Senator Dick Durbin Urges Employers to Hire Autistic Workers

As reported by the Justice for All disability rights blog, Sen. Dick Durbin, who currently holds the influential position of Senate Majority Whip, recently spoke at Illinois Wesleyan University regarding equal employment opportunity for people with disabilities. He discussed the high unemployment rate in this population and urged employers not to let myths and stereotypes affect their hiring decisions, pointing out that the cost of providing workplace accommodations is very low and that the most common request is for flex time, which costs the employer nothing:


...hiring workers with disabilities is not an act of charity. The companies that learn first how to recruit and retain talented employees with disabilities are going to have an advantage in the marketplace. They are going to have a wider choice of employees to choose from when it comes to filling critical vacancies.


Sen. Durbin went on to speak about autism in particular, mentioning that some characteristics of autism can contribute to professional success. He quoted economist Vernon Smith, who won a Nobel Prize in 2002 and who has attributed his success in part to the autistic capacity for deep concentration and willingness to explore unconventional approaches. While observing that not all autistics can achieve this level of success, Sen. Durbin stated that autistics and others with disabilities can contribute to society in various ways, and he further quoted Smith on neurodiversity:


Vernon Smith... compares the struggle for disability rights to the struggle for civil rights. He says: "We’ve lost a lot of the barriers that have to do with skin color and various other characteristics. But there’s still not sufficient recognition of mental diversities." He adds, "We don’t all have to think alike to be communal and to live in a productive and satisfying world."

Ripping, Running, and Advocating

Like many people, I usually get busy toward the end of the summer and have a lot of distracting errands that interrupt my routine; there's an expression "ripping and running," which describes such days. For others who might also have been busy and not had the time to put together comments for the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), I'm taking a few minutes to post this quick reminder that IACC comments are due today. (Details here.)

Even if you don't have time to write long detailed comments, please take a few minutes to put something together. It's important to make sure we get enough responses from self-advocates and pro-neurodiversity allies that the IACC knows it can't just ignore us. If you're stuck wondering what to write, here's a link to last year's ASAN comment, which has some useful talking points.


Edit: Here's a guest comment (thanks Katie!) to show how creative some of our folks are.


By Katie Miller

I did mine this morning. Here is a humorous excerpt:

What are the new opportunities and needs for advancing research and knowledge about ASD in section IV. "Which treatments and interventions will help?"

Instead of wasting money to prove once again that vaccines are not linked to autism, I think you should study why people believe in conspiracy theories, and what we can do to cure and prevent it. Research treatments and interventions that have helped holocaust and AIDS deniers. Establish a genetic bank of conspiracy theorist cell and tissue samples to identify risk factors and eventually lead to prevention and/or cure. Is believing in anti-vaccine theory linked to intelligence, emotional instability, or other genetic risk factors? Does it strike all populations equally? What can we do to help these people have a better quality of life? It is an enormous financial and psychological burden to care for an anti-vaccine theorist. The money they spend on dangerous, ineffective treatments for their children is enough to bankrupt a family, costing over $4 million across the lifespan of the theorist. Their numbers are increasing to epidemic proportions. Action is needed now.

End of Week Stupid Roundup

Sometimes the stupid runs so deep that instead of blogging about it, I just want to scrape up its stinking carcass with a shovel and chuck it into the woods to rot in peace. For instance, it ought to be obvious to everyone—except the most prejudiced jerks—that the fact that mass murderers are antisocial creeps does not mean they are autistic. However, looking at the comments on a recent post on Sarah's blog goes to show that there's no shortage of prejudiced jerks.

And where might one expect to find an article that advocates killing off people with disabilities to save money for health care for everyone else? If you guessed a neo-Nazi newsletter or a Klan website, that would be a logical enough guess, but wrong. Actually, to the great disgust of many, it appeared in the New York Times Magazine. You know, when governments run short on money for highway maintenance, you don't see mainstream publications printing articles that suggest killing off rural folks to save the wear on the roads... and when the fire department needs a new truck, nobody proposes whacking a few smokers to reduce the number of fires...

Did you think we'd seen the last of billboards describing autistic children as kidnap victims when the Ransom Notes ads were taken down in 2007? Well, as Joe just blogged, there's plenty more of the putrefying stupid where that came from. This time, the culprit is the York, PA chapter of the Autism Society of America. E-mail address is pa-york@autismsocietyofamerica.org and the chapter president is Amy Wallace. Time to let her know what we think of that tired old stolen child changeling garbage.

Edit, August 16: ASA York has agreed to take down the billboards—many thanks to ASAN and to everyone who wrote about the billboards!

A Bit of Neighborly Advice

Guest post by Rita Skeeter, award-winning journalist and ultra-reliable source for all the dirt you've ever wanted to read.


Whilst slumming in the dismal wasteland that is Muggle television, I came across an ad by Autism Speaks called Neighbors, which makes the rather astounding suggestion that providing more therapies to autistic children would result in their having more friends. This can be done, according to the ad, through insurance mandate legislation.

Now, some therapies ought indeed to be made more widely available. Physical, occupational, and speech therapy can be very helpful to many children. In magical society, it's a matter of considerable importance to ensure that our little ones are provided with these therapies at an early age, if the need arises. After all, the study of witchcraft and wizardry can be quite difficult if one cannot hold magical objects firmly and recite spells clearly. If a young Hogwarts pupil stumbled over the words of an incantation, she might end up turning her hair into snakes, or something equally unpleasant. Even after the spell was reversed, I found it dreadfully scaly and hard to comb for weeks afterward. But I digress.

To be nothing but Muggle pretenders, Autism Speaks and Dr. Lovaas certainly have an overinflated idea of their own abilities. If there really were some sort of alchemy that could magically transform anyone into a friend, well, we'd all be drinking tea and playing friendly games of Quidditch with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and I expect I'd be out of work. Granted, there are love potions and such, but they soon wear off. Turning people into true friends is a matter of time, effort, and shared interests—not of aping their mannerisms. There are no shortcuts or magical behavioral charms.

Besides, we all know why some children have no interest in befriending certain others, don't we? It's the same reason why so many witches and wizards from our most illustrious families have no use for Mudbloods—plain, simple, old-fashioned prejudice. There's no way to magically transform intolerance into something else by putting its targets in behavioral therapy for several hours a day, either. If the goal really is that all children should be friends and play happily with each other in their neighborhoods—well, they're going to have to be taught to accept and appreciate diversity, rather than excluding and abusing those who are different.

As long as we are on the subject of teaching children not to abuse others, if your little horrors—er, I meant to say little darlings—are the sort who like to stomp on insects, you should teach them to show kindness to all God's creatures. Even a beetle can suffer a nasty case of post-traumatic stress when it comes within millimeters of being squashed by a little boy's wretched smelly shoe. Especially if the beetle just happens to be an Animagus—not that I would have any firsthand experience of shape-shifting, of course…