The Faculty Lounge

Raizel Liebler & Gregory Cunningham on the ADA and the University Academic Library

Raizel Liebler (Instructor of Law & Faculty Scholarship Librarian) and Gregory Cunningham (Instructor of Law & Associate Director for Access & Organization) at UIC John Marshall Law School, University of Illinois at Chicago, have posted their article, Can Accessibility Liberate The "Lost Ark" of Scholarly Work?: University Library Institutional Repositories Are "Places of Public Accommodation”, 52 UIC J. Marshall L. Rev. 327 (2019). Here is the abstract:

For any body of knowledge – an ark of power or a corpus of scholarship – to be studied and used by people, it needs to be accessible to those seeking information. Universities, through their libraries, now aim to make more of the scholarship produced available for free to all through institutional repositories. However, the goal of being truly open for an institutional repository is more than the traditional definition of open access. It also means openness in a more general sense. Creating a scholarship-based online space also needs to take into consideration potential barriers for people with disabilities. This article addresses the interaction between the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and university academic library based institutional repositories. This article concludes that institutional repositories have an obligation to comply with the ADA to make scholarly works available to potential users with disabilities. For managers of institutional repositories, following the law is an opportunity to make scholarship even more widely available. University open access institutional repositories need to be accessible to existing and potential disabled users. However, there are no specific rules that university institutional repositories must follow to be compliant with the ADA’s “public accommodation” standard. Accessibility is a changeable, moveable wall, consistently and constantly needing to be additionally inclusive of more – more technology and more users, regardless of disability or limitations. Institutional repositories should not become the crated Ark of the Covenant with their secrets locked inside; instead, they should be as open as possible to all, sharing the scholarship inside.

The full article is available here.

 

Equality Law Scholars' Forum at UC Davis Tomorrow

The second annual Equality  Law Scholars' Forum kicks off at UC Davis tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to being one of the commentators on a fantastic set of papers. Here are some details:

Second Annual Equality Law Scholars’ Forum

Friday, November 16 – Saturday November 17, 2018

The Forum is designed to provide junior scholars with commentary and critique by their more senior colleagues in the legal academy and, more broadly, to foster development and understanding of new scholarly currents across equality law. 

This year, the Forum will feature six presenters (chosen from over forty submissions):

The New Coverture, Albertina Antognini (Arizona College of Law)

Stealing Education: Protecting Racial Capital in “White” Schools, LaToya Baldwin Clark (UCLA School of Law)

Affirmative Action Misclassification, Jonathan Feingold (UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion)

The Aesthetics of Disability Law, Jasmine Harris (UC Davis School of Law)

Legislating with Tall Tales, Goldburn Maynard (U. of Louisville School of Law)

 Diversity to Deradicalize: A New Theory for How Affirmative Action Became Tied to Intellectual Pluralism, Asad Rahim (American Bar Foundation)

The event is co-organized by Tristin Green, USF Law, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, UC Berkeley Law, and Leticia Saucedo, UC Davis Law. 

Comment and critique will be provided by the following scholars:

Bridget Crawford, Pace Law School

Jonathan Glater, UC Irvine Law School

Tristin Green, USF Law School

Angela Harris, UC Davis Law School

Jill Hasday, U. of Minnesota School of Law

Anthony Infanti, U. of Pittsburgh School of Law

Osamudia James, U. of Miami School of Law

Tom Joo, UC Davis Law School

Courtney Joslin, UC Davis Law School           

Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Boston U. Law School

Kimani Paul-Emile, Fordham U. School of Law

Leticia Saucedo, UC Davis Law School

We will also hold a panel discussion on Producing Scholarship in Equality Law with the following UC Davis Law School panelists participating: Jack Chin, Kevin Johnson, Courtney Joslin, Tom Joo, Lisa Pruitt, and Brian Soucek.

