, we're going to look at how you are in the mitigated stage, and if you're not substantially limited, then you're not covered and you can't ask for an accommodation. And most people thought that was really too narrow. It wasn't the intent, but it was almost ten years before Congress moved to reflect what everybody thought was the intent -- or not everybody, but most people thought was the intent before. Then in 2002, the Supreme Court also looked at what were major life activities and decided -- and said that they were those that are central to the lives of most people, but left a lot of questions up in the 10 air about what that would mean. What is a major life activity? So those things needed to be addressed because since in the last eight or nine years what courts have been doing -- not as much in higher education, but certainly in employment -- is that individuals with various types of learning disabilities, mental conditions such as depression were being barred from recovery. Also people with epilepsy, diabetes, HIV which was one that was really surprising people. Those individuals didn't even get to go and say I'm otherwise qualified or here is an accommodation that would mean I could do the job or do the work, and so those cases were just being thrown out because the person wasn't disabled at all. And so the ADA amendments clarified as this slide notes that the definition is to be read broadly and it also amends the Rehab Act to be consistent. So as the slide states, mitigating measures are no longer considered. There is an exception for eyeglasses and contact lenses that kind of complicated, but it basically means if you wear glasses and you have 20/400 vision without the glasses, but it's corrected, you're not disabled, but employers cannot set visual requirements unless they are job related. So that's a little bit kind of tricky. It may actually be an issue, for example, for a medical school student in ophthalmology residency and raised some questions about whether that person if they have uncorrected vision is covered or not, but we'll see. The second thing is transitory and minor conditions. The person with a broken leg or back problem that has a duration of six months or less, and those individuals are not covered and I think this was probably a political decision to not make the coverage so broad that there would be a 11 negative reaction from the institutions providing the services. There was also a clarification on episodic conditions and those in remission and that was very important because there are conditions such as cancer and diabetes, people with arthritic flareups, people with pressure sores and things of that sort where it may be chronic, but it isn't constant, and so they may go in and out of remission or have problems -- those individuals are now in the new amendments covered within the statute. So go to the next slide, please. As I mentioned, they also clarified and added some specific major life activities. On the slide you're looking at, the major life activities were the ones that had been listed on the earlier version of actually the regulations. They've now been included in the statute which is important because then they are not likely to be thrown out as not allowable under the statute, but caring for one's self, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, walking, learning, working, those were covered before. They added in the amendments -- and these are not necessarily the total list. This just says these include all of those and then go to slide 14. Adds eating which can be important for diabetes and some other kinds of eating disorders. Sleeping -- so someone with narcolepsy, that would be major life activity. Standing, lifting, reading -- and these are -- reading, concentrating, thinking and communicating, those are real important for higher education. So an individual who may have ADD that has a substantial limitation because of that, a substantial limitation to concentrating would be more likely to fit the definition and then that individual would have the burden of showing 12 that he or she is otherwise qualified and/or that he or she would be qualified if they were provided a reasonable accommodation. So go to the next slide which is the operation of major bodily functions. This was also an important addition because there were a number of conditions such as HIV, Crohn's Disease, asthma, peanut allergies, chemical sensitivities and other conditions where courts were not consistent about whether individuals were disabled and could then, for example, ask for an accommodation of not being in a room exposed to certain chemicals and so on. So these were added where an operation of a major bodily function including these categories and there are some others, but these are the ones that I think are the most significant, that would be a major life activity. Go to the next slide, please. Even with the amendments, what is not changed with the 2008 amendments is that there still has to be appropriate documentation of the condition, and the current case law is very supportive of that. And I expect that case law will continue to do that. It's the burden is on the individual to make known the disability. And this is something that I think is important for students who are going from K-12 education where they received special education services or accommodations in the schools to higher education. They may be used to having the school reach out and identify. And the burden now shifts when they get to college, they have to make known the disability. They have to provide the documentation. And it needs to be appropriately recent. There is some debate about what that means and the statute and the regulations don't say that. A lot of schools use a rule of thumb of 13 three years. I don't -- I think that could be challenged, but I think it does have to be appropriately recent, especially for conditions such as learning disabilities to see what is -- not only do they have the impairment, but what is their current functioning ability. The documentation also has to be by someone who know what's they are doing, a professional who has the appropriate expertise. So the family dentist is not qualified to send a note that says this person has a learning disability and reads really slowly. Give them as much time on exams as they need. That person doesn't have the appropriate expertise. And the other thing that often surprises parents of these students is the documentation has to be paid for by the student. It's not where the school now does the testing and evaluation. And so that is a bit of an adjustment sometimes. The other thing that's been kind of a challenge for some of these evaluators is they need to know something about the educational program. So if they are going to diagnose a learning disability, but then suggest what should the accommodations be, they need to know is this a program where you do a lot of reading, what kind of exams, what kind of course load, what were the manual and physical requirements be in a nursing program versus law school versus a liberal arts, poly sci major. And if they don't know that information, they may be able to diagnose the condition, but not necessarily recommend what the appropriate accommodations would be. There seems to be another -- I've talked a bit about the transition from college or from high school to college, but there San 14 additional transition that is starting to become more of an area of -- I don't know -- debate or tension, and that is the trend where professional licensing boards are more stringently looking at the documentation. So if someone wants to take -- get a nursing certificate or teaching certificate or bar approval, they have to -- there has to