Court Opinion

ID: 9481577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:24:24.52543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:25.997749
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Chief Judge,
with whom LEVIN H. CAMPBELL and TORRUELLA, Circuit Judges, join (dissenting).
I agree with what I take as the majority’s statement of the law- First, Tufts must make a “reasonable accommodation” to Mr. Wynne’s handicap. See Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 301, 105 S.Ct. 712, 720, 83 L.Ed.2d 661 (1985). Second, in determining what is “reasonable,” a court must examine a host of case-specific circumstances. See School Bd. v. Arline, 480 U.S. 273, 287, 107 S.Ct. 1123, 1130-31, 94 L.Ed.2d 307 (1987). Here, I believe those circumstances include the potential disadvantage to the disabled person, the nature of the disability, the degree of potential harm to the institution, and the comparative expertise (of courts and private parties) in making the relevant factual assessments relevant to harms, needs, and likely institutional consequences. Third, as the majority says, in the context of academic testing before us:
If the institution submits undisputed facts demonstrating that the relevant officials within the institution considered alternative means, their feasibility, cost and effect on the academic program, and came to a rationally justifiable conclusion that the available alternatives would result either in lowering academic standards or requiring substantial program alteration, the court could rule as a matter of law that the institution had met its duty of seeking reasonable accommodation.
Ante at 26. Fourth:
“In the context of an ‘otherwise qualified-reasonable accommodations’ inquiry under the Rehabilitation Act, the ... principle of respect for academic deci-sionmaking applies.... ”
Ante at 25; cf. Regents of Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214, 225, 106 S.Ct. 507, 513, 88 L.Ed.2d 523 (1985).
These principles and statements amount to a holding that Mr. Wynne cannot achieve ultimate victory in this case if the record shows (without “genuine” and “material” factual disputes, Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)) (1) that academic decision makers exercised their professional judgment in deciding what tests to use (they “considered alternative means”) and' (2) that their decision does not significantly depart from accepted academic norms (it is a “rationally justifiable conclusion”). I agree with this holding.
*30I disagree, however, with the majority’s application of these principles to the facts in this record. The record contains an affidavit of the Dean of the Tufts University Medical School, a conceded academic expert. That affidavit says:
11. The particular type and form of written, multiple choice (Type K) examinations administered to Mr. Wynne and all first year Tufts students is expressly designed to measure a student’s ability not only to memorize complicated material, but also to understand and assimilate it.
12. In the judgment of the professional medical educators who are responsible for determining medical testing procedures at Tufts, written multiple choice (Type K) examinations are important as a matter of substance, not merely of form. In our view, the ability to assimilate, interpret and analyze complex written material is necessary for the safe and responsible practice of modern medicine. It is essential for practicing physicians to keep abreast of the latest developments in written medical journals. Modern diagnostic and treatment procedures often call for the reading and assimilation of computer-generated data and other complex written materials. Frequently, and often under stressful conditions fraught with the most serious consequences, physicians are called upon to make choices and decisions based on a quick reading, understanding and interpretation of hospital charts, medical reference materials and other written resources. A degree from the Tufts University School of Medicine certifies, in part, that its holder is able to read and interpret such complicated written medical data quickly and accurately.
13. It is the judgment of the medical educators who set Tufts’ academic standards and requirements that this and other important aspects of medical training and education are best tested and evaluated by written, multiple choice examinations of the type given to Mr. Wynne and all of his peers.
The affidavit speaks of the “judgment of professional medical educators.” It says that, in “the judgment of medical educators who set Tufts’ academic standards and requirements,” the demands of medicine “are best tested” by a multiple-choice exam. This language seems to me to say that experts considered the fairly obvious alternatives (oral exams or essay-type written exams) and concluded that written multiple-choice exams were “best.”
The affidavit explains why these educators believe that multiple-choice examinations are best. The affidavit indicates that “the unique qualit[y] of multiple choice examinations,” see ante at 28, is that these examinations are “expressly designed to measure a student’s ability not only to memorize complicated material, but also to understand and assimilate it.” The alternatives to written multiple-choice exams— oral or essay-type — obviously do not test reading comprehension.
These statements are basically undisputed. Mr. Wynne does not deny that the persons who made the testing decisions were exercising their professional judgment. The affidavit indicates the use of professional judgment that employed comparisons. And, I do not believe a reasonable fact finder could conclude from the record that insistence upon multiple-choice exams is a “substantial departure from accepted academic norms.” I concede that there is evidence that a different medical school, Brown, would permit students such as Mr. Wynne to take an oral examination. But, schools can differ in the importance they attach, say, to reading comprehension. In any event, the fact that one school has a different procedure could not, in my opinion, by itself sustain a finding of a “substantial departure from academic norms.”
The majority believes I am reading this affidavit too “flexibly” or too liberally in Tufts’ favor. I think I am reading it literally. Moreover, I believe it wrong to insist upon more than the statement of subjective, but expert, judgment that it contains, in light of the following features of the case. First, Mr. Wynne’s particular disability, a psychological learning disadvantage, is closely related to the kind of characteristic, namely an inability to learn to become a good doctor, to which Tufts reasonably, *31and lawfully, need not “accommodate.” Second, the designing of tests aimed at screening out those who will not become good doctors is a quintessentially academic task, close to the heart of a professional school’s basic mission. Third, the design of proper academic tests (as far as this record is concerned) is not itself a science, but, rather, is a judgmental matter in respect to which teachers and doctors are far more expert than judges and juries.
These three sets of circumstances should caution us against applying reasonable-sounding legal standards in a way that, as a practical matter, would force universities to produce the kinds of proofs that seem to appeal especially to courts — “hard” evidence, tests of tests, statistical studies — for to do this is to take a basic educational decision away from those who may know the most about it, teachers using their own subjective judgment and experience, and to place it in the hands of those (say, lawyers) who will have to defend an academic decision in court. That is why, in this case, I would apply the court’s test, but, in doing so, I would read the affidavits in what I believe is a common-sense manner, as making clear that Tufts applied the expert professional judgment upon which the majority insists.
Accordingly, I would affirm. Respectfully, I dissent.