The University of Wisconsin has opened a formal investigation to determine whether the Division of Continuing Studies (DCS) improperly discriminated against a student with disabilities by excluding her from a summer residential program last summer, Madison365 has learned.
According to a June 9 letter from UW Civil Rights and Compliance Investigator Emily Stenhoff obtained by Madison356, DCS Associate Dean Aphra Mednick may have violated University of Wisconsin policy “by engaging in prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability.”
As Madison365 reported last summer, Nikhita (Kitty) Steward-Trivedi was enrolled in a three-week Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) course in art and activism. She lives with Goltz Syndrome, an exceedingly rare genetic condition characterized by abnormalities in the skin, limbs and eyes, and potentially other systems. She is vision-impaired and legally blind in one eye, and had the lower part of one leg amputated as an infant. As a result, she has a prosthetic leg, and sometimes uses a wheelchair to get around…