The article examines how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has evolved to perpetuate the medical model of disability, rather than the social model of disability, regarding documentation of a disability to receive accommodations. The article features a personal experience Macfarlane encountered when requesting accommodation for a disability.
Macfarlane writes, “Documentation of disability can be so expensive that it is impossible for people with disabilities to obtain it. However, documentation requirements also impose costs on the employers — and colleges and universities — that create them. Someone must collect and review the documentation. Follow-up requests for additional documentation, which are common, are also time-consuming. The bureaucracy that has arisen around the documentation requirement is incredibly expensive. And for what? Is it truly necessary to have an employee on staff whose sole job is reviewing forms and records submitted by a person asking for an additional restroom break? What do we accomplish with bloated systems like these?
Not much, I argue. It’s time for the extra-statutory documentation requirements to be re-examined, if not abandoned outright. This sort of change can happen immediately. No law requires documentation.”
Macfarlane will participate in the ABA webinar “Disability Rights: A Conversation with Human Rights Magazine Authors.” The free webinar is scheduled for Friday, July 25, from 3:00 – 4:30 PM ET. Register at: https://www.americanbar.org/events-cle/mtg/web/452129295/?login
The article appears in the July 2025 issue on Disability Rights: The Work Continues.
A 3L at Syracuse University College of Law, Kaitlin Sommer L’26 is always planning ahead. Throughout her life, she has continuously asked herself, “Is there a better or more efficient way to do this?”, “Am I advocating for what I need?”, “How can I figure this out by myself?” And, while this way of operating is a great skillset for any lawyer, Sommer has developed this method out of necessity and independence, as she navigates the world as a wheelchair user, as well as a child of Deaf adults (CODA).
Sommer attended Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as a political science major for her undergraduate degree as part of a 3+3 program with Syracuse Law, which allows students to transfer from RIT to the Law School after three years to finish their bachelor’s degree and at the same time start studying law.
As she prepares for her last year at Syracuse Law, Sommer has taken full advantage of many of the opportunities that come from being a law student—attending the Ms. JD Fall 2024 Leadership Academy Intensive hosted by the Harvard Women’s Law Association at Harvard Law School, and presenting at her alma mater’s third annual Together RIT: A Day of Dialogue centered on the theme of Deaf culture, disability and neurodiversity in her first ever public speaking appearance.
In January, Sommer added another responsibility to her already busy schedule: co-president of the Disability Law Society (DLS) at Syracuse Law, a position she shares with Emely Recinos L’26. The organization serves as a community for students with disabilities and their allies at Syracuse Law, while also raising awareness and providing related information across the greater University.
“This is a new venture that I’m really excited about. We are a small group of students at Syracuse Law, and it’s important that we have our voices heard,” she says, noting that only about 1.4% of lawyers in the U.S. self-identify as having a disability according to the American Bar Association. “Emely, who also has a disability, and I have a new take, which revolves around being more vocal about disabled students’ experiences and how the University can best support us. I want the Disability Law Society to see where we can set permanent roots and have a noticeable space to make our voices heard. And, of course, having this kind of community at the Law School has helped me to know that I’m not alone.”
When Sommer started at Syracuse Law, it seemed to make sense that she go into disability law, but some great advice from Professor of Law Katherine Macfarlane, a leading expert on civil rights litigation, disability law, and civil procedure, gave her the freedom to consider other areas, as well.
“Professor Macfarlane said that just because I’m a person with a disability doesn’t mean I have to go into disability law,” Sommer explains. “She made me see that being a disabled person in any legal space is also representative, and my personal experience will make me a better professional no matter which field of law I choose. She has been such a good mentor and support system for me and has encouraged me to advocate for what I want and need.”
Now, Sommer is very interested in pursuing national security law, while possibly finding a way to intersect that with disability law, too. She has since taken courses through Syracuse Law’s National Security Program and is working on her Certificate of Advanced Study in National Security and Counterterrorism.
