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University Requires Obese Students to Take Gym Class in Order to Graduate

By Bruce Carton

Out of Lincoln University in rural Pennsylvania comes the type of story you just can't make up, and that is sure to end in some kind of terribly bitter dispute. The Consumerist blog alerts us here to an unusual requirement that Lincoln University instituted in 2006: Upon matriculating at the school, each student?s "body mass index" (weight in pounds divided by height in inches squared) is measured. Students with a B.M.I. exceeding 30, the "threshold of obesity," are required to take a special one-credit gym class to graduate. The New York Times' "The Choice" blog writes that this powder keg has flown under the radar until this year, when the first class subject to the rule is due to graduate. Fifteen percent of the students weighed-in with "excessive" B.M.I. in 2006, and there are still 24 seniors who have just one semester left to take "HPR 103 fitness walking/conditioning" if they want to graduate. Daily Tech reports that "many of the larger members of the student body are filled with rage, confusion, and/or frustration at the new policy." Tiana Lawson, an "admittedly obese" editor for the school's student newspaper, wrote that she "didn't come to Lincoln to be told that...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on December 03, 2009 (boomark / email).