be documentation that says they can take the exam in additional time -- with additional time and so on, and they are sometimes being a little bit stringent about that. So that is being a bit of a challenge. Okay, the next slide, please. The other thing that is important that has not changed is the person has to be otherwise qualified. That means they have to be able to carry out the essential functions of the program with or without reasonable accommodations. And there is a lot of deference to the institution about what those qualifications are, but there is a burden on them to demonstrate that if you have to be -- if you're in a nursing program, for example, that is standing for long periods of time is important and so those essential functions have to be able to be carried out, but it should take into account reasonable accommodations. The next slide, please. Part of being otherwise qualified means that the student cannot pose a direct threat. Now, this slide shows a picture that I think most people recognize which is events at Virginia from April 2007 when we all -- with this terrible event became very aware of what one very challenged student -- what doge a large number of people could occur. And this is posing a direct threat doesn't necessarily just mean someone being a danger to harming people, but also say, for example, 15 someone who was in a medical program or a nursing program that they would be a danger to patient safety. Go to the next slide, please. So what have the courts and OCR done with respect to some of these conditions? This I think may be subject to some change. These are recent decisions and of course there have been virtually no cases and probably not even any OCR decisions since the most recent amendments, and in fact, they don't take effect until January. So it's not clear that they would have an impact this early anyway, but there have been a number of cases and issues involving test anxiety, for example, and most courts are saying that that is not -- those are not disabilities. They are symptoms of something that may be a disability, but test anxiety alone, panic attacks, not enough, depression -- I think we will see some revisit to that and it's probably going to be very individualized because I think mild depression will probably not be viewed as a substantial limitation. Major depression would be. What about bipolar disorder. It surprised me that there have been a number of cases that have said that's not a disability. I think that will probably change, although there are different degrees of bipolar disorder, so again it will probably be individualized. Learning disabilities -- some cases of ADD and ADHD, there is a mix of results on that. I think with the new amendments we'll see a lot of revisit to that. The outline that you were provided on the website has five or six or four or five scenarios with different students that have different conditions and context. And during the question period, if someone wants to raise those, they can certainly ask about a particular case, but a couple of the students had anxiety/panic disorder, depression 16 and it's not clear today whether those students would be covered or not. And you would have to have some assessment of whether it was a substantial impairment or not. Please go to the next slide. Even if the students are covered, it may be determined that the student is not otherwise qualified, but the institution does need to consider reasonable accommodations. But this is very, very important, and I think it's really important because a lot of people get very nervous and upset about, oh, we're required to do all these things because of ADA and so on, and they don't really step back and understand that the first step is to determine if the student is disabled. But the student has to be otherwise qualified and you don't have to provide accommodations that lower standards or otherwise fundamentally alter a program. You're not required, as an institution to excuse misconduct, even -- and that includes conduct that is disruptive to others. You don't have to provide accommodations that are unduly burdensome, either financially or administratively. Of course those are going to be fact-based determinations and there may be disputes about whether it's unduly burdensome or not and in many cases it may be less of a requirement on the higher institution than it would have been in the K-12 setting. So, for example, on some of the scenarios that were sent to you, the student who wanted to be excused from class attendance -- I wouldn't say that would never be required, and the burden is going to be on the institution to demonstrate why class attendance is important, but that's one that is generally for the cases I've seen they are not requiring that to be excused. 17 Change in the test formats -- a student who wants to take a multiple choice test not as multiple choice, but open-ended. Again, it's an individualized assessment, but most of the courts are saying that the institution doesn't have to change the format. Course substitutions, foreign language, math, so on, it's very unusual -- in fact I don't know that I've seen any cases where they have required an institution to allow a course substitution. Misconduct, there have been instances of plagiarism and saying your disability made you do it isn't going very far. The courts are not very much allowing that. In fact, they are not allowing it at all. The accommodation of the pets or the companion an I millions -- and actually there are some that say these are really pets. There is evidence that some of these animals do provide some assistance or comfort to people who have mental stress and so on; but you have to take into account other roommates and so on and so unlike the sort of traditional seeing eye dog, these new kinds of pets are -- and they are not all pets. In fact, many of them are not, but these new kinds of animal situations are creating challenges and I'm eager to see what the Department of Justice proposed regulations does on this. They have basically said -- it wouldn't apply to any wild animal at all. So the ferret probably would not be viewed as an animal that has to be provided as an accommodation. Please go to slide No -- the next slide. I think that was what I was talking about was some of those accommodations, but one of the important standards -- and this is one that was established in a case on Wynne versus Tufts University which is on your outline. It was not a 18 Supreme Court case, but it has been given the sort of weight of a Supreme Court case because the language is so helpful, and it basically is that the burden is on the institution to establish that relevant officials considered the accommodation and came to a rationally justified conclusion that it would unduly burdensome or lower standards and so on. And so it means that it can't just be the casual -- it can't be some faculty Senate meeting where they'll vote and say we're not going to provide additional time on exams. Those aren't relevant officials and they haven't come to a rationally justified conclusion on that. administrators and faculty members might be in a different setting. So some of the other accommodations, they are not excusing attendance requirements by and large and also important, they don't -- courts are not saying well we have to graduate a student even though they haven't achieved a 2.0 or whatever the requisite number -- grade point average is. And so that is I think important for people to recognize. Please go to the next slide. This picture from the cover of the report on the Virginia Tech tragedy -- it raises -- reminds us that there are extensive concerns and reactions about what to do about students whose behavior is strange