 

The Law School Industry - Veteran Emphasis in US Based Law Schools

This analysis provides an excel based study of how the law school industry approaches military veterans, especially who are students at the school but also more broadly. The title is, Veteran Emphasis in US Oriented Law Schools: Part 1, as we will be continuing with this study to contact every entry to develop a better understanding of current challenges, developing practices, and new innovations (note: you will have to download the document for it to view correctly as in excel format).

The information is organized alphabetically by state, and within each state by law school, and includes website links and contact details. A number of factors were taking into account, including law reviews, clinics and externships, associations and organizations, classes, and other miscellaneous innovations. The 'classes' data is somewhat fuzzy as we did not develop a clear metric about what counted as a veteran oriented class and instead went for classes that would be specifically of a military nature. The 'miscellaneous' factor includes a number of interesting innovations, which might be better located under a different classification but we've situated together - e.g., Yellow Ribbon Programs, Outreach Centers, Recruitment Innovations.

A surface read of the information reveals some potentially interesting takeaways. First, while there are considerable number of 'military' or 'national security' law school courses (approximately 120), there are less than 10 classes specifically addressing veteran law (and only one LLM). Second, there are approximately 30 Veteran clinics at US law schools, and while about 115 organizations, only a little more than 1/2 that are specifically focused on veterans (e.g., many instead are more generalist, such as Military Justice Society). Third, there is a significant need for law journals specifically dedicated to veteran conditions (this is not to say there are not special issues or articles that come up in other contexts or other non-scholarship networks). Fourth, while many states will have law schools that offer some focus on veterans, often the emphasis is a more generalist class or a student society. In fact, a number of states have no emphasis on veterans in regards to any of the dynamics (e.g., Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon). Other states only offer some class, but do not offer any additional emphasis or support (e.g., Indiana). Other states have very strong innovations at play (e.g., California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio). There is so much more to be studied here, but we hope this provides some useful information for those interested to better address veteran considerations. At the very least, there seems to be considerable energy at the student level to create community, which may be a valuable resource for future innovations. The relative lack of clinics and more over explicit information on law school websites suggests that this may be an area for more institutionalized veteran-oriented support, and which might also be a valuable opportunity for building a niche market for student recruitment and career placement.

This part of the study was completed with Mr. James Russell Dumas, and with helpful input from Prof. Evan Seamone, Prof Richard Meyer, and a number of MC School of Law veterans. Moving forward with the studies will be in collaboration with Prof. Evan Seamone.

The Law School Industry - Institutional Considerations for Military Veterans

From movies to policy debates, veterans are a perennial image in the American psyche. At the law school, the most notable presence of the military are recruiting officers (e.g., JAG), and to a lesser extent, student organizations (e.g., student veterans organizations, military justice societies) and the occasional veteran clinic. There is, however, no comprehensive in-depth study of how law schools accommodate veterans or how various institutional platforms operate (in the next few months, I will post an excel-based study mapping all these initiatives at law schools with some brief comments). While researching this topic and speaking with student veteran groups, military personnel and therapists, certain themes have emerged that might provide law school administrations with some guide for developing 'best practices' towards students serving or having served in the military. 

The core challenge seems to be that there tends to be a lack of awareness by law school admission offices about the psychological and social challenges that veterans face, in civilian life or at school in particular. Below is a brief list of some common blind spots and potential reforms.

Report of "Best Practices" Panel on Steps LSAC Must Take on Testing Accommodations

Back in May, the Law School Admission Council entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice settling the federal ADA case brought against the LSAC on account of certain of its practices concerning test-takers seeking accommodations.  See ABA Journal coverage of that case here.  Under the Consent Decree in that case, the LSAC is required to implement the best practices established by a panel of agreed-upon experts.  That panel has now issued its report (copy here), and LSAC has until February 26 to notify the court of any objections to these recommendations. 

