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4 Students With Learning Disabilities Sue Over Medical-School Admission Test

By KATHERINE S. MANGAN

Four medical-school applicants with learning disabilities sued the Association of American Medical Colleges on Monday, saying it discriminated against them by not allowing them extra time and other accommodations on the Medical College Admission Test.

The lawsuit, filed in state court in California, is seeking class-action status.

"This case will have national implications," said Sid Wolinsky, director of litigation for Disability Rights Advocates, a nonprofit legal center that is one of the groups representing the plaintiffs.

Mr. Wolinsky said the lawsuit had been filed in the plaintiffs' home state, not in federal court, because of procedural advantages in California that allow class-action suits to be filed more quickly.

"We want the court to address this before the next MCAT is offered next month," Mr. Wolinsky said. "These individuals were absolutely sandbagged by the denial of accommodations," he added. "They had had accommodations throughout their careers, when they took the SAT and in college."

Officials at the medical-colleges association, which administers the MCAT, said they were reviewing the complaint and were not ready to comment on it. In a written statement, however, they did say that the association "is committed to providing appropriate accommodations on the MCAT to disabled medical-school applicants."

Each of the plaintiffs provided the medical-colleges group with documents and clinical diagnoses of their learning disabilities, which include dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder, but all received form letters stating that the medical association did not consider their conditions disabilities, according to the lawsuit.

One of the plaintiffs, Andres Turner, said he had called the person who signed his denial letter.

"Basically, he told me that because I was a capable student, I did not have a disability," said Mr. Turner. "He seemed to imply that I had paid the professionals who examined me to provide the documentation of a disability. It was humiliating, frustrating, and unfair."

Joining the lawsuit are the National Disabled Students Union and the International Dyslexia Association.

Three years ago a federal judge ruled that a dyslexic law-school graduate who had failed the New York State bar examination six times in 10 years was entitled, under the Americans With Disabilities Act, to extra time and other accommodations on the test (The Chronicle, September 7, 2001).

But also in 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling that a medical student with a reading and writing impairment was not entitled under that law to extra time on a medical-licensing test (The Chronicle, June 8, 2001).