or scary and the same legal analysis applies. The student, first of all, has to have a disability. And it may well be that the individual in the Virginia Tech case would have been able to indicate that he had -- or be able to demonstrate that he had a disability, but the accommodations to that student may not be reasonable, or the misconduct, the disruption may need not be excused. So the challenging part for that is the institution needs to keep documentation and communication among 19 relevant officials to be able to sort of monitor an unusual situation like that. So next slide, please. If you're a college or university policymaker or administrator, what is it that you should do in light of the fact that we've got this set of ADA and Rehab Act requirements and we have this generation of students that are used to having all this instant reaction and technology and feedback and they are on information overload and so on? What do we do? Well, I think that we should take a proactive approach. We should develop interactive resolution processes. We should have a positive attitude, and we should ensure fairness to others. Now, by this I mean we have to balance the interests of the other students as well and others. So if the student is disruptive in the classroom, it's impacting or affecting the ability of the faculty member to teach. It may be the other students to learn if it's in a residence hall and so those interests have to be taken into account, but also protecting the role of the public. So if you've got a student in a professional licensing program such as law school or medical school or nursing, those individuals in the public have to be protected and we have to make sure they are able to act appropriately or able to be protected. Go to the next slide, please. So institutions who have not already -- and many have -- but some still are a little slower than others to develop good policies, practices and procedures. And what I have seen many OCR opinions where someone complains and says my college didn't provide me X. accommodation or they didn't give me what I wanted or didn't do something, and the office for civil rights comes into the institution, 20 does an investigation, looks through what is going on and says, no, they really did provide you what you were supposed to be provided or you asked them too late or you didn't show up and the interpreters kept being there and you weren't telling them you weren't going to be there; but while we were here looking at this, we discovered that this university doesn't have very good policies, practices and procedures. There is no way that a student knows how to be accommodated. And so that's actually been something that OCR finds a loft problems with. It's also important that these policies protect privacy and encourage students who have mental health problems or substance abuse problems to seek counseling. There is a flip side to that which is an area that I've done quite a bit of work on that troubles me a great deal is that individuals who go into certain professions such as law and medicine are deterred from getting counseling because they have to report that in the licensing process. And the downside of that is they don't go seek the help because they are afraid that it will keep them from being admitted to the bar or admitted to practice. Than is a dilemma for the students and the ones who need help that aren't necessarily going to be a danger to someone. So that is something that I urge institutions to take into account. The communications should be of high quality. They should be early and often. Of course there is a trick to that to not having information overload, but in an acceptance letter in acceptance materials, invite, encourage a student with a disability to come forward. They should be on websites and in hard copy and on listservs, and they should be in accessible formats so that individuals can easily access them. 21 Please go to the next slide. The location of the information should be in a variety of places. It should be in admission materials, as I said in acceptance letters, handbooks, it's less and less common for institutions to give you anything in paper anymore because everybody uses technology, but to the extent there are paper documents and handbooks and so on, this kind of information should be in there. Where do you go if you have a disability in terms of accommodations? Especially knowing that it's the burden on the student to make known the disability. Orientation materials -- and here is one where it's often a problem, encouraging faculty to put it on their faculty syllabus about if you have an accommodation, here is -- or if you need an accommodation, here is where you go to validate or document your right to an accommodation. And of course there is a difference between a student who says I can't hear very well, can I sit on the front row versus the student who wants to have double time for an exam and only take exams at a certain time of day because of medication. And the faculty member shouldn't be responsible for evaluating whether that student is entitled to the accommodation. There needs to be some sort of central process for that, but the faculty member should have some opportunity to respond to say, well, I am testing time on this particular exam and so I don't think it's fair. And then the interactive process can occur, but without the faculty being involved in that or making known how to get the accommodations could be problematic. So I would encourage that. The next slide, please. I would ensure -- encourage proactive methods and there are some other things I would encourage. One is to -- 22 with the millennials to set boundaries. Be firm and friendly and do it early and often. For example, in my own courses that I teach in the law school, I tell students that I don't want to be called at home unless it's an emergency. But that I check E-mail regularly, but not necessarily in the middle of the night and they respect that. And I think because they are so used to being online all the time, if they understand that not everybody is, they will respect that, but if you don't set the boundaries, they don't know what they are. Train staff and including training them on current accommodation issues, and of course it depends on what kind of staff. Are they the service providers and so on, but staff training on a regular basis is important. And also encouraging faculty members to establish their expectations and requirements early, in writing, and sometimes faculty members think if they announce on the first day of class that that's enough, but somebody may have missed the first day of class. There may be auditory problems so the student may not have understood clearly what the faculty rules or requirements were. Next slide, please. I'm getting to the end so I'm getting ready for questions. If you have some you might start gearing those up, and one of the final things I would encourage you to watch out for is cases of hostile environment and retaliation. There has been sort of a recent spurt of cases -- more in the employment setting, but also in higher education -- where the court comes in and says, well, you didn't discriminate as an institution, but when the student started requesting the accommodations, you started treating them badly. You started being rude to them in a variety of ways or you threw them out of school or whatever, and so even 23 though the person wasn't otherwise qualified, you retaliated or created a hostile environment and they may be able to get damages even if they can't get back into the institution. So what I would encourage institutions to be very careful about not taking those kinds of actions against someone who is complaining. And