Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., has won a disability discrimination suit by a former Ph.D. student who failed his doctoral candidacy exam and never qualified for readmission to the program.
A federal judge said RPI’s handling of the student “is certainly not a model for other schools” but held that Joseph McInerney didn’t prove the university had denied him an opportunity to participate in its programs and activities.
In 2000, a year before starting the mechanical engineering program, McInerney suffered a brain infection that caused a stroke and permanent brain damage, the decision said. When he enrolled at RPI, he requested disability accommodations, including additional time to take exams.
Once in the program, he had conflicts with his thesis adviser, who found him difficult to work with, and a replacement was named.
During his doctoral candidacy exam in 2003, McInerney didn’t ask for any breaks or tell the examiners that he was suffering from fatigue or other disability-related symptoms. He failed the exam and didn’t resolve the deficiencies or retake it, the decision said.
He took a leave of absence and terminated his relationship with the second adviser.
When McInerney sought to reactivate his student status in 2007, he didn’t propose a new thesis topic as required and declined to work with the only two faculty members with the expertise to supervise his research.
