Slow-typing alum sues law school - Campus Life:

An alum is suing the University Law School because he believes its grading policies discriminate against slow typists.

Adrian Zachariasewycz claims the Law School's grading policy is unfair to slow typists because students who can type more words per minute can write more during timed exams.

Zachariasewycz filed the complaint in a Delaware court in November.

"It's an incredibly obvious claim," he said.

In the complaint, Zachariasewycz says the exams are more of a test of typing skills than understanding of the material.

...

Zachariasewycz said his handwritten papers and multiple-choice exams were an accurate reflection of his grade - but that his typed exams lowered his grade point average significantly.

Because of his poor grades, he is unable to find a job in the legal field, he said.

"It was wrecking my life - it still is," he said.

He claims he was not aware of the cause of his poor performance on these exams until after graduation, when was unable to find a job.

While Zachariasewycz admits that he has not compared his grades with other law students, he said he is confident that the same discrepancy between typed exams and handwritten papers will also be seen in other students' grades.

The suit says that the school failed to notify him that a minimum typing speed was necessary for success, and that they did not compensate for anyone who might be deficient in this area.

So, law student gets poor grades. Law student can't get job. Law student, after-the-fact, decides to sue for some bizarre rationale. What exactly was he doing during his three years of law school to figure out why his grades were so bad? Could he really not get his head around this typing thing possibly having an impact?

Of course, I disagree that typing speed is an inherent advantage. I type fairly quickly, 100-110 WPM on my PowerBook, and around 85 WPM on my ego keboard (see here, here, or here.) I may be faster on the Kinesis now; I haven't taking a typing test in a long time, and in the nearly three years I've been using the Kinesis at work and at home, I've gotten pretty used to it.

Has fast typing saved me? No. Two of my 3 lowest grades in law school came on typed exams with no multiple choice or otherwise handwritten component. In spite of my regular rants about hating multiple choice components in exams, I don't believe I've ever gotten lower than an A- on a timed exam that had a multiple choice component. On the other hand, I have received grades lower than A- on exams that were strictly essay exams or otherwise typed-answer exams, despite the fact that I type faster than the vast majority of my classmates. Finally, I know lots of folks who have done better than I who are slower typists.

Of course, none of this should be news to someone who went to law school. It's not always the amount of content you can get into an exam that is important; it's getting what the professors want to see into the exam that is important. I can spew and spew and spew, and it won't benefit me one bit if it's not something the professor has deemed worthy of points. Hit the high points while going more slowly, and it would be easy and very doable to do better.

(Via .)