finally, the last slide, this last shied is a photograph of justice Louis Brandeis who is one of my heros. Our law school is named for him. He was from Louisville and he is one of the most famous Supreme Court justices. What is a little known fact about him is that he -- when he was in law school, he had a severe visual impairment, and his doctors told him not to read and that he should drop out of law school. And he asked a friend if his friend would read to him and this was of course back before the ADA or the Rehab Act. And so he had an accommodation from a friend, but for that he might never have finished law school. So I like to remind people that whenever institutions are feeling frustrated with the latest request for something from a millennial and the patience gets low and so o that I like to try to remember well maybe the person requesting this is the next Louis Brandeis and perhaps that will help us focus a little bit more and be more patient and understanding. So that is sort of a very quick overview of the legal issues and, I don't know, Jacquie, have you gotten any questions in while I was talking. >> JACQUIE: A lot, yes. >> LAURA: Oh, a lot. Okay. >> JACQUIE: Get ready. 24 >> LAURA: We have about 45 minutes for questions. >> JACQUIE: I think we can get most of them in, although we'll probably keep getting more as we go. >> LAURA: I'll do my best to answer them and often I may figure it out the next time I give a speech. >> JACQUIE: This first one is from a school in California and it says what guidelines can you offer for accommodating students who have chemical or environmental sensitivities? And let me read her whole thing because it's actually like four questions but they kind of go together. What documentation or evidence can we require? Should the school have to change all the fluorescent lighting on campus, for example? Should students classmates be required to avoid wearing perfume in class? Should pes control substances be band on campus? >> LAURA: Those are really, really tough ones, and there really is not a lot, if any, guidance from any federal regulations or the statute on this one. And this is an area where there have been a handful of cases in actually housing discrimination, a little bit in employment, and so what we have to do is sort of draw on that little bit of case law, but look back at the issues that I've talked about before. First of all, you have to determine if the person is disabled. Is there a substantial limitation? What is that limitation? Is it to breathing and so on? For a lot of these really severe allergies, they are going to be able to demonstrate, especially with the amended statute, that they have a disability. But what the real challenge is, is what is the reasonable accommodation? And as I said previously, you're not going to 25 have to provide accommodations that are unduly burdensome, either administratively or financially. So let's kind of talk about a couple of those. One was do you have to change all the fluorescent lighting? I think -- and again, it really is difficult to sort of decide this in the abstract because is this a student who is taking a variety of classes in a lot of buildings across campus or -- for example, in a law school setting they usually would be in one building and it would be much more self-contained and easier to come up with an accommodation, but I think that it would be unduly burdensome to change the fluorescent lighting in every class -- every classroom where the student is going to class, although I -- the burden is going to be for this institution to demonstrate why had a would be unduly burdensome and it may not necessarily be, but the student may go to cafeterias and all kinds of places. So I think it would be hard to show they'd have to do that every place the student goes. It might be that in the student's residence hall room that would be reasonable. It may be reasonable to move some classes if it's not unduly burdensome to do that. so that would be one. I'm trying to remember the others that you said -- >> JACQUIE: Should they ask classmates to avoid wearing perfume to class? >> LAURA: That gets really into dealing with other people's personal sort of preference. From my point of view, and there is also sort of a common sense issue here about even if you don't legally have to do certain things, as a practical matter, are there reasonable steps that you 26 can take? I think it's somewhat problematic, for example, an individual who has real, real severe chemical sensitivities may say you can't use any -- I don't want any products with any scent, anywhere near me. So somebody who uses detergent that has scent, and wears clothes that have been washed in that detergent, deodorant, hair spray, everything and that all students should be prohibited from having -- that would probably not be required. But for a faculty member or for an institution to stay there is a student who has a chemical sensitivity and we would request that no one wear perfume. And I think that's a level at which, you know, putting on scent that has no other purpose but scent would be something that would be arguably reasonable to request. Now, if a student says, well, you can't make me not do that, then there may be some issues about do you move the student to a different area in the classroom, protecting their privacy to the extent you can, and you would try to do some things I think on an interactive basis. What were some of the other requirements or requests? >> JACQUIE: The other was should all pest control substances on campus be banned? >> LAURA: Again, I don't think there is a lot of law -- clear guidance on banning pest control substances, and it may also be painting or certain cleaning substances. What I would say is it may be reasonable to ask whatever service does pest control, to give notice to that student because there may be certain facilities, dorms and so on, where if they don't do the pest control, there is going to be a real problem with pests for everyone and so you have to balance that out. But if you can say, 27 well, we're only going to do that in the summer months or we're going to do that -- we'll give you notice. We'll give all students notice when we're going to spray for cock roaches or whatever it might be or some other kind of pest control chemicals. Or that may be true for painting or if there is a yard where there is Herb I sides or something of that sort that are on the grass. That if a student says I need notice of that, if that's reasonably feasible, then it may be that the student gets reasonable notice and then maybe even given some accommodation to attendance on certain days and provided, you know, a tape of the class or something. So I think you have to individualize it and do it on a case-by-case basis. As I said, there is not a lot of specific guidance on that. >> JACQUIE: All right, okay, this one is from a school in Pennsylvania. I'm writing to find out what other colleges are doing regarding purchasing of textbooks and ensuring that the textbooks would be available in an accessible format along with website that is are now used as part of the textbooks along with the C. D.'s that are also part of the textbook purchase. We are trying to develop an updated policy to guide our instructors in textbook purchasing decisions. This has been requested -- this update has been requested by our math and computer science department. So any input would be helpful. >> LAURA: Okay, this is probably my least a department area. First of all, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to technology, so I myself am not good at knowing how to do all these things, and my expertise is on what the legal requirements are on that. And from is an expectation