A staggering quarter of all college students at UCLA’s prestigious regulation faculty got further time in exams after receiving incapacity lodging, in accordance with information obtained by The California Publish.
The information present that, of the regulation faculty’s 1,374 college students, 308 obtained further time on exams in the course of the 2023-24 tutorial 12 months.
That rose to 323 college students in 2024-25 – about 24 % of the complete regulation faculty inhabitants.
The figures have been obtained via a public information request by latest graduate Andrew Gomez-Blumenfeld, who argues the lodging system is more and more being exploited by college students searching for a aggressive benefit.
College students with disabilities can request lodging resembling assistive expertise, note-takers and particular seating.
However the information present further examination time overwhelmingly dominated lodging requests.
All however 12 college students receiving lodging have been granted extra testing time, with some receiving as a lot as 150 % further time on high-pressure regulation faculty exams.
“You’d think about in a type of best world the place individuals have been getting lodging to fulfill their disabilities, that you simply’d see a type of attention-grabbing variety and distribution of the sorts of lodging that individuals want,” ex-law pupil Andrew Gomez-Blumenfeld, who graduated in Could, instructed The Publish.
Gomez-Blumenfeld mentioned he first grew to become suspicious throughout his three years at UCLA Regulation after noticing far fewer college students sitting exams than attended lessons.
The information additionally present how a lot extra time many college students obtained.
Within the 2024-25 faculty 12 months, the overwhelming majority – 204 college students – obtained 50 % extra time to finish exams.
One other 44 college students obtained one hundred pc further time, whereas 4 have been granted 150 % further time.
Gomez-Blumenfeld mentioned the extra time can considerably have an effect on efficiency.
Exams can take three or 4 hours, which means college students with lodging might obtain an extra hour or extra to finish them.
“Regulation faculty is sort of completely on a really strict grading curve, so it’s actually consequential the way you do relative to different individuals,” he instructed The Publish.
“That’s all simply by the use of saying that to the extent a piece of your friends are taking the check below a really completely different time circumstances than you, you truly are doubtlessly being evaluated on a really completely different curve, however finally held accountable to the identical curve.”
The information additionally present that just about all extra-time lodging have been granted to college students in UCLA’s Juris Physician program.
Only a few went to college students within the Grasp of Legal guidelines program – usually legal professionals pursuing superior authorized research – or the Grasp of Research in Regulation program for non-lawyer professionals.
The California Publish reached out to UCLA Regulation for remark.
The development is just not distinctive to UCLA, with educators throughout California and the nation have reported sharp will increase in incapacity lodging requests, significantly these involving psychological well being circumstances.
The Publish beforehand revealed 378 regulation college students at UC Berkeley declare to have a “psychological” or different psychological disabilities, in accordance with college knowledge — main critics to accuse pupils of attempting to recreation the system to achieve a bonus in class.
The determine accounts for a couple of third of the enrollment and marks an enormous shift from simply 5 years in the past, when solely 3% of Berkeley’s graduate college students claimed a incapacity.
Some teachers argue the expansion has undermined confidence in examination equity, whereas incapacity advocates preserve lodging are important to making sure equal entry for college kids with legit medical circumstances.
“That is much more absurd whenever you understand that the majority college students in regulation colleges come from profitable households and have finished effectively all through their years of schooling,” mentioned George Leef, of the higher-education assume tank James G. Martin Middle for Tutorial Renewal.
“Apparently, the world of ‘social justice’ implies that we will’t have honest exams.”
