Tourette Syndrome can be an extremely debilitating condition (the subject of a documentary, Twitch & Shout, excerpted here) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a more widely known and more widely suffered severe disability.
The questions in Olin v. Law School Admission Council are essentially, what accommodations must the LSAC give to test-takers with Tourette syndrome or OCD (if any) and what conditions can the LSAC fairly impose in order to determine whether or not such accommodations are given? Can the LSAC, for example, require an applicant for special accommodations to submit a psychological evaluation?
U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank (D. Minn.) confronted these questions in ruling against the LSAC on its motion for summary judgment. Though LSAC lost on its motion, the Judge significantly limited plaintiff’s proposed expert and, at the end of his opinion pretty strongly signaled his “word to the wise” that this might not be a case the plaintiff wants to try before a jury.