Four of the five members of the panel have posted  an "Executive Summary" of the report (copy here). It includes this statement:

The Panel concludes that LSAC's documentation requirements were excessive for most candidates who seek testing accommodations on the LSAT and inconsistent with the documentation guidelines of other national testing entities.  Further the Panel concluded that LSAC provides no guidance to its outside consultants who might be hired to assist with a review of a candidate's file.  The Panel also concluded that LSAC has rejected requests for testing accommodations even in cases where there is a clear history of the existence of a disability and the provision of prior testing accommodations.

The best practices panel includes Professor Ruth Colker (Ohio State).

LSAC Settles Lawsuit Over LSAT Disability Issues

LSAC settled, yesterday, with plaintiffs who alleged that the organization failed to properly accomodate test takers with disabilities and that it discriminated against test takers with disabilities by specially noting test scores achieved by a person with a disability accomodation.  Details are here.

Law Professors, Law Students and Depression . . . Coming Out (Part 3)

At long last, we have arrived at the third and final post of my “Coming Out Trilogy.” 

As promised, I want to focus this post on the role my struggles with depression and anxiety have played and continue to play in my interactions with my students, both in and out of the classroom.    

My prior posts have covered the bleak statistics regarding depression and suicide rates among lawyers (nearly four times more likely to be depressed and six times more likely to commit suicide than the general public).  Further, I also mentioned that many of our students are suffering from depression (32% by second semester first year and 40% by graduation).  Although I have not found any specific data to support it, my guess is that an equal or (more likely) higher percentage of our students are also suffering from significant levels of anxiety. 

In short, a third or more of our students are struggling with mental illnesses that are exacerbated (or triggered or caused or whatever word you most prefer) by the significant stresses of law school (and the various issues surrounding it, including -- to be frank – the cost, debt loads, and job prospects).*  According to the research, if a person suffers a single incident of clinical depression, he has a 50% chance of experiencing another even if he takes antidepressant medication.  After 3 incidents, there is a 90% chance of recurrance.**  [I, for example, had my first (undiagnosed) bout of clinical depression in college and my first bout of anxiety (diagnosed) my first year of law school.]  So, there is a very good chance that the depressed law students of today will be the depressed lawyers of tomorrow. 

Our students need help to better understand the challenges of the profession they are entering:  the potential for dissatisfaction, disillusionment, mental illness (including depression, anxiety and substance abuse), burnout, and more.  When I left practice and started teaching, I promised myself that I would be open and honest with my students about my struggles and about the realities of law practice. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love the Law and there were many, many aspects of practicing law that I loved (and at which I excelled).  There were also aspects that I did not love (and tried my best to tolerate, sometimes less than successfully).  I know, without reservation or qualification, that being a lawyer can be a highly rewarding career: emotionally, intellectually, and financially.  If I was not honest with my students about the challenges of being a lawyer, however, I would be doing them a disservice. 

Further, in my view, knowledge is power.  With knowledge of the challenges and some of their causes, I figure my students will be better equipped to meet and overcome them. 

In raising these issues with my students my basic goals are as follows: (1) to help destroy – via openness, honesty, and shamelessness – the very real stigma associated with mental illness in general and depression and anxiety in particular; (2) to make sure my students know that if they are struggling with depression or anxiety, they are not alone (even if they feel that way) and that there is no reason in the world for these illnesses to hold them back in any way; (3) to offer myself as a resource for any among them that are struggling; (4) to educate them about the challenges of practicing law; (5) to get them thinking about why they are in law school and what they want their lives in the law to be like (or if they even want a life in the law); and (6) to get them thinking, critically and proactively, about the different career paths, options, settings, locales and such available to those with law degrees, all of which can have a significant impact on their personal well-being.

So, what do I do?  I talk openly and honestly about my struggles and experiences and I do so in class (in first year Civil Procedure).  (Thanks to this series of posts, I now know I am not the only law professor in America who does this.  Nancy Rapoport at UNLV does the same in her Contracts classes and there are, hopefully, others out there that do something similar.) 

Of course, I do not do this on the first day of class.  I am not that crazy. 

