Chapter 15: Law and Medicine in Two Scenes

I was fifteen minutes late getting to first period Civics class and when I got into the classroom and handed my passes to the teacher, she looked me over, shuffled them a few times and then picked up one like one would do with a card from a deck.

“Tuesday. Excuse pass.” Picked another. “Wednesday. Late pass.” The last one. “Monday. Excuse pass. Well, well, Mr Coris, so nice to finally meet you. I think that this is a school record, three consecutive days.” Laughter from the class. “Mr Coris, you don’t have any special news about any school incidents this morning, I hope.” More laughter.

Wow. Seems that lots of staff members at this school fancy themselves as comedians. I wondered if I should respond. Maybe a little humility would be best now.

“Miss Wilson, I’m really sorry; I wish I could start this week over again and not miss so much of your classes. It wasn’t my choice, believe me, and I’m glad to finally be here at last.”

She gave me a hard look and then smiled. “No apology needed, Mr Coris. Thank you for that very graceful comment, though. You’ll need to get caught up and turn in some work I assigned.”

“Oh, sorry, yes, I did that; here it is,” I handed her the papers.

She accepted them with a strange expression, glanced at the sheets, and looked at me.

“Thank you ... um ... well, these look good ... ok, please find a seat and we’ll continue the class.”

Hmmmm. Obviously she was surprised that I came to class prepared. In all my other schools, I would have never dared to come to class unprepared. Is this how the American education system teaches its kids?

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, thankfully. I was able to concentrate on learning and actually began to enjoy the classes and the contributions of the students in these much larger classes.

At lunch our core gang assembled again and I thought of Dan’s email. After a quick bite of real food—I was brown-bagging now and just buying milk and fruit—I checked my email on my mobile.

“Hey guys, listen. I just heard from my overseas contact; he’s giving the problem to an IT person about whom I recall has a great rep. My dad said if you give him a computer problem, he’ll take care of it, no sweat, and do it well. I should hear from him soon.”

I also had a response from Bob. He said that he’d get right onto the background check and that his firm’s letter to the school district about the ADA warning had been delivered that morning. He said that Denise’s medical letter established her claim and that I should be prepared to produce a similar document that covered my own disability from a physician. I recalled that I only had a doctor’s report, not a statement of disability. I wrote him back and told him so; that I would need to get a doctor’s appointment really quick to get a disability diagnosis.

I mentioned my morning meeting with Fletcher and outlined what we discussed and then the group picked up yesterday’s discussion of our planning for next week when my mobile buzzed. Who’s ringing me, I wondered. Not many people outside of school have my number. Hope it’s not Aunt Helene...

It was actually Bob. “Kevin, can you do a 4 pm appointment?”

“Uh, sure. Your office?”

“No, actually. Friend of mine is a urologist—he’s actually in the med school here and also has a practice. He can see you at 4 and do an exam; have you had that problem looked at recently?”

“Last May. About four months ago.”

“Oh, that’s good; could you bring any records you have and go to his office, it’s at...”

He gave me the address. I thanked him gratefully and disconnected.

The call came just as my sixth period history class began. “Attention please. Will Denise Roberts and Kevin Coris please report to the main office. Miss Roberts and Mr Coris. Thank you.”

Denise and I looked at each other. Now what? The teacher gave us an “oh, well” gesture and indicated the door.

“Kevin, what do you think this is for?”

“Dunno—wait, Bob told me that the warning letter was delivered today. Maybe that’s it.”

That was precisely it. We were ushered into the conference room; Dr Fletcher was there with two other people who he introduced as Mr Overland, the district’s lawyer, and Mr Lewison, the school board president.

Dr Fletcher began. “Students, Miss Roberts and Mr Coris, the district just received a letter, naming you two, that says the district is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It charges us with withholding your education. Can you enlighten us a bit more?”

Denise looked at me, I shook my head at her and responded, “I know that this isn’t a legal proceeding but still I don’t want to say much without our lawyer present. What I will say is that this is related to our Program selection. Both of us have a ‘major life disability’ as defined in the Act, which precludes our Program participation. Denise has already been informed that her exemption request was denied and therefore I assume that my own exemption will be denied as well. The nature of our disability absolutely prevents our participation and Denise was told that her only alternate education choice would require that she withdraw and enroll at a private school or be home-schooled.

“According to the ADA, we are entitled to a free public education. Your policy would force us to withdraw. Thus the district would be denying us our legal right to receive a public education and the remedies as listed in that letter would be pursued.”

Mr Overland was staring at me. When I finished, he shook his head and looked at Fletcher.

“I didn’t believe what you told me about Mr Coris. You have my humble apologies.” He looked at me. “Mr Coris, after that statement I’d doubt you really need a legal advocate. That was a legal summary that most fourth-year law school students might have difficulty composing, and you did it on the fly. Ok, I see. Dr Fletcher, what’s this about no exemptions?”

“That’s correct. The district Program office told our Program official that they would not accept any exemption requests as there were no legal reasons, except for cases of diplomatic immunity for non-citizens, to warrant an exemption.”

“So we have a situation where one federal law conflicts with another and we’re caught in the middle. I don’t like this at all.”

Mr Lewison broke in. “Yes, if we get into litigation over this matter, I can see it could become very expensive and result in really adverse public relations. We need to look into that Program exemption rule; I thought that while they were made difficult to obtain, they were possible.”