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    Minnesota

    Mitchell Hamline School of Law (St. Paul)

    Contact/ Disability Resource Center

    Disability Services

    Using a social justice model, the Office of Disability Services seeks to ensure equal access while creating an inclusive, barrier free campus community and universally designed learning environment. Mitchell Hamline School of Law is committed to ensuring equal access to educational opportunities, programs, and services for all qualified students in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and does not discriminate on basis of disability in the administration of its education-related programs.

    875 Summit Avenue
    St. Paul, MN 55105

    Phone: (651) 695-7700 | (888) 962-5229
    Fax: (651) 290-7538
    Email: [email protected]

    Courses

    Mental Health and the Law

    Mental health diagnoses impact the daily lives of many young people and adults in the United States. This course will engage in a survey of legal issues that impact the rights of people with mental health diagnoses including civil commitment, police response to mental health crisis, competency in criminal court, discrimination and reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), and competency in immigration court. This course will apply the lessons of the Disability Justice movement in the United States by contextualizing the practice of law within intersecting systems of power and oppression including race, age, gender, national origin, and sexuality. This course will also contextualize these legal issues within current events including the isolation and disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic; the reckoning of the impact of police violence on the lives of Black people and people of color; and movements to limit conversion treatment for LGBTQIA+ individuals.

    Mental Health Law Seminar

    Covers the nature of mental illness, intellectual disabilities, and other mental disabilities; the provision of treatment and services for mental disabilities: financing, regulation, and administration; involuntary hospitalization and treatment; the right to treatment and services; incompetence and substitute decision-making mechanisms; informed consent; confidentiality, privacy, privilege and the duty to warn; mental disability and the criminal justice system; lawyering and mental disabilities; ethical and practical issues; sexually violent predator civil commitment laws; international human rights norms. This course will be co-taught by a forensic psychiatrist.

    Health Services and Wellness

    Counseling Services

    Wellness | Dean of Students

    University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minneapolis)

    Contact/ Disability Resource Center

    Disability Services

    The mission of Disability Resources at the University of St. Thomas is to make reasonable effort to provide all qualified students with disabilities equal access to all university courses, services, programs, employment and facilities. Our goal is to enable students with disabilities to maximize their educational potential and to develop their independence and self-advocacy skills to the fullest extent possible within the university curriculum.

    Mailing Address:

    Attn: Kimberly J. Schumann
    MHC 110
    2115 Summit Avenue Mail 4016
    Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105

    Phone: (651) 962-6315
    Email: [email protected]

    Clinics

    Special Education Clinic

    The Special Education Clinic provides pro bono assistance to the families of elementary and secondary students who have been identified as qualifying for special education services pursuant to an individualized education program (IEP). Students gain an understanding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in order to apply it when reviewing IEPs and advising clients. Clients are referred to the clinic through community partners, and not through self-referrals.

    Courses

    Disability Law

    the course explroes the legal protections afforded to persons with disabilities. Through a focus on the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, Rehabilitation Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, student examine the rights of individuals with disabilities in education, public accommodations, government programs, and the workplace.

    Employment Discrimination

    This course will examine the federal laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Equal Pay Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Students will learn about basic requirements for proving discrimination, by both overtly discriminatory employment policies and facially neutral rules with a discriminatory impact. Topics also will include affirmative action, pregnancy in the workplace, sexual harassment and reasonable accommodation under the A.D.A.

    Health Services and Wellness

    Health and Well-Being | School of Law | University of St. Thomas
     

    University of Minnesota Law School (Minneapolis)

    Contact/ Disability Resource Center

    Disability Resource Center

    The University of Minnesota values diverse identities and experiences, and honors disability as an important aspect of human diversity. The DRC partners with students, faculty, staff, and guests of the University to facilitate accessibility and reduce barriers on campus to improve access for disabled people through:

    • Consulting on strategies to provide access and inclusion;
    • Determining and implementing reasonable academic, workplace, and guest accommodations;
    • Partnering with University offices to support meaningful physical and technological access.

    Phone: (612) 626-1333
    Fax (612) 626-9652
    Email: [email protected]

    Field Placements / Externships

    The Law School offers a variety of supervised field placements with nonprofit organizations, government agencies, corporations, and law firms. The Law School also offers the full-time Remote Semester Program and the full-time, year-long Saeks Public Interest Residency Program. Organizations hosting field placements that commonly work in disability law include: Central Minnesota Legal Services, Mid Minnesota Legal Aid, Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Minnesota Department of Human Rights, the Minnesota Disability Law Center, and the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

    Courses

    Disability Law

    This class explores legal issues relating to physical and mental disabilities in the contexts of employment, governmental services, public accommodations, and education.  The principal regulatory focus is on the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Legal issues under that statute include determining who is disabled, proving discrimination, and the concepts of reasonable accommodation and undue hardship.  Other statutes covered include the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

    Employment Discrimination

    This course considers the principal statutory and constitutional prohibitions on employment discrimination. It focuses most prominently on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." The course considers the basic frameworks for proving discrimination under Title VII and the jurisprudence defining Title VII's protected classes. The course also investigates newer Title VII fields, such as the law of sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. Using Title VII as a basis for comparison, the course then examines the constitutional law of employment discrimination, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), and various state and local statutes addressing emerging issues in employment discrimination law, such as employment discrimination based on weight or attractiveness.

    Health Services and Wellness

    Wellness & Wellbeing