that there 28 be textbooks on tape or in other formats, but the student also has an obligation to provide notice of a need for that with reasonable advance notice. A lot of materials are now available in a variety of formats, particularly because of technology they can be adapted very quickly and I don't -- and maybe Jacquie, your office has some reference to someone who has technical assistance on how to do materials adaptation, but that's not my particular area of expertise. >> JACQUIE: I understand. It's a tough one. >> LAURA: Yeah, and I know a lot of people are struggling with this because there is an awareness with the new 508 or I guess they're not that new anymore, but the 508 federal -- or the Section 508 of the Rehab Act requiring that certain users -- getting federal financial assistance should provide information in accessible format, that a lot of people aren't aware of it. We're getting better at making our websites and things accessible. Faculty members aren't necessarily aware of it and they may have streaming videos and requirements and I think to the extent a student has issues with that, they need to approach the individual faculty member and work it out on an individual basis. And there may be people in most campuses -- there should be an office for disability services and those are the people that I would turn to to help me with those kinds of access issues and where do get it. My expertise is in the legal requirements. >> JACQUIE: Right. Okay, this one says for American students who are studying abroad, are they covered by the ADA and 504? >> LAURA: Well, I wish I knew the real answer to that because 29 there is -- there apparently is some debate and dispute about that. In my view, they are covered at least in a certain way and I really would love to see some greater clarification on that from the Department of Education. It may well be that after the election, often after elections a new administration comes in and helps sort of sort through some of the things. Here is what I think is at a very minimum and expectation. I think that the college or university that sponsors a program abroad has obligations to make reasonable accommodation because it's their program. But it is a little difficult -- and there is kind of two primary layers of issues that come up with this. One is sign language interpreters for students with hearing impairments abroad which can be even more complex because there is often a foreign language. So you have a foreign language and a sign language interpreter and so on. So to the extent they are covered and I would make the argument they are covered. The institution might still be able to demonstrate that it's unduly burdensome. It is too expensive to provide that interpreter, especially an interpreter that has to speak French and do sign language interpreting in the A. S. L. or whatever the student uses and so that would be one of the issues they might raise. >> JACQUIE: That might even be two people. >> LAURA: Yes, and that could be prohibitively expensive. The interesting thing is no university to my knowledge has ever raised cost as a defense, and I think the reason they don't want to do that is because they don't want to open up all of their budgets and having people trolling through and saying well you have this discretionary money, why aren't you 30 spending it on this? But I think those are going to be decided on a case-by-case basis. But the second area is architectural access. Very few countries have the degree of accessible physical place that the United States does. Now, Canada does, and there are a couple of others, but if you are going to study in Italy and part of the program is a tour of the forum or something of that sort, because of historic reasons it's not going to be an accessible tour. So I would argue -- and there has been a little bit written on this, but it is certainly not entirely definitive, but I would argue at the very least the institution hosting such a program needs to provide notice about when there will be field trips and things that will be in inaccessible locations so at least the student knows that, but I think -- and this is just my own opinion -- I think there is some expectation that at least the housing and the classroom component of such a program ought to be accessible to a student who has a mobility impairment. So I wish I had a better answer for that and I would love for the Department of Education to help give us a better answer to that. >> JACQUIE: I hope they will. >> LAURA: And another area where I would really like some -- I would like to have some attention, and I think they are -- I may be wrong but I think they are starting to focus on this -- is housing. To what degree should most housing be accessible and yet another area which is challenging for everyone is evacuation procedures on campus or in a setting for students who have mobility impairments. So those are areas that if you ask me questions on those, I don't know that I'm going to be able to give 31 you a lot of answers. I may be able to give you a little bit, but they are areas where I wish we did have some more guidance. >> JACQUIE: This is from a school in Wisconsin. We have had severe problems with a couple of students who bring service animals to class with them. There is no question that these are service animals and not simply pets, but they are not kept clean. They are dirty and they smell bad and other students are negatively affected by their presence. Do you have any suggestions about what we can do? >> LAURA: Well, I think that does go to the issue of the student has to be otherwise qualified and that would mean -- I'll give the more extreme case. It's very clear that any program, if it's a program of public accommodation or employer isn't required for service animal to provide individual care. So if the animal has to go to the bathroom, it's the responsibility of the person with the disability to take care of that. And so -- and if the animal doesn't behave, if, for example, it would bite or bark at people, although most service animals -- particularly seeing eye dogs are going to be very well trained and they are not going to have behavior problems, but it's quite possible that they would smell. The way I would approach that is if I had students or others that complained about this is I would take that to the student who has the PET and say, you need to deal with the grooming of your -- nights a PET and I apologize for using that term -- for the animal. You need to have your animal washed more frequently or whatever it is because it is interfering with other students. And that's where the otherwise qualified comes into play. And you can't unduly disrupt other students. 