Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 14:04:56 -0500
>
>Teacher wins discrimination case in Baltimore
>
>Teacher gains $55,000 settlement;
> City schools scolded for rescinding offer because of guide dog
>
> BY: Gail Gibson
>
>The Baltimore Sun
> January 3, 2002
>
>Graduating with an education degree in the spring of 1998, in
>the midst of widespread teacher shortages, Janet C. Mushington
>hardly had trouble finding a job. Turning down one offer in
>Atlanta, she took another in her hometown, at Baltimore's
>Westside Elementary. Weeks before the school year started,
>though, city school officials changed their minds, court records
>show. The school principal said Mushington, who is blind, could
>have the job - but only if she left her guide dog, Parke, at
>home. The rescinded offer will cost the city schools $55,000,
>which the system has agreed to pay Mushington to settle a Justice
>Department lawsuit charging violations of the Americans with
>Disabilities Act. In a settlement order signed Monday by a
>federal judge in Baltimore, the schools also agreed to adopt new
>policies to ensure compliance with the decade-old civil rights
>law. Under the agreement, school officials denied any
>discrimination. But for Mushington, now 27 and an elementary
>school teacher in Baltimore County, the settlement was an
>important victory. In an interview yesterday, Mushington said
>that until she lost the Westside job offer because of her guide
>dog, she had always believed she could overcome her disability
>with hard work. "In my mind, I always told myself that as long as
>I did my best and did what I was supposed to do, I would
>triumph," said Mushington, who lives in Pikesville. "So when this
>happened, it was more than just I was turned down for a job - it
>was like my whole world had come crashing down." Yesterday,
>school officials referred questions about the case to attorney
>Brian Williams, who was out of town and unavailable to comment.
>
>
>Under the settlement order signed by U.S. District Judge William
>M. Nickerson, the schools agreed to designate a coordinator for
>disability employment issues and to require all employees who
>make hiring decisions to undergo training about disability
>issues. The city schools also agreed to post notices in every
>school building about the 1990 anti-discrimination law, which
>requires public and private employers to make reasonable
>accommodations for employees with physical disabilities, such as
>permitting an employee to use a guide dog. "The Americans with
>Disabilities Act is intended to open the doors of employment
>opportunity to people with disabilities," Ralph F. Boyd Jr., the
>assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, said in a
>statement. "When an employer refuses access by a person with a
>service animal, it closes the door on that opportunity."
>
>
>Mushington received a bachelor's degree in education from Clark
>Atlanta University in Georgia in June 1998. She said yesterday
>that she was initially interested in staying in Atlanta after
>graduation, and had received a job offer at an elementary school
>there, when her mother talked her into returning to Baltimore to
>live near her family. Mushington said she agreed to move home in
>part because she felt she had proved her independence by leaving
>Maryland to attend college, working her way through school
>despite her blindness and, during her junior year, a broken leg
>that left her using a wheelchair for several months. That effort
>made the loss of the job offer in Baltimore all the more painful,
>she said. "It was like, wait a minute," Mushington said. "I went
>through all this, and I'm still not going to be able to get a
>job?" Mushington said she interviewed twice at Westside
>Elementary during the summer of 1998, each time using a cane to
>help her navigate. She said it was only when she mentioned that
>she would be using a guide dog during the school year that
>officials balked, saying a "no animal" policy prohibited her from
>bringing a dog to the school. "The bottom line was, if I wanted
>the job in that school, I would not be able to have the dog," she
>said. Mushington was not breaking new ground. A small number of
>blind teachers across Maryland take their guide dogs into the
>classroom, where the teachers manage their classrooms with help
>from students, classroom aides and Braille texts, according to
>the National Federation of the Blind and the National Association
>of Blind Educators. When city school officials said they could
>not accommodate Mushington's service animal, she filed a
>complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC
>investigators referred the case to the Justice Department's civil
>rights division. While her case progressed, Mushington went to
>work. Substitute teaching jobs and a student helper position in
>the Baltimore County schools led to a full-time position teaching
>second- and third-graders at Chatsworth School in Reisterstown,
>where guide dog Parke joins Mushington every day. "It's
>wonderful," Mushington said. "She comes in, and she goes to
>sleep. She stays under the desk and sleeps until I tell her to
>come out and go somewhere."
>
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