 

Law Professors, Law Students and Depression . . . A Story of Coming Out (Part 2)

In Part I of this little series, I laid out some of the statistics regarding the scope of the problem of depression and anxiety among lawyers and law students.  Before I tell my story, I want to spend a little time talking about why these diseases are so prevalent among lawyers.    

One of the more eloquent “whys” for the high incidence of depression among lawyers was contained in an opinion piece by Patrick Krill (a lawyer, clinician and board-certified counselor) that accompanied the CNN article on lawyer suicides.  As Patrick put it, “lawyers are both the guardians of your most precious liberties and the butts of your harshest jokes[; i]nhabiting the unique role of both hero and villain in our cultural imagination….”  Patrick explained that the high incidence of depression (and substance abuse, which is another huge problem) was due to a number of factors but that “the rampant, multidimensional stress of the profession is certainly a factor.”  Further, “there are also some personality traits common among lawyers — self-reliance, ambition, perfectionism and competitiveness -- that aren't always consistent with healthy coping skills and the type of emotional elasticity necessary to endure the unrelenting pressures and unexpected disappointments that a career in the law can bring.” 

Patrick’s discussion of this issue really stuck a cord with me.  Practicing law is hard.  The law part is not that hard (that was the fun part for me), but the business side of law is a bear.  Finding clients, billing time, and collecting money, are just a few aspects of the business of law of which I was not a big fan.  Keeping tasks and deadlines in dozens (or hundreds) of cases straight and getting everything done well and on time is a constant challenge.  The fear of letting one of those balls drop can be terrifying, especially for the type A perfectionist who is always terrified of making a mistake or doing a less than perfect job.  Forget work-life balance.  Forget vacations.  Every day out of the office is another day you are behind. 

Plus, as a lawyer (and especially as a litigator), no matter how good a job you do, sometimes you lose.  That inevitable loss is made worse by the emotion that the lawyer often takes on from his or her client.  Almost no client is excited to call her lawyer.  Clients only call, of course, when they have problems.  Those problems can range from the mild (for example, a traffic ticket) to the profound (like a capital murder charge).  But whatever the problem, the client is counting on the lawyer to fix it.  Every lawyer I know takes that expectation and responsibility very seriously.  As much as you try not to get emotionally invested in your client’s case or problem, you often do.  When that happens, losing hurts.  Letting your client down hurts.  This pain leads to reliving the case and thinking about all of the things you could have done better.  This then leads to increased vigilance in the next case.  While this is not necessarily a bad thing, for some lawyers this leads to a constant fear of making mistakes, then a constant spike of stress hormones that, eventually, wear the lawyer down.  The impact of this constant bombardment of stress hormones can be to trigger a change in brain chemistry that, over time, leads to major depression.    

Depression is a subtle and insidious disease.  By the time you are sick enough to recognize that you have a problem, your ability to engage in accurate self-evaluation is significantly impaired.  It is a strange thing to know, deep down, that something is wrong with you but to not be able to recognize the massive changes in yourself.  Helping yourself at that point is often impossible.  Unfortunately, those suffering from depression become expert actors who are extremely adept at hiding their problems and building a façade of normalcy.  Eventually, it takes all of your energy to maintain this façade.  The façade becomes the only thing there is.   

Depression is not a character flaw.  It is not a weakness.  It is not a moral failing.  You cannot “just get over it.”  No amount of will-power, determination or intestinal fortitude will cure it.  Depression is a disease caused (in very basic and general terms) by an imbalance and/or insufficiency of two neurotransmitters in the brain: serotonin and norepinephrine.  In this way, it is biologically similar to diabetes, which is caused by the insufficiency of insulin in the body.  As a disease, depression can be treated – and treated very effectively.  But it takes time and it takes help – personal help and professional help.