32 Now, if it's once in awhile, you know, the animal usually gets a bath, but once in awhile it doesn't happen, but if it is frequent and it is really interfering and affecting other students, then I think you approach that on an individual basis with that student. A real challenge can come if the student is not just -- the animal smells bad on a particular day, but you have other students who are allergic and then you're balancing -- you have the dualing disabilities situation and I have been aware of instances where that happened. Again, I think a proactive, interactive approach to this where the student comes and says I'm severely -- or I have a phobia about dogs and I can't be in the same room. Then you explore could the student take the class at a different time, could they sit in a different part of the room? Could the animal be left in the hallway and that's not usually a good solution, but if you work with the individual who has the animal, they may be more accommodating than people might think. That, okay, I will sit on the back row and I will have my animal right outside the room. I don't think that's very often going to be desirable, but if you don't tried to do it proactively, you may not find a solution that just works out for everyone. So that would be my suggestion. >> JACQUIE: This -- you've actually I think done a few of these, but maybe you can come up with some other ones. This person wants to know if you could give some examples of accommodations that would create an undue burden for a college or university? >> LAURA: Well, I could -- and again, I don't know that I have a case that would back up every one of these, but for example a student that 33 wants to have every class transcribed and wants to have the notes from that class provided by the next day. Number one, the university may be able to show that it's too costly to do that for the personnel. With technology and some of the realtime transcriptionists, that may be less the case, but to provide that by the next day, they may be able to say we can't do that turn over that quickly. So that might be an example of an undue burden. I just today saw -- I think it was an Office of Civil Rights opinion where the student wanted to have the -- wanted to have the professor rewrite the exams. It was a multiple choice exam and they were given like weekly exams or whatever, to rewrite them in a format because the student couldn't do well on multiple choice exams. And it wasn't a question of having -- being able to dictate the answer is A., B. or C. versus the bubble in form which is one challenge, but the student just can't answer that format of questions. The Wynne versus Tufts University might be one. How can I compare how you did on this exam with other students if you're taking it in a different format? How the burden of rewriting exam questions in a way that would accommodate that burden, and so I have not seen any court saying that you have to do that. So those are I think some examples. Another one that's real interesting that I think some more guidance again would be helpful is the student who wants to have a single room but not pay the higher -- wants to have what would normally be a double room but just for one student and they may say, well, I have difficulty concentrating, so I can't have a roommate. Or because I have a mobility impairment and I have an assistant who comes in, I'm going to take 34 up more room. Now, first of all, in all those cases is that going to be true, but if there were such a case, does the university have to provide that? And the university might indicate undue burden and if we do that it's going to be so costly because we have limited housing and we have to make enough -- but the burden is going to be on them to demonstrate that. So those would be some examples that I could -- one on one tutoring for -- by the professor for a student. There was a case -- well, wasn't a case, but several years ago an individual who was I think quadriplegic who wanted to go to medical school or an individual who was blind who wanted to go to medical school. And the institutions were able to -- they would be unduly burdensome for the student who was quadriplegic to provide all the assistance and the manual assistance to do that. Now, the student who wanted to go to medical school who was blind, they said you have to be able to see to do certain essential components. So I hope that helps give some examples. >> JACQUIE: Yeah. This person -- again, this is a school in California. What are the I am pli taigs indications of the ADA Amendments Act for obtaining accommodation on high stakes tests such as the LSAT or the MCAT which have been known to deny testing accommodations because the lowest score on an LD assessment, a learning disability assessment, are in the average range? >> LAURA: I think it is going to -- for those groups, I don't know that I think it's going to change it a lot because those testing organizations, by and large, have not necessarily been saying did person doesn't have a disability; but they have been very stringent on the 35 documentation, who is qualified to document it, how recent it has to be. It's possible that some of those denials in the past at the margin where they said the person wasn't substantially limited in thinking and so on, because of the new specifics in the statute about what major life activities are, it's possible that some of those will change a bit. I think that will be an area of quite a bit of activity. I actually expect it to be more in those high stakes testing than perhaps in the colleges and universities themselves. Most of the time the colleges and universities are not drawing the line at saying you are not disabled in the first place. That's more common for the high stakes test takers to say you aren't disabled at all. So we don't have to provide you the accommodation, and so they tend to shift the presumption or shift the burden pretty early. So I do think there will be some impact there and I think we'll probably start seeing it play out pretty soon. >> JACQUIE: This question is about paying for testing. This is from Arkansas. I am a mother with three children and I was just admitted into a junior college here, a community college here. I cannot afford the thousand dollars that it's going to cost me to have testing. Are there any resources that can help me get the testing? My learning disability was diagnosed 12 years ago and I don't have any testing since that time. >> LAURA: It's going to be -- and I'm very sympathetic and understanding of that dilemma and this is something that does trouble me because I think we do have a number of populations who don't have the resources to do the battery of expensive tests and because they have not 36 been recently in a setting where the public schools would have done that, and so unfortunately I don't have a real good answer. What I would encourage this person to do is if they are enrolled in the college, to go to their disability resource center to find out if they will provide any of that telling without payment. Some do, but as we all know, we are in very, very challenging economic times and this is going to have ripple effects even greater than we had in the past and so a college or university that may have provided that voluntarily may start cutting that back because it's just too expensive to provide it. But I would encourage them to at least explore -- that person to at least find out on their campus whether that could be provided and if it's not, there may be some state vocational rehabilitation service and you could explore that, but it is really going to be challenging and I wish it weren't the case. >> JACQUIE: This is from a student at a college in Massachusetts. I have to have an ASL interpreter for classes and my school provides that. But I want to attend extracurricular activities like campus organization meetings and the school will not provide an interpreter for those. Do they have to? >> LAURA: My own personal view, because this is not real clear, my own personal view is that they do not for voluntary extracurricular activities because it could be argued that those kinds of things are personal in nature, that this is something you're doing -- now, at a graduation ceremony, or some sort -- if they are saying it's mandatory that you go to this lecture or this is part of the course work, then I think that's a different story, but to go to extracurricular activities as social 37 events, then this again is my personal opinion and I have not seen -- I don't know that I've seen any guidance on this at all except for the regulations that say that auxiliary services of a personal nature do not have to be provided. >> JACQUIE: This is another ASL one and she's from