Sherrie Lynn Zukle v. The Regents of the University of California
166 F.3d 1041, 99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1355, 99 Daily Journal DAR 1707 (1999)
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Rule of Law:
An educational institution is not required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the Rehabilitation Act to provide accommodations that would fundamentally alter the nature of its academic program or lower its academic standards. Courts will grant significant deference to an educational institution's professional academic judgments regarding a student's qualifications and the reasonableness of requested accommodations.
Facts:
- In 1991, Sherrie Lynn Zukle enrolled at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine and immediately experienced significant academic difficulty, receiving multiple failing or provisional grades.
- In 1993, Zukle was formally diagnosed with a reading disability that affects her comprehension and rate of reading, particularly under timed constraints.
- The Medical School provided Zukle with several accommodations, including a decelerated pre-clinical curriculum (an extra year to complete the first two years of study), double time on exams, note-taking services, and textbooks on audio cassettes.
- Despite these accommodations, Zukle continued to perform poorly, failing the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam on her first attempt and subsequently failing two required clinical clerkships, OB-GYN and Medicine.
- Zukle requested permission to interrupt her OB-GYN clerkship to begin a different one, a complex schedule rearrangement the Medical School had never permitted, which Dean Donal Walsh denied.
- During her Medicine clerkship, Zukle requested to be excused from the mandatory in-hospital clinical portion to have more time to study for the written exam, a request which Dr. Ruth Lawrence denied.
- After being dismissed, Zukle requested an accommodation of being given eight weeks off before each future clinical clerkship to complete the reading.
Procedural Posture:
- The University of California, Davis School of Medicine Promotions Board voted to dismiss Sherrie Lynn Zukle for academic reasons.
- Zukle appealed her dismissal to an ad hoc Board on Student Dismissal within the university, which unanimously upheld the Promotions Board's decision.
- Zukle filed a complaint in the United States District Court against the Regents of the University of California, alleging disability discrimination.
- The Regents filed a motion for summary judgment.
- The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Regents, finding that Zukle was not an 'otherwise qualified individual with a disability.'
- Zukle, as the appellant, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a medical school violate the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act by dismissing a student with a learning disability for failing to meet academic standards, when the student's requested accommodations would require fundamental alterations to the school's curriculum?
Opinions:
Majority - O’Scannlain, Circuit Judge
No. A medical school does not violate the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act when it dismisses a disabled student who cannot meet essential academic standards, because an educational institution is not required to provide accommodations that would fundamentally alter its program or lower its standards. The court adopted a burden-shifting framework where the student must first show the existence of a reasonable accommodation that would enable her to meet the school's requirements. The burden then shifts to the school to show the accommodation would fundamentally alter its program. Here, the Medical School provided numerous reasonable accommodations, but Zukle still failed to meet its academic standards. Zukle's requested accommodations—a radical restructuring of the clerkship schedule and being excused from essential clinical duties—were not reasonable because they would have fundamentally altered the curriculum and compromised the integrity of the medical program. Citing precedents like Regents of the Univ. of Michigan v. Ewing, the court held that academic institutions are entitled to judicial deference in their professional judgments about academic standards and the availability of reasonable accommodations.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the principle of judicial deference to the academic judgments of educational institutions in disability discrimination cases. It clarifies that the legal duty to provide 'reasonable accommodation' does not compel a school to abandon essential program requirements or lower its academic standards. The case establishes a high bar for students challenging academic dismissals, requiring them not only to propose an accommodation but to prove it is reasonable and would not fundamentally alter the nature of the educational program. This ruling provides universities with significant legal protection for their academic decisions, as long as they can demonstrate a conscientious effort to provide some form of reasonable accommodation.
