In response to the difficult job market, all Loyola Law School students' grade point averages have been retroactively raised by one-third of a letter grade, Dean Victor Gold announced in a memo, according to Above the Law, an online legal blog. Loyola graduates were experiencing difficulty securing employment, partially because the "information conveyed by the old grading curve did not accurately convey the high quality of our students," the memo said. Students have faced more limited job opportunities because many employers only consider candidates above a minimum GPA a restriction Loyola administrators say will be less of a problem with the new grading scale, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported April 1. The decision followed similar actions taken by other law schools to market their students better to potential employers. The action has been scrutinized by a number of commentators, The Chronicle reported.
Princeton University freshman Diane Metcalf-Leggette hascontinued her lawsuit against the University originally filed last October, after she was again denied twice the allotted time on her tests to accommodate learning disorders, The Daily Princetonian reported. Metcalf-Leggette, a member of the women's soccer team, was diagnosed in 2003 with four learning disorders attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, mixed-receptive-expressive language disorder, disorder of written expression and developmental coordination disorder. The University's Office of Disability Services determined that Metcalf-Leggette's disorders demanded other modifications, such as 10-minute breaks every hour and a "reduced-distraction testing environment," according to The Daily Princetonian. In January, after an independent consultant reassessed her degree of impairment, the University granted Metcalf-Leggette 50 percent extended time. She said she remains unsatisfied with this accommodation, however, and told The Daily Princetonian that it still leaves her at "the bottom of a slanted, not level, playing field."
The U.S. Supreme Court has received dozens of legal briefs concerning a case on whether a decision by the University of California's Hastings School of the Law to deny official recognition to members of the Christian Legal Society, a national organization that excludes gays and lesbians on the basis of perceived sexual immorality, is legal, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The dispute centers on a wide variety of student rights, and several briefs claim that academic freedom, religious freedom, freedom of association and equal protection under the law have been threatened, The Chronicle reported. The law school urged the Court to dismiss the case due to a "lingering dispute" regarding the specifics of the policy in question. If the Court chooses to rule, its decision could dramatically alter the process by which colleges decide which student groups deserve official recognition and funding.
Compiled by Angie Yang
