Roughly one in three students at one of the nation’s top law schools now carries a disability designation, a figure that stood at a fraction of that just five years ago.

About 378 students at the UC Berkeley School of Law have enrolled in the campus Disabled Students’ Program as of spring 2026, according to the program’s annual data. Across the full campus, the program served 4,153 students in 2020-2021 and 5,711 by 2024-2025. Psychological and emotional conditions lead all categories at 2,443 students, followed by ADD/ADHD at 1,666, while physical disabilities such as mobility, hearing and vision trail far behind.

A graduate of the law school says the totals point to abuse rather than genuine need. Andrew Testerman reviewed the figures and laid out his findings in an essay for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. (RELATED: UC Policy Allegedly Punishes Students Over Pronoun Use, Gender Jokes)

“At Berkeley Law, there are more disabled law students than there are male law students,” Testerman wrote. He added that the public is asked to believe elite law students are far more likely to be disabled than the nation’s senior citizens, who claim disability status at about 24 percent. He put the share of Berkeley Law students receiving accommodations at 37.5 percent, against 3 percent of the university’s graduate students in 2021.

Staggering number of Berkeley Law students claim they’re disabled as ’emotional disorders’ skyrocket https://t.co/KrZ8fZSd2u pic.twitter.com/50hyWb8eJ7

— New York Post (@nypost) June 19, 2026

The clearest payoff is time. Students with the designation receive extended windows on exams, and proctoring requests climbed from 3,822 in 2021-2022 to 14,103 in 2024-2025, according to the Disabled Students’ Program.

Berkeley is not alone. At Stanford, 38 percent of students have registered with its accessibility office and 24 percent receive academic or housing help, according to The Atlantic. Harvard logged 21 percent of undergraduates last year, while Amherst reached 34 percent, the magazine found. The national rate sat near 11 percent in 2011.

The pattern tracks a longer trend in testing. Federal data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal showed disability designations more than tripled between 2000 and 2016, with students at affluent high schools more than twice as likely to win extra time as those at poorer ones.

Some specialists push back, linking the rise to wider access to mental health care and less stigma around seeking it, The Atlantic noted. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky told Testerman the school holds no power over accommodations and only follows the law.