Professor Emerita Arlene Kanter, founding director of the Disability Law and Policy Program, provided her reaction to the Inside Higher Ed story “Giving an F for Recording Classes, Even for Students With Disabilities”.
The article looks at a UCLA professor whose classroom hosts contentious debates and says she’ll fail any student who records classes or distributes another student’s work as a matter of academic freedom. Kanter discusses the legalities surrounding classroom accommodations.
Kanter said UCLA’s signing off on what she called a “blanket ban” on a disability accommodation is problematic. “No [blanket] ban is ever permissible, and there are many, many court cases that have held so,” she said.
“I’m surprised that UCLA would go that route and uphold the ban because there’s literally no court authority that would be on their side,” Kanter said. “The recording allows a student with a disability to be on equal footing and participating in that class with students without disabilities. To deny that opportunity is discrimination, pure and simple.”