our state and writing from Florida. Vocational rehabilitation often pays for tuition for our deaf students. We pay for the ASL interpreters, and usually contract with the interpreters for the semester. If the student drops out during the semester, is it all right for us to ask them to reimburse us for the cost of it? >> LAURA: For the student to reimburse? >> JACQUIE: Yes. >> LAURA: Oooo -- I guess instead of approaching it that way would contract with the interpreter with some provisions that, you know, if there is a change in the enrollment -- now, the only kind of guidance I've seen on this is where students have gotten an interpreter and they've been really, really bad about saying that they are not showing up for a class or dropping out and not giving notice and so on, and so then the university or the college is paying for a very expensive service and the student is not holding up their end of the situation. I'd probably want to know more about the history of that particular student. Is this a student that enrolls -- is the student aware that it's being contracted for for the semester? I think to have a policy where they are going to charge the student if they drop the class, I think that alone is problematic and I would have trouble with that, but to me, there is nothing wrong with 38 providing the student with an expectation if you are going to drop out we need notice and I guess I would be reluctant to contract with someone for the semester where the student takes one class and drops out and then you're kind of obligated for that whole semester service. >> JACQUIE: Right. Under what circumstances might a university have to waive a core course requirement like math? >> LAURA: You're going to apply the Wynne versus Tufts University test on that one. The student comes forward and says I want to waive the math requirement. Now, if the student is -- it might depend on what major they are in and so on, but the courts are extremely deferential and they give a lot of leeway. So if the university comes back and says, part of our BA curriculum for liberal arts is that every student be exposed to math and science and foreign languages and so on. Now, in a case where they are not willing to weigh -- and we hold out that a student who has graduated from X. college has had these requirements, they are probably going to uphold that. So I have not yet seen a case where they have been required to waive it. I've seen cases where they have considered it. In fact, the famous case, the Guckenberger case versus Boston University, the students came in and they had requests waivers of math and foreign languages and the court directed the university to go back and demonstrate why it would significantly alter the program to do that. And the university was able to come back and say, no, this is legitimate for us to require. Here is why we want you are students to be well rounded and whether you or I or anybody in the world think we need to have basic algebra to have a liberal arts degree is not going to be dispositive, it's whether that university says 39 that's what our degree is. And so I hope that helps answer that question a little bit. >> JACQUIE: I have quadriplegia, and I use a monkey for the performance of many tasks for me and is a true service animal. Under the new regulation from the Department of Justice, will I have to give up my service animal? >> LAURA: I don't think those new regulations have been -- are official. I think they went out in draft form early in the summer, and I think there was 90 days or 60 days for response and they are getting those responses back. I may be wrong, but I don't think -- I think they are still evaluating those and that was actually one that I thought of when they had this sort of across the board no wild animals. That it had to be pretty much almost just dogs and I was trying to think if there are any other domestic animals and I think the miniature ponies that are used, those are not included as well. >> JACQUIE: The comment period ended August 18th. But I don't expect we'll see these new regulations in their final version. >> LAURA: And I actually think that probably those won't be finalized until after the election until there is a new administration. Now, I thought the ADA amendments were not going to pass until there was a new administration, so I've been surprised, but my guess is -- and I don't know, maybe Jacquie you've seen the comments that have come back on that and I'm guessing there is probably a website where those would be available, my guess is there are probably a lot of people who have commented on that. I mean there were a number of real interesting issues 40 that came up in that. One was the use of the Segways, one was swimming pools. There were a lot that weren't necessarily for higher education -- but the service animals, and I was glad to see the Department of Justice try to do something to clarify that, but I didn't agree with how far they went. I thought that they were unduly limiting. And I think probably what's happening is the monkeys who do perform those kinds of manual assistance get caught up in the backlash against the ferrets. I mean, that's just my sort of reaction about what's going on there. I don't know if that's really what the problem is. And now that doesn't mean that if -- I'm hoping that they will rethink that and become more flexible on that. But I think there is a concern that if it's a wild animal, that it could harm other people. So -- and one of the things I did think was not good in the regulations is how they talked about documentation. Because I do think it's legitimate, whatever the comfort animal, support animal, service animal is, to require the person to have documentation on that. Because if you go to a restaurant or something, and you've got an animal that is not a parent, it's not the traditional seeing eye dog, show the owner to know that's not just your PET that you want to take out in a place and you just say, oh, sorry, you can't ask me anything about that. So I would like to see some more clarification on that. So I guess my shorthand answer is I don't think that's been decided yet. >> JACQUIE: That for sure has not been decided yet and they have gotten a lot of comments, especially from groups where they use those different sorts of animals than just the traditional dogs which I agree 41 with you. I think that's the only thing they left in in their description were really dogs as service animals. And people can look up the regs -- the proposed regulations and see the comments on them at regulations.gov. You can always go there and view comments. >> LAURA: Jacquie, let me ask you, do you think that some of that was a reaction to sort of the unusual comfort animals that were -- >> JACQUIE: I think so. We've been seeing that so much more and get sowing many more calls about that. And they are specifically excluded in these -- you know, before they just simply -- they didn't mention comfort animals or therapy animals or emotional support animals or whatever you want to call them. They just simply weren't addressed in the ADA, but in these regulations, they are specifically excluded from coverage. >> LAURA: Yeah, and I'm a little troubled by the broad brush they took with emotional support animals. Even though I'm probably not a big fan of having ferrets in colleges for a variety of reasons because there are legitimate reasons why people are uncomfortable about that, I do think in certain settings, depending on what it is, someone with -- and I'm thinking more about housing and landlord tenant situations than colleges, but there are cases where emotional support animals are very important therapeutically for someone with serious depression and so on. But how you document that is a different issue. So I think it will be interesting to see where that goes. >> JACQUIE: Yes. It definitely will. I'm going up to get a little more information on that in December with the Department of Justice so it will be really interesting. 