Zukle v. Regents of the University of California,166 F.3d 1041 (9th Cir. 1999).

Heard by the 9th Circuit Court of the United States

Jill Salo, Holly Siegrist, Chaim Eliyah, Nada Bseikri

■ Facts

In 1991, Sherrie Zukle entered the University of California School of Medicine

 She received Y grades in two of her classes and was referred to the Student Evaluation

Committee; they determined she could stay in school provided she be on academic probation,

retake the two classes and be tested for a learning disability; she was put on a curriculum where she had three years instead of two to complete program

 Zukle continued to have problems in school, receiving consistently bad grades.

In 1992, she was tested for a learning disability related to reading comprehensionand it was

found that she took longerthan others to read and absorb information.

 She informed the school of her disability and they willingly made severalaccommodations for her.

 She took the medical exam and began a clerkship, failing the exam and interrupting her clerkship.

 She continued to have problems with her grades and her clerkships and she wasplaced back

on probation.

Zukle was subject todismissal since she earned failing grade while on academic probation

the SEC made several recommendations, including that Zukle be assigned to academicprobation for the rest of her medical school career.

 In 1995, the Promotions Board voted to dismissZukle from MedicalSchool for failing to meet the standards of the program.

Zukle filed suit in District Court; The District Court foundthat Zukle did not meet the minimum standards of the UCD School ofMedicine with reasonable accommodations, so she

was not an “otherwisequalified” individual with a disability under the Rehabilitation Act and

the Americans with Disabilities Act; Zukle appealed.

■ Issue

 Should the court accord deference to academic decisions about evaluation and performance

made by the University of California in the context of ADA and/or the Rehabilitation Act?

Was Zukle discriminated against as understood by the ADA and/or Rehabilitation Act? Or, was she in fact reasonably accommodated?

 Do the ADA and/or the Rehabilitation Act require the medical school to provide accommodations that are beyond reasonable in light of her learning disability?

■ Holding

Yes, the court should defer these types of decisions to the ‘professionals’ unless there is proof that the standards “serve no purpose other than to deny an education to” persons with disabilities

The 9th Circuit Court found that neither the ADA nor the Rehabilitation Act require that Zukle be accommodated by not having to do the in-hospital portion of a clerkship; allowing student to be excused from this requirement would cause an undue hardship, and therefore the UCD School of Medicine did not violate Rehab Act or ADA when they dismissed Zukle.

 These laws do not require the school to exempt integral portions of the studies in order to make a reasonable accommodation for the disability.

■ Rational/Reasoning

 The court believes in giving deference to educational institutions and what they consider to be sufficient standards to enter into their program. Only where these standards and subsequent application of them “serve no purpose other than to deny an education to a handicapped person” are the standards overridden by the court. If the institutionhas fulfilled this obligation, however, we will defer to its academic decisions.

 There is sufficient evidence that the University of California offered Zukle “all of the accommodations that it normally offers learning disabled students” and even with these accommodations and others, she still “consistently failed to achieve passing grades in her courses”.

 The court also defers to the school’s decision “that the in-hospital portion ofa clerkship is a vital part of medical education and that allowing a student tobe excused from this requirement would sacrifice the integrity of its program” concluding “neither the ADA nor the Rehabilitation Act require theMedicalSchool to make this accommodation”.

■ Significance

This case places limitations on what can be considered reasonable in terms of the accommodation offered to a student. Students are not allowed to set their own curriculum or to modify their school’s curriculum as a form of reasonable accommodation. In this case, O’Scannlain, writing for the Court, states, “We defer to the MedicalSchool’s academic decision that the in-hospital portion of a clerkship is a vital part of medical education,” thereby knocking down Zukle’s requests to either suspend or limit the in-hospital portion of the program to focus on her studies for the written exam.