Dyslexic woman loses Leaving Cert bias case
A WOMAN with dyslexia has lost her High Court claim that she was discriminated against by the attachment of special annotation to her Leaving Certificate indicating she was not assessed on spelling and certain grammatical elements in language subjects.
Before sitting the Leaving in 2001, Kim Cahill secured a waiver in relation to the examiner’s assessment of spelling and grammar in language subjects. She claimed the annotations or explanatory note on her certificate effectively labelled her as disabled, and she was greatly distressed by this.
The Equality Tribunal had upheld her complaint and directed the Minister for Education to pay compensation of €6,000 to her and to another student, Marian Hollingsworth, who made a similar complaint. It also directed the Minister to issue both students with new Leaving Certificates without the notations.
The Minister for Education appealed the decision to the Circuit Civil Court, which in 2007 upheld the appeal. Ms Cahill then appealed the Circuit Court decision to the High Court but, in a reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Éamon de Valera dismissed her appeal.
IRISH TIMES
Kim Cahill will be heartbroken in about a week, when she finally manages to finish reading the verdict. She wasn’t available for comment yesterday; she had agreed to an interview with the Irish Times but turned up eight hours late, in the wrong city. Meanwhile, Éamon de Valera was clueless last night as to how or why he had been resurrected and installed as a judge. He spent most of yesterday moaning and begging onlookers to hit him with a shovel so that he would be put out of his misery.
This is delicious news. I actually blogged about the case in 2006 saying how ridiculous the initial ruling in their favor was. I got a little bit of flack because of what I said (even some racial abuse). Delighted with the outcome now.
Racial abuse? Charming. They love a bit of that (the angries).
nuts to the pc cronies