Senate Needs to Confirm Ne'eman

In the wake of the long difficult struggle over health care reform, a large number of President Obama's nominees for administration positions remain in limbo because of holds placed on their confirmation by various senators. The rules of procedure in the Senate allow one lone senator to place such a hold on a presidential nominee, anonymously and for any reason or, sometimes, no reason at all. As reported by Reuters, the White House recently stated that President Obama has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate, and 34 of them have been pending for more than six months. Expressing his frustration with this situation, the president announced yesterday that he intends to place some of his nominees in their positions by means of recess appointments, which allow him to avoid the confirmation process by appointing nominees on an interim basis while the Senate is not in session.

It is perhaps not surprising that in this contentious political landscape, the appointment of Ari Ne'eman, founder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, to the National Council on Disability (NCD) has been delayed by means of an anonymous hold. It is, however, disappointing to many people in the self-advocate community and the broader disability rights community, who appreciate his tireless work for inclusion and equality of all people with disabilities in society. His record of accomplishment includes advocating for community services and supports to keep people with significant support needs in their homes and out of institutions; for federal legislation to protect students from abuse in their schools; for stronger laws against employment discrimination to better protect autistics and other workers who may experience discrimination because of a disability; and many other public policy issues that fall within the mandate of NCD to guarantee equal opportunity for all individuals with disabilities and to promote full integration into society.

Under the circumstances, Ne'eman was not able to be interviewed for an article in yesterday's New York Times about the hold on his appointment. The article begins by stating that many families with autistic members have positive feelings about his nomination as the first autistic person to serve on the council. Lee Grossman, director of the Autism Society of America, suggests in the article that any disagreement over autism advocacy priorities "may simply reflect the unmet needs of a growing population, for both research into potential treatments and for programs to support jobs and independent living." Grossman goes on to say, "We need to reframe the discussion. From our perspective, it’s great to have a person on the spectrum being nominated to this committee."

It is to be hoped that the situation will be resolved without much delay and that Ari Ne'eman will be able to take his position soon.

Campaign for Disability Employment

I'm reposting a message sent out by the Campaign for Disability Employment, an initiative funded by the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, which provides resources to assist employers in recruiting, retaining, and advancing qualified employees with disabilities. The site also has information for workers and young people with disabilities, as well as family and educators. It is a collaborative effort among business and disability advocacy organizations.


Work is fundamental to identity; it offers purpose and the opportunity to lead an independent, self-directed life for all people, including people with disabilities. That’s why we’d like to ask for your support of the Campaign for Disability Employment – a new collaborative effort among several leading disability and business organizations to promote positive employment outcomes for people with disabilities.

The Campaign’s messages and products are framed around the theme of “What Can YOU Do?” In that spirit, here are a few things YOU can do to help promote its messages among people with disabilities:

Post a link to the What Can YOU Do? Web site on your organization’s Web site. For instructions on how to do so, click on “Link to Us” at the bottom of the site.

Feature the Campaign in your organization’s member publication. A quick and easy way to do this is to use one of the Campaign’s drop-in articles. Alternatively, or in addition, you could send an e-blast about the Campaign to your members. In this e-blast, encourage them to share their job skills and talents through the What Can YOU Do? Web site’s micro-blog feature.

Spread the word about the Campaign through your organization’s social media activities. The Campaign offers timely and fresh content for updates on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media outlets. As part of this, encourage your members to become a “fan” of the Campaign for Disability Employment on Facebook and join its network on LinkedIn as a way to stay abreast of disability employment issues.

Print and distribute Campaign materials. The What Can YOU Do? Outreach Toolkit features a variety of fact sheets, posters and other downloadable outreach tools.

View and share the Campaign’s “I Can” PSA!

Thanks in advance for supporting the Campaign for Disability Employment. Working together, we can further the important message that at work, it’s what people CAN do that matters!

