Have you ever gone into a new job you worked so hard to get and were excited about starting, only to be told on the first day that you were not qualified and had to leave? Well, I have. That's what happened to me when I anticipated ten challenging and character-building months of service in AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corp (NCCC) program in the South. I was highly qualified for the position, passed every test and was fully cleared, only to be sent home because of something I already disclosed to them: I have Asperger's Syndrome.
The first time I remember feeling comfortable with being open about living with Asperger's Syndrome happened at Clark University. Two women friends were telling me about how Clark's production of the Vagina Monologues allowed men to submit 'Man-ologues,' in which three men submitted self-written pieces about their experiences with gender and sexuality. Interested, I submitted a monologue about living with Asperger's and how it affects my relationships with women. It went really well when read to the cast, and subsequently during the shows. It also gave me a chance to talk about my Asperger's with the Clark community; the monologue was the only way I could think of to come out to people about it at the time.
Later in the year, while studying abroad at the University of Stirling in Scotland, I joined Air3 Radio as the host of a show titled This Aspergian Life. I talked about the autism spectrum, with subjects ranging from interviewing a student about her autistic brother, to talking about autism signs and management, to discussing the 2007 Lincoln-Sudbury stabbing, in which an autistic student fatally stabbed a high-school classmate in the suburbs of Boston. A major portion of show consisted of reading John Elder Robison's memoir Look Me In The Eye, about growing up when the diagnosis did not exist, on the air. I also dedicated an entire episode to Asperger's in women, an underreported topic. I went on to take the subject of that last show as the subject of another successful man-ologue when I returned to Clark. Being able to be open about my Asperger's comfortably was the best thing for me about study abroad—it was one of the first times I could recall people asking me questions about Asperger's and recognizing it in me without being judgmental, simply curious.
After graduating from Clark, I had a couple great internships with the successful Senate campaigns of Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. Next, based on the experience of a friend, my family and I decided AmeriCorps NCCC would be a great opportunity to do something good and obtain fundamental skills for the future. I applied and waited for months to hear, and finally got accepted into AmeriCorps NCCC to serve for ten months in the Southern Region, headquartered in Vicksburg, Mississippi. AmeriCorps isn't as widely known across the United States as perhaps it should be, but for those that have served, they usually say it's one of the best experiences they ever had. I figured it would be a great opportunity to learn important leadership skills and abilities in an open-minded environment, and from there, I would be able to obtain a job in something that I felt passionate about.
Then came the call before Christmas. A woman from the AmeriCorps Southern Region counseling office said she wanted to talk to me about my Asperger's, based on what I wrote down in my medical forms. However, rather than telling me what she was concerned about regarding my diagnosis over the phone, she wanted to discuss it when I got to Mississippi, which was two months down the road. I was initially worried, but did not take it too seriously. I figured she just wanted to ask what accommodations would need to be made for me.
When I finally got there, I met with the counseling services only to be told that the NCCC program was not the right fit for me. They kept telling me they were worried I would have some sort of mental breakdown during a rural project, as well as their concern about the apparent lack of structure, despite it only being the first day, where more structure was likely to develop from there. One of the superior officers went so far as to compare my situation to that of her son's seizures; initially thinking NCCC would be a good fit for him before she decided no. They said they wanted to me to go home and apply to AmeriCorps VISTA and State/National programs 'closer to home,' claiming that they would help me look into such programs—whatever that means. Even though I made it clear I did not want to go home, within 24 hours of arriving in Vicksburg, I found myself being driven back to the Jackson airport, sobbing and wondering if I'd failed my family and friends by missing out on such a great opportunity.
Since then, I have felt betrayed by AmeriCorps and their combination of discrimination and incompetence that I had to be flown there, just to be told I could not serve, only to be shipped back home. That was when I knew how severe and overlooked disability discrimination really is—so severe that it can exist within an organization that prides itself in helping others. While I have been held back before because of my Asperger's, I'd never experienced discrimination on that level back home.
Disability discrimination is not exclusive to a state like Mississippi. Anyone in Massachusetts who remembers the Lincoln-Sudbury stabbing should know that perpetrator John Odgren received poor disability services, and was transferred from school to school in his youth. But I thought the purpose of AmeriCorps was to help those communities and those people most neglected by larger society and to "make our people safer, smarter and healthier," not to exclude those who want to help out or to consider them a potential threat to AmeriCorps' reputation. While it may not magically happen overnight, we need to have a serious widespread discussion about disability discrimination, especially when it come to those with developmental disabilities. We need to better address the dismal 34% rate of developmentally disabled adults who are employed, largely in minimum wages jobs. We need to work to empower the developmentally disabled, whether in trying to find full-time work, or trying to serve their country via AmeriCorps.
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