Being Treated Unfairly

       I have experienced not being treated fairly because of my learning style.  I had been granted by the college to take examinations in another setting.  This request by a professional was well documented and coordinated by a department within the college. At a previous college I attended I went and submitted the proper paper work and was granted to test separate from the class as a whole.  I then went to the teacher, introduced myself and discussed my needs. 

       First he discriminated against me by asking why I required testing in a separate location. That is against the law and he had no right to ask that question.  When I asked him about the testing arrangements he told me that it was an unusual request and it would be difficult to meet but he guessed that he could arrange it.  I went to class for the first test and he told me that he had not made any arrangements for me.

       I went back to the coordinating department and expressed my concerns. They contacted him and I met with him again. He did set me up in a separate testing area but was within a secretary’s office.  She talked constantly with other staff members, the phone rang, the photocopy machine buzzed and she stared at me like I had some really big issue. It defeated the whole purpose and I felt very discriminated against.  I struggled with the arrangements a couple more times (we had weekly tests) and finally just gave up and took the tests within the classroom. I passed the course, but I felt that his lack of appropriate action contributed to my limited success within the course.

      Why do you think the decision maker acted unfairly in this situation? He had made a casual comment to me that he should have had special arrangements in college himself, but never got them.

       Was the decision maker aware that he was acting unfairly? I know the professor was well aware that he was discriminating against me.

      What could you or the person who treated you unfairly have done to improve the matters to rectify the injustice on the spot? I felt that I did try to correct the situation but did not really dare push it because I needed the course to meet my degree requirements. All he had to do was follow the guidelines.

      If you had authority over the decision maker, what steps would you take to ensure that the decision maker no longer treated diverse individuals unfairly? I returned to the coordinating department after class was finished and shared with them my disappointment with the professor, his attitude and lack of proper action. They stated that they thought it had been resolved because they contacted him personally and he said everything was going fine. So if I was his supervisor I would have called the student personally and maybe even done a classroom visit unannounced to ensure the guidelines were being followed.