And now we get to the personal part.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Law Professors, Law Students and Depression . . . A Story of Coming Out (Part 1)

Back in January, CNN ran a piece entitled “Why Are Lawyers Killing Themselves.”  In general, the piece focused on a spate of lawyer suicides in Kentucky and other states over the last several years.  Most of the suicides (15 since 2010) in Kentucky were seemingly successful lawyers.  One was a relatively young (37) and popular adjunct professor at NKU’s Chase College of Law. 

Outside of Kentucky, another prominent lawyer suicide was Mark Levy, the chair of Kilpatrick Stockton’s Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Practice in D.C.  Mr. Levy was a top Supreme Court advocate, having argued 16 times before the Court and, in January 2009, won a 9-0 victory for DuPont in an important ERISA case (Kennedy v. Plan Administrator, 555 U.S. 285 (2009)).  However, in April 2009, as the economy tanked, Kilpatrick Stockton informed Mr. Levy that his services were no longer needed.  So, Mr. Levy came to work on April 30, 2009, sat down at his desk, activated the “out of office” auto-reply feature on his email account and shot himself in the head.  Chillingly, the “out of office” message Mr. Levy activated that morning was as follows:  “As of April 30, 2009, I can no longer be reached. If your message relates to a firm matter, please contact my secretary. If it concerns a personal matter, please contact my wife.”  (See Richard B. Schmitt, “A Death in the Office,” ABA Journal, Nov. 2009, at 30-31). 

Here in North Carolina, one of the founders of King & Spalding’s Charlotte office, who was profoundly successful; a prominent litigator in McGuireWood’s Raleigh, N.C. office; and numerous quietly successful small town lawyers have committed suicide in recent years.

The common thread running through most of these suicides?  Clinical Depression (a/k/a “major depressive disorder”). 

According to the American Psychiatric Association and numerous other sources, depression is the most likely trigger for suicide.  Lawyers, as a group, are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression than the average person.  Of 104 occupations, lawyers were the most likely to suffer depression.  (Both of these statistics are from a Johns Hopkins University study to which I cannot find a link). 

Further, according to a two-year study completed in 1997, suicide accounted for 10.8% of all deaths among lawyers in the United States and Canada and was the third leading cause of death.  Of more importance was the suicide rate among lawyers, which was 69.3 suicide deaths per 100,000 individuals, as compared to 10 to 14 suicide deaths per 100,000 individuals in the general population.  In short, the rate of death by suicide for lawyers was nearly six times the suicide rate in the general population.  

A quality of life survey by the North Carolina Bar Association in the early 1990s, revealed that almost 26% of respondents exhibited symptoms of clinical depression, and almost 12% said they contemplated suicide at least once a month.  Studies in other states have found similar results.  In recent years, several states have been averaging one lawyer suicide a month. 

What is worse is the state of our students.  According to a study by Prof. Andy Benjamin (U. Wash.), by the spring of their 1L year, 32% of law students are clinically depressed, despite being no more depressed than the general public (about 8%) when they entered law school.  By graduation, this number had risen to 40%.  While this percentage dropped to 17% two years after graduation, the rate of depression was still double that of the general public.  (See http://www.lawyerswithdepression.com/law-school-depression/). 

These statistics, which likely have not improved in recent years, are terrifying.

In the months since CNN ran its story, I have (unsuccessfully) tried to shake the feeling that we (as lawyers, law professors and the mentors of a generation of law students) missed out on a valuable opportunity to more fully address an issue that is critical to the legal profession.  So, when the opportunity to post here came along, I decided to revisit this issue and to do so in a personal way. 

I will admit to being a bit nervous about even raising this topic.  (Given the nature of many anonymous internet commenters, I think most people would be hesitant to bare even a minute portion of their souls online and attempt to engage with a very serious subject, only to be subject to snarky or mean-spirited attacks.)  Plus, mental illness and suicide are not comfortable subjects for most people.  There remains a very real stigma attached to mental illness.  Many people believe that suffering from clinical depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, or a host of other mental illnesses is a character flaw or a weakness.  Having one of these diseases has been seen as something of which the sufferer should be ashamed.  This attitude has been in place for too long for people to easily change their perceptions and opinions. 

