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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS


SANDRA FERNANDEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BOARD OF REGENTS, Defendant-Appellee.

UNPUBLISHED November 13, 2007

No. 275296 Washtenaw Circuit Court LC No. 05-000296-NO

Before: Talbot, P.J., and Fitzgerald and Kelly, JJ. PER CURIAM. Plaintiff appeals as of right the order granting summary disposition in favor of defendant on plaintiff's Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act (PWDCRA) claim, MCL 37.1101 et seq. We affirm. Plaintiff began as a student at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1997. After plaintiff's first semester at the medical school, the Basic Science Academic Review Board (BSARB) learned that plaintiff failed Anatomy 500. This failing grade required the BSARB to place plaintiff on Academic Warning status, but plaintiff was given the opportunity to remediate this grade by retaking Anatomy 500 during the summer.1 On February 14, 1998, the BSARB learned that plaintiff was "quite far below passing level in Histology, Embryology, MCB 501, and physiology." The BSARB, having received information that plaintiff might have "some cognitive learning difficulties that will need to be assessed," offered to allow plaintiff to defer her examinations in these classes until spring break, when it "anticipated that the results of neuropsychological testing will be completed prior to that time so that any further accommodations can be put into place."

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Plaintiff was advised that if she did not pass the course, a recommendation to drop her from registration would be forwarded to the Executive Committee "as students are allowed to repeat a course or sequence only once." Plaintiff retook Anatomy 500 in the fall of 1998.

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In the spring of 1998, plaintiff was granted a leave of absence in order to address what appeared to be a visual impairment. Plaintiff was subsequently diagnosed as having an "instability of the muscle of the ocular muscles of accommodation," a condition that caused her to have difficulty focusing and refocusing her eyes.2 The BSARB granted plaintiff a further deferment of her examinations to ensure that she was not required to take them until she had time to deal with her visual difficulties. When plaintiff returned to the school in the fall of 1998, she was required to take two of the examinations she had deferred during her first year. Before taking these exams, plaintiff requested that the BSARB remove her grades of "Incomplete" in Embryology and MCB 501 and permit her to retake those two courses entirely in lieu of sitting for those examinations. She noted that, because her grades in those courses were so low prior to the examinations, she would have to "earn scores in the upper 80 and 90%" in order to pass the courses. She stated that she had not been able to "assimilate fully the information" presented in those courses due to the effect of depression on her "cognitive functions." In response, Dr. Rachel Glick, the Associate Dean for Student Programs, informed plaintiff that the BSARB lacked the authority to remove grades from her transcript and that, pursuant to school policy, she was required to take her deferred examinations within three months after her return from leave. Glick informed plaintiff that she had two options under the school's policies: she could sit for her examinations within the required timeframe or she could accept grades of Withdraw/Fail for her spring 1998 courses and retake the courses. If she failed both examinations or chose to accept the W/F grades, she would be placed on Academic Warning +2 status

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Michigan Law