University Exclusion

The original message is two years old!  As a part-time Practice Teacher associated with several universities, I would only say that university students are independent adult learners, not schoolkids.  Support is available from the university's Learning Support Service or whatever it is called. If they choose not to "disclose" their ASC and seek help, that is their right as an adult.  They are then responsible for the consequences of their decision. In this case it seems disengenous to say that " his autism is being held against him " if the tutors and lecturers had not been informed (or at least not oficially notified by Learning Support) of his additional needs.

I don't know how this particular case turned out, I just want to say to any autistic students starting uni this year that they should think seriously about going to their university's Disability/Learning Support team and asking for support. This can include mentoring, late submission of coursework, extra time for exams etc., and is worth having available, even if you don't actually need to use them.

NAS82652 said:

Hi All, my son should be going into his 3rd year at Uni but failed the year and is now having to go through a Special Cases Committee to try to get them to let him re-do his 2nd year.  He chose not to disclose his Aspergers and so has received no support from the university which is what both he and I feel is the reason for his not passing his 2nd year exams.  At school he had a SEN and then ECHP so received support and did well, but the lack of support at Uni has left him floundering on his own.

We have given the Uni a copy of his original diagnosis as well as his last ECHP from 2019, but they are saying he also needs to provide a professional option from a GP relating to his condition and how it has impacted him over the past year.  Not sure how they will do that, he hasn't seen any medical professionals in the last year and his GP is where we live not 200 miles away where his uni is.  He is trying to contact them virtually though.

It feels to me that his autism is being used against him over and over by the university who I would have thought really ought to have noticed his needs even if he didn't articulate them.  As he is an adult, I'm not even able to easily advocate for him.  Has anyone been through anything similar, and do you have any advice?

It’s so frustrating when universities don’t pick up on these needs, especially when he had support throughout school. While it’s tough that the university is requiring a GP’s statement, reaching out virtually is a good step. Maybe his GP could refer him to a specialist for an updated assessment, which could help explain how his Asperger’s has affected his performance.

One thing to bear in mind if the worst comes to the worst. The OIA can only make recommendations. They are usually followed but they are not binding. The courts can force universities to do things.

Thanks for your comments Martin and Peter - it was continuous assessment and group work rather than a final exam that he was assessed on.  I completely agree that he should have disclosed his autism and he is now in touch with the disability support team at his uni, so if he is able to continue, they will put a support plan in place for him.

He's got a phone call booked in with his GP this morning so hoping what they can provide will be sufficient along with the other information he's given for the committee to give him a second chance!

Another worrying thing that the Uni said to him was that some GP's are happy to provide letters of the type he needs, but others aren't.  I think our GP will, but it is a ridiculous situation if some GP's won't provide something that could have such an impact.

Oh I never bothered with guessing questions I just tried to learn everything. But doing 3 or more passed papers if I found anything I was week on I revised it hard.

I did fairly well in exams, in general, I would have done much worse under a system weighted towards continuous assessment. However, the huge anxiety that the thought of exams raised in me effectively prevented me even looking at past papers, or employing the sort of exam 'gamesmanship' of predicting likely questions.

Ah my sensitivities are mostly tactile / olfactory so that wouldn't have bothered me. I loved exams. I just worked through practice papers over and over till I had it down pat. I had a system and it worked. Sure exams are nerve wracking but that's for everyone I think. But I can see how noise, crowding, or light could be an issue in some venues. Because I had extra time for dyslexia from uni on my exams were largely in rooms with 20 - 30 students.

Peter said:

You see I'm kind of surprised as to why aspergers would affect exam performance. I would have thought it would be more likely to effect group work / course work.

As an undiagnosed autist I found examinations to be paralyzingly anxiety producing, both in the run up to - affecting my ability to revise effectively - and on the day itself. Being in a large hall with hundreds of other stressed people was no help either, as I was subject to sensory overload from the lighting, hundreds of scratching pens and on specific occasions: a thunderstorm, someone sobbing behind me and one person having to be removed from the examination hall after having had some form of breakdown. I'm sure that had I been allowed to take exams in a small room, with only a few other people, I would have had better results.

Autism and related conditions are officially classed as disabilities, they are also known to be life-long. The university should be treating your son's autism in the same way as if a student had not disclosed any other disability, such as partial sightedness or epilepsy. No one gets remissions from autism, so clinical assessments from any time period should remain valid. I would argue that it is a condition that does not vary in its essentials from one year to the next.

Having said that, I think your son made a bad decision not to disclose, especially when he realised things were not going well for him. I can see why the university might not be overly sympathetic, as they will have accommodations in place to help autistic students. I am autistic, but was an undergraduate well before less overt forms of autism were diagnosed and I would have greatly benefitted from the sort of accommodations that my autistic daughter is now receiving at university.

No but I know a bit about the law and discrimination in a university environment.

Universities tend to require a GPs sick note to take in to account special circumstances. It could be as easy as him going to his registered GP practice with his diagnosis and ECHP and get them to write an opinion of how it might have effected him. The GP is there to provide a medical opinion of how autism is effecting him as an adult not to prove that he was behaving in a certain way at a certain time. In reality there is a good chance that te GP will just list what in the diagnosis / ECHP still applies. It ticks a box the universities tend to insist on and it doesn't need to be a particular doctor.

You see I'm kind of surprised as to why aspergers would affect exam performance. I would have thought it would be more likely to effect group work / course work. It would depend on the course I guess. For an exam in a humanities subject I suppose if exam questions were worded vaguely that could be a real impediment. You need to be clear on exactly what aspect of his aspergers effected his performance. Difficulty understanding exam questions, difficulty in expressing his ideas clearly in writing? Perhaps issues with time management in his study?

In terms of discrimination law I am not a lawyer, you might want to speak to one. Take what I say with a pinch of salt. It's not generally illegal to give some one a bad mark because their disability caused them to fall short of the academic standard.

The equality act says

The application by a qualifications body of a competence standard to a disabled person is not disability discrimination unless it is discrimination by virtue of section 19.

Section 19 bans things like making rules up that are unreasonably unfair to disabled people, like having a running test you need to pass for a chemistry course. Clearly going to be hard for people in wheelchairs.

So the university might try to come at you with the argument that if his disability makes him fall short of the competency standard that's out of scope of the law. But the arrangements (reasonable adjustments) that could have been made to help him during and leading upto the exam are in scope of disability law as well as any decision to kick him out. I think the most relavent law is going to be section 15 of the equality act. If asspergers caused him to fail his exams then kicking him out for failing his exams is probably going to trigger subsection 1(a). Their justification the "legitimate aim" under section 1(b) would likely be that they have a duty to use the limited number of places on the course efficiently by excluding students who are unlikely to pass a resit year. The counter argument to that is probably that it isn't a waste of resources if he has a good chance of passing with appropriate reasonable adjustments (see sections 20-22).

If they decide to kick him out you can appeal to the OIA who can adjudicate the matter or you can sue the university under the equality act to force them to take him back (the court can in theory force them to do this with an injunction). There is a 6 month time limit to sue from the time they decide to kick him out (9 months if you go the the OIA first).