From: Scott LaBarre 
Subject: discrimination with testing agencies
Hello friends:
As some of you may have heard, the National Federation of the Blind has
recently sued the Law School Admissions Council on behalf of three blind
test takers.  The LSAC is the testing agency which administers the LSAT to
all persons desiring to attend law school in the U.S.  
The suit alleges discrimination in LSAC's testing policies.  Specifically,
LSAC does not permit blind persons to use readers of their own choosing.
This policy has caused many blind persons to perform very poorly on the
exam.  LSAC in the past has not permited a blind person to use a Braille
writer, or any other Braille device, to take Braille notes when sighted
students are permitted to take notes.  Finally, when LSAC sends test
results to law schools, they attach a letter which states that the blind
person's score was in effect invalid and could not be compared to the
scores of other examinees who do not take the exam using accommodations
like a reader or an exam in Braille.
The United States Department of Justice is interested in this issue and
may end up assisting us in attempting to eliminate LSAC's discriminatory
policies.  We are interested in hearing from any of you who have faced
discrimination in testing like that described above or any other form of
discrimination you feel you have faced when attemtping to take a
standardized exam like the LSAT, the GRE, or any other standardized test.
We want to show that this is a serious problem which the U.S. Department
of Justice should address.  
We will keep you updated on the case of Kaplan, Phipps, and Dillon v. the
Law School Admissions Council, and we would appreciate any information you
may have.  
Thank you so much,
Scott C. LaBarre, President
National Association of Blind Lawyers
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