Melting Down an Autism Stereotype

Image: Three Mile Island nuclear power plant


By now, I expect we've all seen plenty of articles, books, and other media depicting the "autistic meltdown," wherein a slight change in routine supposedly triggers some kind of massive brain short-circuit and an instant eruption of violent rage. This image, which a few years ago was found mainly among the haters at FAAAS and other similar bigots, is now being plastered all over the public consciousness by mainstream authors such as Jodi Picoult in her recently released novel House Rules.

The inevitable result is widespread discrimination, of course, when hiring managers and other decision-makers start looking upon autistics as walking nuclear disasters who might explode at any moment. If any other minority group had to contend with a hugely damaging stereotype like this, you can be sure they'd be screaming bloody murder about it. But the autistic community has done very little to oppose it; rather, many of us are continuing to use the word in routine conversation, perhaps trying to redefine it a bit around the edges, but taking for granted that it really does refer to something unique to autistics.

However, there's no scientific evidence to support that belief, no matter how the word might be defined. Nowhere in the diagnostic criteria does anything about "meltdowns" appear. Brain imaging studies have not identified structural differences that would account for them. As far as I know, there haven't even been any research studies—with appropriate controls for the subjects' baseline level of stress and other relevant factors—establishing whether the frequency of "meltdowns" is any different among autistics than among the general population. (If you know of any such studies, please post a link in my comments.) In short, we're talking about a stereotype that is based on nothing more than anecdotal stories.

Of course, I'm not arguing that autistic people don't have unpleasant reactions to stress and overload. Certainly we do. We're only human, after all. But what I'm disputing is the idea that "meltdowns" are something intrinsic to autism, rather than a consequence of what chaoticidealism accurately describes as an "underlying, dangerously-high stress level." What I think happens, in many cases, is that the stress of living in an autistic-unfriendly environment builds up over time; and then the blame for the resulting "meltdowns" ends up being wrongly attributed to some sort of mysterious autistic brain cooties, rather than being placed where it belongs—on the detrimental situation that created the stress.

So let's start recognizing and acting in our own best interest, people. If we want equal opportunity in the schools and workplaces, we're not going to get there by meekly letting ourselves be described in terms that cause school administrators and employers to see every autistic person as a threat to public safety. And if we want accommodations to make our environment more comfortable and reduce our stress levels so that we can be more productive at school and work, we're not going to get those, either, if every time we react badly to a stressful situation it's just presumed to be the way autistic people naturally behave regardless of the circumstances.

Crossposted to Shift Journal.

Robison Squeaks

Autistic author John Elder Robison has agreed to serve on an advisory board for Autism Speaks. Yes, the same organization that repeatedly makes videos comparing autistic children to dead or kidnapped children; that openly declares its goal to "eradicate" the autistic population; that funds causation research to develop a prenatal test; and that pays bloated executive salaries while allotting only four percent of its budget to family services.

Robison says on his blog that he wants to make a difference in how Autism Speaks allocates its research funds. He plans to advocate for the organization to change its funding priorities in the direction of "work that can lead to better lives for today's autistic population."

Good luck with that, buddy. I'm picturing a little rubber duckie bobbing around on the ocean in front of the Titanic. He can do all the squeaking he likes, but the only thing that's going to change the ship's trajectory is when it finally hits the iceberg and goes down.

Judge Rotenberg Center Investigated

Cannons on display in Sharpsburg, Maryland.


In response to a joint letter from disability rights organizations, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation of the Judge Rotenberg Center, a Massachusetts institution that is infamous for its use of electric shock and other practices widely condemned by disability and human rights advocates. Many efforts have been made to shut the place down under state law, but without success. Now that the "big guns" of a Federal civil rights investigation have been brought out, maybe we'll finally get somewhere; I'm cautiously optimistic.

More articles about the Judge Rotenberg Center investigation can be found at the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, Mother Jones, WWJ Newsradio 950, WHDH Channel 7, Left Brain/Right Brain, Fox News Boston, WTOV Channel 9, UPI, the Washington Post, the Denver Post, KSTP Channel 5, the Keene Sentinel, Autist's Corner, and Disability Rights Oregon.