UK disability discrimination law and stammering / stuttering
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) had not allowed the appellant to proceed to the Vocational Stage of qualifying as a barrister. He did not have a 2:2 honours degree, so under the criteria applied by the BSB, there had to be clear evidence that he was academically of second class quality overall. He argued that … Read more
The Court of Appeal upheld a decision that sufficient reasonable adjustments had been made for a student with multiple sclerosis taking a professional law exam. The issue of whether the time limit for the exam was a competence standard and therefore not subject to the reasonable adjustment duty did not have to be decided. [2012] … Read more
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 2010. A medical student in the United States was granted a preliminary injunction allowing him to use a text-to-speech device in a medical exam, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As at mid-May 2010 the decision was being appealed. Podcast on stuttertalk.com (Episode 200) … Read more
The Court of Appeal held that the House of Lords decision in LB Lewisham v Malcolm applies to education. In this case, a school’s exclusion of a child with ADHD was not disability-related discrimination because the school would have excluded a non-disabled child who behaved in the same way. The Court of Appeal reasoning would … Read more
There was held to be a failure to make reasonable adjustments for a professional exam. This was so even though the claimant had not identified the particular adjustment at the time of the exam. However a potentially reasonable adjustment, or at least its broad nature, should be identified by the time of the hearing. It … Read more