OPINION: Noah Werksman noticed an anomaly and wanted the school to take a look – it hauled him in for questioning instead
Pepperdine’s law school will not investigate allegations of students abusing disability accommodations.
However, they are more than willing to question students who question the widespread use of accommodations, according to the Wall Street Journal.
When Noah Werksman noticed about half of his class missed an important and difficult exam, he started getting suspicious.
After all, grades can make or break financial aid and play a pivotal role in being hired by the law review and getting the first job out of college.
He learned many of his classmates receive disability accommodations, a practice which is widespread, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal.
But Werksman soon found himself accused of “bullying” after he and a classmate began a petition in January 2024 to ask the school to “examine its accommodations protocols.” The request is aligned with the school’s written promise to promote “discourse and debate” and “the pursuit of truth.”
Some students did not like his advocacy however and filed a report with the law school. The student asked the school to “investigate whether this constitutes constant bullying and harassment for students with accommodations.”
As WSJ reports:
Six weeks later Mr. Werksman was summoned to a meeting with Pepperdine’s assistant dean of students: “He tells me that there are allegations against me that I’ve been bullying specially accommodated students, that I’ve been stalking and harassing them outside of their classrooms, that I’m creating a hostile environment for them on campus, and that if my behavior were to continue, the hammer would come down on me.”
The bullying succeeded in getting him to drop his petition. However, data generally supports his concerns – at least enough to warrant further investigation.
“The Law School Admissions Council reports that only 12% of first-year law students nationwide said they had a mental or physical disability in 2023, suggesting that many students who don’t need accommodations are using them to get a leg up,” WSJ reported. “The California Bar Exam’s accommodations rate, by contrast, is around 7%.”
Some of Werksman’s peers do probably have legitimate disabilities. It is also possible Pepperdine, for some reason, might have a higher rate of students with disabilities than the average.
But then the number of absences Werksman sees should have remained relatively stable. It did not.
“There were students who learned about the lenient standards after the first semester, and who saw how many of their classmates were receiving extra hours on exams,” Werksman told WSJ. “We didn’t see them again in our exam rooms, because they went ahead to get the same accommodations for themselves.”
The assistant dean of students should read his own school’s mission statement again (or possibly for the first time).
The school’s “commitment to intellectual diversity” includes pursuing “the truth fearlessly” and being “equipped to confront and consider differing viewpoints and arguments.”
Werksman’s peer who reported him and the dean have not reached this goal yet. When confronted with “differing viewpoints and arguments” they did not raise scholarly objections or ask for further proof for his point. They accused him of bullying.
“We seek to build an academic and scholarly community in which this sort of vibrant, wide-ranging discourse is conducted in a spirit of unity and love—one that respects the dignity and diverse viewpoints of each person,” the law school promises.
“Vibrant” and “wide-ranging discourse” should include requests to investigate what might be cheating the system.
It is very possible that Pepperdine, upon investigation, would find there is no cheating and they just have a higher rate of students with disabilities than other schools. But we will never know this because the school is not actually committed to pursuing the truth and open debate – as Noah Werksman can tell you.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Students take an exam; Andy Barbour/Pexels