A judge has overturned the finding of the Equality Authority which held that two dyslexic students, whose Leaving Certificates carried special explanatory notes, had been discriminated against.
Marian Hollingsworth and Kim Cahill had claimed that annotations to their Leaving Certs, showing they had been granted certain privileges during the sitting and marking of exams, labelled them as disabled.
Equality officer Bernadette Treanor had directed the Minister for Education to pay each student €6,000 compensation and issue them with new Leaving Certificates without the relevant notations. The students, now in their early 20s, had sat their exams in 2001 having been granted a waiver in relation to the examiner's assessment of spelling and grammar in language subjects. The Minister for Education appealed the decision of the Equality Authority to the Circuit Civil Court.
The court heard earlier that the girls had sat their exams having been granted a waiver in relation to the examiner's assessment of spelling and grammar.
They had been told that the grades they achieved in any language subject would be accompanied by explanatory notes stating that all parts of the exam in language subjects had been assessed except for spelling, written punctuation elements and some grammatical elements.
The department's decision to grant the girls reasonable accommodation by way of extra time in the exams had been based on the contention that the explanatory notes, flagging they had not been tested in all aspects, was required if the department was to provide a level playing field in exams.
Judge Anthony Hunt, giving a reserved judgment yesterday, said the end user of a certificate, an employer, was entitled to know whether all parts of an exam had been performed by a candidate.
The claimants had suggested that the presence of a notation on their certificate held them open to the possibility of discrimination.
Judge Hunt said he felt the students had taken too negative a view of the possible effect of the notations. Forced disclosure of a disability was a particular feature applicable to dyslexia.
"Many disabled people have no choice as to whether to conceal the existence of their disability because many disabilities have obvious physical manifestations," Judge Hunt said. "Similarly, many forms of accommodation provided for disabled people are public and necessarily advertise that the users are disabled.
"Indeed, some of the accommodations provided by the Department of Education for dyslexic exam candidates are sufficiently public as to put others on notice of the fact that accommodations were in use.
"More importantly, it is necessary in many cases that an employer should be on notice that there may be a difficulty with a job applicant performing some tasks. This is not to permit them to discriminate against the applicant but to put them on notice that supports, allowances and accommodations may be necessary for that particular person," Judge Hunt said.
In a broad sense, while disclosure may be painful for the individual, the education of employers and the general public was best served by disseminating and publicising the nature of dyslexia and how its consequences might best be remedied.
Judge Hunt said a cloak of secrecy only contributed to any lack of understanding there might be about dyslexia.
He endorsed the sentiments of several experts who had given evidence that disclosure was generally beneficial to both the individual, by allowing the disability to be tackled head on and to the public generally by dispelling myths and inaccuracies and promoting an accurate view of dyslexia which was a normal fact of life for some people.
Judge Hunt allowed the appeal and set aside the awards of the equality officer. Judge Hunt's decision can be appealed to the High Court only on a point of law.