Her hope is to live and work in Washington, D.C., in the future. As an undergraduate, she interned for Congressman Joe Morelle (D-NY) in the nation’s capital. Sommer recently completed an intern at the POPVOX Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for improvements in Congress. And, this summer, she is interning with The Spinal Cord Injury Law Firm, PLLC, in Washington, D.C. Despite these impressive opportunities, she is eager to learn more through her coursework and seek out other experiences to prepare to graduate from Syracuse Law in 2026.
“Having a disability does make things harder, but, at the end of the day, I’m so grateful. My own life experiences, along with lessons from the Law School, like critical thinking, have really helped me see how important it is to assess facts to see if what seems to be true really is true. This has made me a more open-minded person and will make me a better lawyer, too,” she says.
“After all, I never want people to make assumptions about me just because I use a wheelchair. I hope to be a positive example of a compassionate and knowledgeable disabled lawyer who can better connect with my work through my life experiences, and Syracuse Law is helping me get there.”
The DANCING Project investigates the extent to which the protection of the right to participate in culture of people with disabilities and the promotion of cultural diversity intersect and complement each other in the European Union (EU) legal order.
True-Frost will speak on the June 19 panel “DANCING Contribution to Advance the Human Rights Model of Disability” at Maynooth University.
Macfarlane states that “Self-accommodation should be viewed as a rational response to inaccessible systems, not as the result of an information deficit that can be easily cured. Once self-accommodation is better understood, reducing reliance on it starts with improving formal accommodation processes.”
The case revolves around a disability discrimination lawsuit by a fired cocktail waitress who’d asked to wear comfortable black shoes to work instead of the required high heels.
One takeaway was to keep essential job functions gender-neutral when possible. Macfarlane said it depends on the job, and how the employer defines what it considers an essential function.
“With a cheerleading uniform, you could say that you want to have everyone in the same thing, you want to be able to maximize what is most attractive,” she said, in an example of an all-woman professional cheer squad. “But we’re far afield from that … this is a job where people are supposed to be able to deliver drinks quickly.”
In fact, Macfarlane continued, she might argue that high heels could be a liability in a work environment that depends on speed and carrying heavy trays of food or drink.
The idea that the black high heels are an essential function of the work of cocktail servers at this company “should have been interrogated,” she said.
Another takeaway was that granting an accommodation may be the easiest solution, even as the ADA doesn’t actually require workers to produce a doctor’s note at all — let alone produce a note containing specific prescriptive language for a certain brand of shoes — in order for them to wear what works best for them.
“The interactive process is supposed to be flexible, and a conversation. If you can defer to the employee’s preference, you should,” she said. “There’s something really irrational and punitive about the way this came down, because the easy solution is, ‘Of course, you can wear your Skechers. Thank you for letting me know.’ Move on.”
She said it’s a bad human resources decision that led to lawyers on both sides “because someone wants to wear black Skechers.”
The College of Law recently held a Disability Awareness Panel, a part of Syracuse’s Disability Cultural Center’s Disability Pride Month.
Rachel Dubin and Professor Cora True-Frost L’01, two of the featured panelists, shared their personal experiences and legal insights in navigating education for people with disabilities.
The two highlighted the challenges people face in education, including finding accommodations, and the need for legal intervention in preventing non-inclusive policy.
“Law really matters, and so the person who is protected needs to understand what their possible accommodations can be legally, and finding that answer can be very difficult for the person who has disabilities and is entitled to these protections,” said True-Fost.
Mercy Renci Xie LL.M.’20, who is currently pursuing an S.J.D. at the College of Law, recently had papers selected to be presented at Stanford’s Law & Humanities Workshop and the 2025 Law & Society Annual Meeting.
She will present her paper “Guanxi Paradox in Chinese Relational Legal Consciousness” at the Law & Humanities Workshop at Stanford University on June 9-10.
