A staggering quarter of all students at UCLA’s prestigious law school were given extra time in exams after receiving disability accommodations, according to records obtained by The California Post.
The records show that, of the law school’s 1,374 students, 308 received extra time on exams during the 2023-24 academic year.
That rose to 323 students in 2024-25 – about 24 percent of the entire law school population.
The figures were obtained through a public records request by recent graduate Andrew Gomez-Blumenfeld, who argues the accommodation system is increasingly being exploited by students seeking a competitive advantage.
Students with disabilities can request accommodations such as assistive technology, note-takers and special seating.
But the records show extra exam time overwhelmingly dominated accommodation requests.
All but 12 students receiving accommodations were granted additional testing time, with some receiving as much as 150 percent extra time on high-pressure law school exams.
“You would imagine in a sort of ideal world where people were getting accommodations to meet their disabilities, that you’d see a sort of interesting diversity and distribution of the kinds of accommodations that people need,” ex-law student Andrew Gomez-Blumenfeld, who graduated in May, told The Post.
Gomez-Blumenfeld said he first became suspicious during his three years at UCLA Law after noticing far fewer students sitting exams than attended classes.
The records also show how much additional time many students received.
In the 2024-25 school year, the vast majority – 204 students – received 50 percent more time to complete exams.
Another 44 students received 100 percent extra time, while four were granted 150 percent extra time.
Gomez-Blumenfeld said the additional time can significantly affect performance.
Exams can take three or four hours, meaning students with accommodations could receive an additional hour or more to complete them.
“Law school is almost entirely on a very strict grading curve, so it’s really consequential how you do relative to other people,” he told The Post.
“That’s all just by way of saying that to the extent a chunk of your peers are taking the test under a very different time conditions than you, you actually are potentially being evaluated on a very different curve, but ultimately held accountable to the same curve.”
The records also show that nearly all extra-time accommodations were granted to students in UCLA’s Juris Doctor program.
Very few went to students in the Master of Laws program – typically lawyers pursuing advanced legal study – or the Master of Studies in Law program for non-lawyer professionals.
The California Post reached out to UCLA Law for comment.
The trend is not unique to UCLA, with educators across California and the nation have reported sharp increases in disability accommodation requests, particularly those involving mental health conditions.
The Post previously revealed 378 law students at UC Berkeley claim to have a “psychological” or other mental disabilities, according to university data — leading critics to accuse pupils of trying to game the system to gain an advantage in school.
The figure accounts for about a third of the enrollment and marks a massive shift from just five years ago, when only 3% of Berkeley’s graduate students claimed a disability.
Some academics argue the growth has undermined confidence in exam fairness, while disability advocates maintain accommodations are essential to ensuring equal access for students with legitimate medical conditions.
“This is even more absurd when you realize that most students in law schools come from successful families and have done well throughout their years of education,” said George Leef, of the higher-education think tank James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
“Apparently, the world of ‘social justice’ means that we can’t have fair exams.”