## Facts

- Steven Wynne enrolled at Tufts University School of Medicine and repeatedly failed multiple first-year courses under the school’s academic rules.
- During his academic difficulties, Wynne was evaluated and diagnosed with a learning disability (dyslexia or a related information-processing deficit).
- Tufts allowed Wynne to repeat the first-year curriculum and provided assistance such as tutoring, counseling, and note-taking support.
- Wynne continued to fail multiple courses and was dismissed pursuant to Tufts’s academic regulations.
- Wynne alleged his disability disproportionately impaired performance on written multiple-choice exams and that Tufts refused to provide alternative testing formats (e.g., oral or essay exams) as an accommodation.
- Tufts maintained that multiple-choice examinations were essential to measuring required competencies and that altering the testing method would compromise academic standards.
- Wynne sued under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act; the district court granted summary judgment to Tufts on both claims.

## Issues

1. Under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, what must an academic institution show on summary judgment when it asserts that requested accommodations (changing exam format) are unreasonable or would fundamentally alter essential program requirements, such that the student is not “otherwise qualified”?
2. Whether the school’s academic conditions and conduct toward Wynne constituted “threats, intimidation, or coercion” under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act.

## Decision

- The First Circuit (en banc) vacated summary judgment for Tufts on the § 504 claim and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held Tufts’s summary-judgment record did not adequately show, in a reasoned and evidentiary way, that no reasonable testing accommodation existed or that alternatives had been meaningfully considered.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for Tufts on the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act claim for lack of evidence of threats, intimidation, or coercion.

## Legal Principles

- In § 504 academic-accommodation cases, an institution cannot obtain summary judgment through conclusory assertions that an accommodation would lower standards or fundamentally alter the program.
- To prevail on summary judgment, the institution must produce evidence of a reasoned professional judgment showing it considered feasible alternatives (including cost and impact on the program) and determined that no reasonable accommodation would permit the student to meet essential requirements.
- “Otherwise qualified” under § 504 is assessed by asking whether the student could meet essential program requirements with reasonable accommodation, unless the accommodation would impose undue burden or require a fundamental alteration.
- Academic institutions receive deference on academic judgments, but that deference does not eliminate the obligation to make and document a genuine effort to evaluate reasonable accommodations.
- For liability under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, the plaintiff must show interference with rights by “threats, intimidation, or coercion,” not merely the imposition of academic requirements or conditions.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit required a documented, professionally reasoned basis—beyond general assertions—before a medical school may win summary judgment on a § 504 claim that exam-format accommodations are unreasonable or would fundamentally alter essential standards, and it remanded the federal claim while affirming dismissal of the state civil-rights claim.


Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 932 F.2d 19 (1st Cir. 1991) (en banc)