University's Accommodation Of Anxiety Disorder

Universities are often challenged by the need to accommodate students with medical conditions. However, the balance between maintaining legitimate academic standards and treating a student fairly by accommodating for medical conditions is sometimes hard to achieve.

In Singh v. University of British Columbia, 2012 CanLII 691 (SCC), a case involving an anxiety disorder and a student's persistent inability to maintain the requisite academic standards, the Supreme Court of Canada recently dismissed with costs an application for leave to appeal from a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal. The University purportedly failed to provide procedural justice to a student who had a history of failing her courses. As the case demonstrates, however, a well publicized accommodation policy, and an Access and Diversity Office dedicated to such issues, provided the university with the basis for defeating accusations of a failure to accommodate.