Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Alabama

Re: University Discriminating Against Student

As to the refusal to provide accommodations, you have to be more specific before I can offer any thoughts. What kind of accommodations did you request? On what basis are you entitled to them? Was the professor capable of granting your request?

The defamation issue is interesting, because you never would have known about it had the registrar not given you this material. There are some things in your record that you aren't entitled to see (confidential letters of reference, for example), and I don't claim to know the exact limits of what you are or are not permitted to examine. You could bring a suit and seek to compel disclosure of these materials but, even if you got them, the question remains as to just how much you have been damaged. If the extent of it is that a few people have made some unkind jokes about you, the case probably won't recoup enough money to make it worthwhile for most lawyers. On the other hand, if it led to the refusal to accommodate a disability as required by the ADA or other laws, you might have a substantial case.

Again, though, I would need more info before I could be of any real help.

(By the way, you mention both Alabama and California in your header; I'm in California and, although there are some Federal laws involved here, different state laws in Alabama and California might lead to a different answer if this happened in Alabama.)