Blog•Apr 23, 2026
The Woody Brown Saga Required A Number Of Institutional Failures
The recent bestseller *Upward Bound* by Woody Brown has ignited a debate over whether the 28‑year‑old autistic author actually wrote the novel or if his mother’s use of the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) fabricated the text. RPM, a variant of the discredited facilitated communication technique, lacks independent scientific validation, yet prominent faculty at UCLA and Columbia have publicly vouched for Brown’s authorship. The controversy underscores a broader institutional reluctance to scrutinize disability‑accommodation methods that have not been rigorously tested, raising ethical and legal questions about academic credentials and publishing standards.
