Introduction
In the analysis of this paper, we will be bringing into perspective the sensitive issue of admission. This will unveil serious dimensions that must be brought into focus as in the case of Green Mountain University. This paper looks at an analysis into the admission decisions that were carried out in Green Mountain University.
The decision was that two students were not admitted to join the university based on their being handicapped. One of the students, John, was blinded due to an auto accident that took place in his junior year of high school.
The other student, Bob, had been blind right from birth. Looking into the situation, the two students managed to be admitted in other schools and graduated with a degree in history and biology respectively.
John met the qualified standard
By the very fact that John graduated with a degree in History, it means that he met the qualified standard. This could mean that the admission process in the Green Mountain University was not done conclusively.
The student had fulfilled the admission requirements and the only thing in question was perhaps the aspect of the student being blind. According to Kneller (1964), a learner should be accorded the rightful duty of pursuing education and the ability to join an institution so long as he is capable of meeting the instructional requirements.
The Green Mountain University is seen to defy this aspect. It does not consider that John can be able to receive instructions inspite of his blindedness and does not provide learning options that cater for this kind of challenge. This is indeed discriminative.
Bob met the otherwise qualified standard
Based on the fact that Bob was blind right from birth; it shows that he was capable since his adaptability rate was good. He was able to weather the hostile condition in which he found himself and to excel in the field of bilogy.It is to be admitted that it is not easy to pursue and excel in the field of biology without the proper competencies as biology is very involving both in theory and practice.
I base this on long term life experience. In the end he managed to graduate as well in the field of biology. Additionally, his leadership roles in his school of admission show that he was serious and more accommodative with his surrounding environment and society at large.
Justification in Admission Decisions
The admissions unit in the Green Mountain University carried out enrolment but denied admission of two students based on their disabilities (Kneller, 1964). It is important to note that they may have lacked the right facilities to cater for the disabled. It is however crucial to realize that if that was the case, thus it was an opportunity to expand study probabilities so as to be more accommodative.
The Green Mountain University should have seen this as a challenge and addressed it promptly. Some of the options it should have explored would be to look for funding to buy the right facilities and to pay staff that would be specifically trained to handle students that are visually challenged.
The aspect of merging the two students with others in the learning process is also another dimension that should have been looked at closely. The two students are in principle not supposed to be isolated from the rest in the learning process. Isolating them would stigmatize them and this is also another form of discrimination.
Conclusion
According to Kaplin and Lee (2007), there are two federal laws that is, the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disability Act. The two acts strongly forbid discrimination based on disability. In line with this, it means that admission policies should not be discriminatory in term of characteristics like sex, age, citizenship, disability among others.
The two students were disabled but that did not mean that they were unfit to join the university. Green Mountain University thus needed to have a concrete reason for refusal of admission. The acts can only provide provisions for denial of admission based on very technical criteria.
These criteria can be based on the fact the degree of the challenge is beyond the capacity that modern equipments meant to facilitate learning for the specific challenges can handle. In this way the cases of John and Bob do not fall into that kind of category because the two applicants had already demonstrated a history of academic excellence in history and biology respectively.
The selection process of student admission into educational facilities ought to be arbitrarily and capriciously done with extreme caution so as to avoid scenarios of discrimination like in the above cases.
As Velez (2009) believes, everybody including the learning institutions is liable to each other. This thus means that all stakeholders should be considered and informed decisions should be made based on equality and understanding.
It is therefore imperative that educational institutions should brace themselves to meet the educational challenges that come their way as far as provision of educational opportunities for all is concerned. The physically challenged like Bob and John ought to be given these learning opportunities in all institutions of learning of which the Green Mountain University is not an exception.
References
Kaplin, W. A., & Lee, B. A. (2007). The law of higher education, student version. San Francisco, USA: Jossey-Bass.
Kneller, G. (1964). Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Velez, K. P. (2009). Are you Personally Liable? What Student Affairs Professionals Should Know. USA: Western Kentucky University.