However, as lawyers and law professors, we must to do more.  It is clear that our students need us to do more.  When you are depressed, you feel so terribly alone.  You feel different.  You feel ashamed.  You feel weak.  You feel like you will never feel better and that you can never be the person you want to be. 

If 40% of our students feel this way, we must do more.  They look up to us.  They see us as role models and mentors.  They see us as strong and successful and confident.  They need to see that suffering from depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder will not curse them for all time and destroy their lives.  These are treatable diseases, not character flaws.  They need us to be brave and be honest. 

A few law professors have publically “come out” (so to speak) about their struggles with mental illnesses: Prof. Elyn Saks at Southern Cal (schizophrenia, via The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (2007)); Prof. Lisa McElroy at Drexel (anxiety disorder, via an article on Slate); and Prof. James Jones at Louisville (bipolar disorder, via an article in Journal of Legal Ed.).  They were all tenured when they did so.  

And then there is me: an untenured, assistant professor with five kids, who left a generally successful practice career to teach at Charlotte School of Law.  So, anonymous internet commentators be damned . . .

My name is Brian Clarke.  I am a father, a husband, a lawyer and a law professor.  And I suffer from major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. 

So there you have it.  While I have been “out” at Charlotte Law and have spoken publicly about my disease, this is the most wide-open forum in which I have come out. 

In my next post, I will share my story (a piece of public soul baring that you should not miss!).  In the third (and mercifully final) post in this little serial adventure, I will discuss the role my struggles with depression and anxiety have played (and continue to play) in the classroom. 

[FYI, as this is a serious topic, I will moderate any comments to this post and delete anything I deem inappropriate or off topic.]

Would Marlise Munoz's Fetus Have Survived? Should It Have?

This is post is part of The Bioethics Program’s ongoing Online Symposium on the Munoz and McMath cases, which I've organized, and is cross-posted from the symposium. To see all symposium contributions, in reverse chronological order, click here.

Had the hospital not relented and removed the ventilator from Marlise Munoz's body, could the Munoz fetus have been brought to term, or at least to viability? And if so, would the resulting child have experienced any temporary or permanent adverse health outcomes? Despite some overly confident commentary on both "sides" of this case suggesting a clear answer one way or the other—i.e., that there was no point in retaining the ventilator because the fetus could never be viable or was doomed to be born with catastrophic abnormalities; or, on the other hand, that but for the removal of the ventilator, the "unborn baby" was clearly on track to being born healthy—the truth is that we simply don't know.

Before getting into the limited available data about fetal outcomes in these relatively rare cases, a bit of brush clearing. The New York Times juxtaposed reports about possible abnormalities in the Munoz fetus with the hospital's stipulation about the fetus's non-viability in ways that are likely to confuse, rather than clarify:

Lawyers for Ms. Muñoz’s husband, Erick Muñoz, said they were provided with medical records that showed the fetus was “distinctly abnormal” and suffered from hydrocephalus — an accumulation of fluid in the cavities of the brain — as well as a possible heart problem.

The hospital acknowledged in court documents that the fetus was not viable.

Whether intentionally or not, the nation's newspaper of record implies — wrongly, I think — that the hospital conceded that the fetus would never be viable because of these reported abnormalities. In court, the hospital and Erick Munoz stipulated to a series of facts, including that Marlise was then 22 weeks pregnant and that "[a]t the time of this hearing, the fetus gestating inside Mrs. Munoz is not viable" (emphasis added). The hospital conceded nothing at all about any fetal abnormalities. In short, the Times, and many other commentors, have conflated "non-viability" as a function of gestational age with "non-viability" as a way of characterizing disabilities that are incompatible with life. As I read this stipulation, the hospital was not at all conceding that the fetus would never have been viable, had the ventilator remained in place. Rather, given the constitutional relevance of fetal viability, the hospital was merely conceding the banal scientific fact that the Munoz fetus was, at 22 weeks, not currently viable. There is nothing surprising in the least about the hospital's "concession" about "viability" in the first sense, above: 22-week fetuses are generally not considered viable.

