Angelo Binno, a law school applicant in Michigan, has charged the American Bar Association (ABA) with discriminating against people with visual impairments in its reliance on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).
Binno’s complaint concerns a section of the test that instructs applicants to draw diagrams to solve problems. The LSAT is a required component of the law school admissions process.
Binno, 28, of West Michigan speaks three languages, completed high school in three years and was awarded a high-level clearance at the United States Department of Homeland Security where he has worked. Binno holds a bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University. He was rejected from several law schools.
Attorney Richard Bernstein of the Sam Bernstein Law Firm is representing Binno. Bernstein is blind and attended law school prior to a shift in ABA admissions policies that gave increased weight to the LSAT.
“The design of the test, of which one-fourth of the questions require diagramming to successfully answer, is patently discriminatory against people who are blind or with visual impairments, as they are physically incapable of completing the section and therefore cannot pass the exam,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division on May 24th calling on the ABA to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This could include waiving the exam score in cases where a disability prevents an applicant from completing all portions of the test successfully.
“The ABA has stated that should a law school waive the exam, the school faces sanctions, including loss of accreditation,” Bernstein said. The ABA did not reply to requests for comment.
Bernstein represented clients in a federal lawsuit against the City of Detroit over inaccessible buses and broken transportation lifts in 2004. He also sued the Oakland County Road Commission over roundabouts that he said lacked safety measures for people with disabilities.
“The lawsuit asks the court to issue an injunction restraining the ABA from further administering accreditation to law schools until it complies with the ADA and cease implementation of the LSAT requirement of law schools, which discriminates against individuals with disabilities,” Bernstein said.
The law schools accreditation process is currently under review by an ABA committee. The ABA Standards for Approval of Law Schools is likely to place increased value on educational outcome over the faculty size, facility operations, budget and curriculum that took precedence in prior evaluations. It is unclear whether the review will be impacted by Binno’s case.
This article was published in the August 2011 issue of Able News.
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