LOS ANGELES — Responding to intense protests from the disability community, the Los Angeles Community College District's Board of Trustees has backed down from appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court over a lawsuit filed by two blind students claiming they were denied equal access to education.
During a closed session meeting Wednesday night, the board voted unanimously ahead of a deadline to direct its lawyers to refrain from appealing to the Supreme Court over the 2017 lawsuit and to continue instead with mediation. The suit alleged discrimination of two students' civil rights after the district failed to properly help them with accommodations to which they are legally entitled.
The case boiled down to a question over whether unintentional discrimination — a lack of accommodation, for example, that inadvertently hinders a person — is a violation of federal law. Although two courts said it was, the district argued the opposite and questioned the legal reasoning behind the suit.