Judge Gould on overcoming obstacles

Here's an inspiring video about the Ninth Circuit judge I clerked for, the Honorable Ronald M. Gould.   He was a great judge to work for, and this is both a wonderful testament to his strength and perseverance in the face of MS and a reminder of how much each of us can accomplish.  

In Memoriam: Adrienne Asch

I'm sorry to report that Adrienne Asch, director of the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University and the Edward and Robin Milstein Professor of Bioethics, died yesterday of cancer. A social psychologist by training (but no relation to Solomon Asch), Professor Asch's scholarly focus was the ethical, legal, and social implications of human reproduction, especially as it intersects with disability studies. An interdisciplinary scholar (as most bioethicists are), she taught courses at Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Cardozo School of Law, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

I didn't always agree wth Adrienne, but she was an important scholar. As Sam Bagenstos noted, her death is "a huge loss for the disability world." Among other things, she challenged pro-choice scholars and activists to rethink the implications of some of their policies and theories for people with disabilities in present and future generations. Here is one example of many.

Adrienne was also a lovely person. Some years ago, I picked her up from Wellesley (where she then taught) and drove her to Dartmouth (where I was a college senior) for a brief visit. It was, from start to finish, an epic fail on my part. In my defense, her assistant gave me terrible directions, I was then unfamiliar with the joy that is Boston rush "hour" traffic (including the fact that it begins at 3pm and lasts until 7pm), and this was before either cell phones or GPS. Nevertheless, what was supposed to be a three-hour drive that left time for her to change clothes at the hotel before her first talk became a four-hour tour during which I grew increasingly anxious about the prospects of getting her to the church on time, as it were. Adrienne was blind (hence my driving her), and this raised the additional issue of what to tell her, and when, about our travels. Ever the intellectual and mentor, as soon as she got into the car, she wanted to hear about the honors thesis I was writing. Alas, I turned out to be utterly incapable of navigating Boston's traffic and discussing French existentialism at the same time, and soon we were hopelessly lost. I stopped at a gas station for directions (remember when you had to do that?), but by then we had hit rush hour traffic. We finally reached the highway and I managed to make up some time. As we discussed all manner of topics bioethical, I did the math and figured that if I, ahem, flirted with the speed limit, I could just have her to her talk on time.

The New Hampshire state police were not accommodating of this plan, however. Mere yards from our final exit I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror. Feeling the car slowing down as I pulled over, Adrienne asked brightly, "Oh, are we there?" Mortified, I told her that no, in fact, I was being pulled over for speeding and that we would now certainly be at least a few minutes late for her talk. She would have been well within her rights to be furious with me, but was instead remarkably understanding. (The administrative director of Dartmouth's Ethics Institute, by contrast, chided me for acting unethically by speeding.) Here's a great interview with Adrienne that captures some of her personality, as well as her views about disability and her experiences living with a disability.

Yeshiva University's notice of Adrienne's death, along with funeral and shiva details, is here. Tributes are being collected here. She will be missed.

[Cross-posted at Bill of Health]

Disability Out Of The Closet: A Law Professor Writes About Her Mental Illness

My colleague at Drexel, Lisa McElroy,  has a pretty powerful piece up at Slate today entitled Worrying Enormously About Small Things.  In it, she describes her long-term battle with a severe anxiety disorder - from her sophomore year in college through her receipt of tenure last month.  Despite the efforts of high-profile folks like Tipper Gore, mental illness too often remains a taboo topic, relegating those who have it to a very lonely closet.  I appreciate Lisa's openess; it's an important contribution in the ongoing struggle to sustain a safe space for conversations about mental illness.