Her paper “Navigating Power Dynamics: Contingent Second-Order Legal Consciousness of Chinese Disabled People,” was selected to be presented at the 2025 Law & Society Annual Meeting in Chicago May 22-25.
Professor Katherine Macfarlane’s article “Higher Education’s Accommodations Mistake” was recently accepted for publication in the Georgetown Law Journal, where it will be published this Fall. A draft of Professor Macfarlane’s article is available here.
The article examines the “fundamental alteration” defense, which applies to claims brought pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and how the defense impacts reasonable accommodation requests made by undergraduate and graduate students with disabilities. Professor Macfarlane is a leading expert in disability law and higher education accommodations.
She directs the College’s Disability Law & Policy Program and teaches Constitutional Law, Disability Law, and Civil Rights Litigation.
E.I. White Chair and Distinguished Professor of Law Robin Paul Malloy’s paper Network Capabilities in Land Use and Disability Law was published in 74 Am. U. L. Rev. 461 (2024).
In the abstract, Malloy writes “In addressing the relationship between land use and disability, we must consider three primary methods for conceptualizing disability. The first is the ‘medical model’, the second is the ‘social construction’ model, and a third, suggested in this Article, is a ‘network capabilities’ model. The network capabilities model frames disability in terms of the built environment and focuses on understanding human capabilities from a land use perspective—that is, in relation to an integrated system of property infrastructure, assistive technology, and inclusive design. This method addresses disability as a regulatory matter focusing on public health, safety, and welfare. It balances concerns for accessibility with pragmatically achievable land planning goals.”
This panel will focus on the potential contributions of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to socioeconomics and the study of law. In particular, the discussion will consider the role of the state, mechanisms for achieving full employment (including job guarantees), the relationship (or lack of one) between fiscal policy and inflation, the importance of community investment, and how to make these topics accessible and relevant to law students and legal scholars.
In many respects Fourth Amendment doctrine has evolved to expand law enforcement power to act on suspicions, frequently to the disadvantage of disfavored groups. Reversing these patterns is not just a matter of academic interest but a pressing need, amplified with the advent of more intrusive and pervasive surveillance technologies. Participants in this discussion will address the ways that suspicion is defined and constructed, its role (or failed potential) in constraining government power, the need for alternatives to suspicion to regulate mass data surveillance, and the potential for suspicion to serve as cover for bias.
In alignment with the conference theme of Courage in Action, this year’s program will focus on discussing the difficulties older adults experience in accessing basic needs, including healthcare and utilization of health technology; housing, aging in place, and long-term care; employment and retirement; and estate planning. As we age, we face significant life transitions that intersect with the law in these areas as well as others that can be challenging to navigate.
A key goal of the Section is to support our members in every aspect of their careers, including their scholarship. This panel provides section members with the opportunity to present a work-in-progress and receive feedback from senior scholars and other section members.
The Section believes that it is time to re-think the basic relationship between law and economics. Economics was introduced into legal scholarship as a tool for conservative political positions in the 1980s. It is time to recapture this valuable branch of modern knowledge and apply it to pressing topics such as climate change, automation and employment, and the relationships between the underregulation of finance, corruption, instability, and racial inequality. Participants will explore how a combined legal, economic, and social science approach can be productively applied to these topics.
It has been said that a “law degree is a leadership degree” and much has been written on the need for law schools to educate leaders. Fortunately, many legal educators have responded in interesting and courageous ways. Starting with visionaries like Dean Donald Polden and Professor Deborah Rhode–both of whom courageously fought for their vision of leadership development as part of legal education–the field has continued to evolve and grow. Fortunately, leadership development and leadership education–like leadership itself–is not limited to a one-size-fits-all approach. A plethora of different approaches to leadership development have emerged recently with different focuses, tactics, and desired outcomes. In this discussion group, we will discuss and celebrate these different approaches as we look at how law schools can best develop their students into good lawyer-leaders.