42 This is from Colorado. Do schools have to abide by section 508 standards in the provision of I. T., information technology services? >> LAURA: I'm actually not quite sure how much they have to do. And Jacquie, you may know the answer to that. >> JACQUIE: Well, I can for sure answer the question the way it's written there, which is that 508 really only applies to the federal government and federal agencies. So it doesn't apply -- it isn't the same as 504 where it applies to schools that get federal funding. 508 actually applies only to -- >> LAURA: Right. I think the expectation is that they are really trying to encourage colleges and universities to start doing that. Now, I think where the 508 kind of may start coming into play or where people may be arguing it is there have been a couple of cases against -- I think it was against certain Title III companies that have covered different services like stores and so on and saying their websites are not accessible. And I think that there may be other cases brought -- test cases -- where you're not necessarily required to meet 508 standards, but you have to provide some sort of access. And so maybe using the 508 standards as a model would be helpful, but actually being required to abide by every aspect of that is not yet in place. >> JACQUIE: Right. Maybe we have time for one or two more. I am in a continuing education department. We are not for credit courses. They are just continuing education courses. Are these same kinds of accommodations required from our department even though many classes are just one day classes? 43 >> LAURA: Yes. >> JACQUIE: Yes. >> LAURA: And I know that is -- it actually is a dilemma because lots of times people want to have sort of special programs and say we're not charging anything for this or we're having a program for the public at large and we're not charging anything for that. And do we have to provide these accommodations? Now, what you actually have to do is a different issue than whether you're subject to those requirements. So the argument might be able to be made that it's unduly burdensome on our budget. I've seen virtually no case law that helps guide about is it the budget of that self-contained program that is taken into account or is it the whole department's budget? Is it the whole university's budget? Is it the whole statewide budget? And nobody seems to ever want to sort of get that raised. What I worry about is that especially for a program that is in a very small budget situation, and they say we simply can't afford this and if we have to do this, we're going to just stop the program altogether. And that's where I think it's sort of Catch-22, be careful what you wish for, but I think the short answer is yes, those requirements apply whether you're charging tuition or whether you're just providing them to the public at large. >> JACQUIE: And we have one question left and we have about time for one question. So that worked out perfectly. This is from New York. I want to take the LSAT exam, but because I have ADHD, I will need a room by myself for the testing. Can I get that 44 for the LSAT? And is it likely I could get that in law school? >> LAURA: Well, first I want to disclose that I have been working with LSAC on an accommodation task force. So I have been doing that so I just want to in all fairness disclose that. The LSAT uses the same standard that everybody uses. That you have to show that you have a disability. They have been working extensively on improving and enhancing their interactive process of communicating to students because there has been some concern about students or applicants to take the LSAT don't know what they l required to do and we've been working on that. What I would strongly urge the person to do is to start working on this as early as possible. Because it is not -- especially conditions such as ADHD, the documentation of that may be what they were able to do in college, may not be sufficient for this particular test, and if they are going to be requesting that, the earlier they start that process, even though it may say the deadline is X., they may submit the documentation and they may say, well, this is not adequate because it hasn't been recent enough or something of that sort. So I would encourage that. So the question is can I get that? It depends on whether the documentation justifies the need for that separate room. And sometimes they will give -- and it really is a case by case based on the documentation. Now, the second question was can I get that in law school? Most law schools or all the law schools I'm familiar with do try to provide separate rooms for documented disabilities that need a separate testing room. Particularly if the student is taking it in a different amount of 45 time. It's becoming quite challenging not just in law schools but across higher education I'm hearing a lot of concern about we simply don't have enough places on campus anymore to provide all these separate rooms and separate proctors and separate this because we have so many students requesting accommodation. So I think that is one of the resource challenges that is -- and I'm guessing that some of those service providers will start looking at more creative ways of doing this. And part of question is, okay, why do I need a separate room? Can I be in a room with two or three other people? And I don't know the answer to that yet because what does it mean to have a separate room? Why do you need it? Because you don't want other people starting and ending a test at the same time. You need less distractions and so on, but my biggest advice would be get that process going quickly, as soon as possible. >> JACQUIE: Well, thank you so much, Laura. This is really a great presentation. And I appreciate so much you spending this time with us. >> LAURA: Well, I appreciate being asked to do this. And Jacquie, I think in many of these areas you could do this without me being here because you certainly are very expert on these issues and you probably are more current on a day-to-day basis on some of the broader issues than I am. But I do have the privilege of working in higher education and so I've had to practice what I preach for many years, and I get to see it in the classroom as an administrator and so on and I enjoy the challenges and always enjoy having new and challenging questions I've never thought of before. So there were a couple today. So I'm going to think hard about 46 those. Thank you for inviting me to do this. >> JACQUIE: Sure. We really enjoyed it. And to our audience, please feel free to share the archives of today's presentation with your colleagues. It will be available tomorrow at ilru.org and please don't forget to complete the evaluation on the webcast page. We're always interested in receiving your feedback. Thanks to the National Institute on Disability, Rehabilitation and Research, NIDRR, our sponsor for today. We hope you'll enjoy -- we hope you'll join us next week for our webcast next Wednesday promoting mental health recovery through evidence-based supported employment, which Judith Cook. The opinions and views express today are those of the presenters and no endorsement of the sponsoring agency should be inferred. And finally this webcast would not be possible without the efforts of our amazing webcast team, Rob Dickehuth for his technical expertise and our wonderful captioner today, Marie Bryant. Thanks again for joining us. Have a dazzling day.