Pledged to Help HIV+ Boy Rejected from School…

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is launching an awareness campaign regarding a private boarding school in Hershey, Penn. that ejected a student because he is HIV-positive.

The foundation has also pledged to contribute up to $50,000 in support of the boy’s lawsuit to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which is representing the 13-year-old boy, identified under the pseudonym Abraham Smith, in court. Administrators of the Milton Hershey School, a free residential school for low-income students, claimed that they were protecting the student body at large by not admitting the boy. The student and his legal team say, however, that administrators violated violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said he felt compelled to help once he and his organization learned about the case. “The ignorance displayed by the Hershey School’s leadership is unacceptable and demonstrates just how much work there is still to be done to dismantle the fear and misinformation that still surrounds this disease more than 25 years after Ryan White,” Weinstein said in a statement.

MIlton Hersey School Defends Recting 13-Year-Old With HIV

Administrators at the Milton Hershey School, a Pennsylvania boarding school for underprivileged and at-risk youth, are standing by their decision to reject a 13-year-old student with HIV. In statement on its website, the School defends its actions:

“The School decided that it could not admit the student who uses the pseudonym Abraham Smith due to factors relating to his HIV-positive status. This decision was not made based on bias or ignorance. We considered a number of factors relating to the risks posed to the health and safety of others, and our ability to reduce those risks and maintain confidentiality in our unique residential environment.”

We know that HIV is not transmitted through casual contact and, thankfully, that universal precautions can address the concerns of transmission in a typical school environment. Our unique environment, however, also poses unique concerns. A significant concern is that HIV can be transmitted through sexual contact. We systematically encourage abstinence, and we educate our children on sexual health issues. But, as special as they are, our teenagers are the same as teens all across the country. Despite our best efforts, some of our students will engage in sexual activity with one another. Given our residential setting, when they do, they will be doing so on our watch.”

That’s got to be the first time we’ve heard a school admit its students have sex.

With help from the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, the unnamed boy—who is currently on the honor roll—and his family are suing the 102-year-old academy.
In a recent conversation with Anderson Cooper on CNN, AIDS LAW PA director Ronda Goldfein and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin makes the case that the Americans with Disabilities Act, Congress and the Justice Department have made it clear that one’s HIV status cannot deny them access to public accommodations.


 
If the name “Milton Hershey” rings a bell, that’s because the school is indeed named after the founder of Hershey’s Chocolate and is located in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Milton and his wife had no children, and the wealthy entrepreneur sunk much of his estate into a trust fund for the school. (Ironically, the Hershey Company landed in hot water this summer for enticing foreign students to come to the U.S. and then forcing them to work in grueling factory jobs.)

So if you’re bothered by the school’s decision consider boycotting Kisses, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Rolos, Milk Duds, et al. They’re pretty much wax and sugar anyway

Hershey School Turns Away Boy With HIV

NBC Philadelphia, Tim Furlong

The Delaware County boy and his mother say it's discrimination and now the Milton Hersey School is facing a lawsuit.

HIV-Positive Boy Denied Admittance to...

 

The Milton Hershey School was founded by the chocolate tycoon as a school that "nurtures and educates children in social and financial need to lead fulfilling and productive lives."

But it seems that fulfillment won’t be coming for a 13-year-old honor student from Delaware County who is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

"I feel no other teenager should go through this, being denied just because they have HIV," the boy said in an exclusive interview with NBC Philadelphia’s Denise Nakano.

His lawyer has filed a discrimination suit in U.S. District Court that alleges that the Hershey School "violated multiple anti-discrimination laws" by not admitting the boy based on him being HIV Positive.

The lawsuit was filed under a pseudonym and the boy and his mother's identities weren't revealed per their request.

Multimedia

Admission Denied for Student With HIV

• Read the entire discrimination complaint

The private boarding school doesn’t deny that they rejected the boy’s admission because of concerns for the health and safety of fellow students. They even petitioned to have the court review the case, they said.

Milton Hershey School released a statement Wednesday saying in part that “in order to protect our children in this unique environment, we cannot accommodate the needs of students with chronic communicable diseases that pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others.”

(The entire statement from the Hershey School is listed below.)

Ronda Goldfein from the AIDS Law Project is representing the boy and his mother in the federal discrimination lawsuit.

"If you have a school that’s open to the public, then it’s open to the public," Goldfein said. "If you have a student that has a particular need and requests assistance, then you accommodate. You don’t simply say we don’t like you, we don’t like your diagnosis, you can’t come here."

"It makes me angry, like really, really angry because they don't understand how great he is," the boy's mother said. 

The 13-year-old has lived with HIV all of his life but doesn’t feel it defines him.

He excels in school, is active in sports and is learning to speak two foreign languages. He was hoping to go to Hershey -- a cost-free, private boarding school for children from low-income families -- to advance his education.

"They didn’t look at whether my client presented any threat, they just said 13-year old boy with HIV, oh no, that’s too dangerous," Goldfein said.

The lawsuit calls for Hershey to admit the boy and give unspecified monetary damages.

"I think that it was wrong to put me through emotional distress," the boy said.

Here is the entire statement from the Hershey School:

Today, Milton Hershey School had planned to file a request in federal court asking the court to review our decision to deny enrollment to a child who is HIV positive because of concerns for the health and safety of our current students.

We had been in discussions with the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, which is representing this 13-year-old boy. Recognizing the complex legal issues, the School was preparing to ask the court to weigh in on this matter. Unfortunately, attorneys for the young man took the adversarial action of filing a lawsuit against the School.

The decision to deny enrollment was a challenging one for us to make. Like all our enrollment decisions, we need to balance our desire to serve the needs of an individual child seeking admission with our obligation to protect the health and safety of all 1,850 children already in our care.

Attorneys for this young man and his mother have suggested that this case is comparable to the Ryan White case. But this case is actually nothing like the Ryan White case. Milton Hershey School is not a day school, where students go home to their family at the end of the day. Instead, this is a unique home-like environment, a pre-K to 12 residential school where children live in homes with 10 to 12 other students on our campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In order to protect our children in this unique environment, we cannot accommodate the needs of students with chronic communicable diseases that pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others.The reason is simple. We are serving children, and no child can be assumed to always make responsible decisions which protect the well-being of others.

That is why, after careful review and analysis, we determined we could not put our children at risk.