An autistic school board member sued for discrimination. She won $10.

When Sarah Hernandez joined the Enfield, Conn., Board of Education in 2017, she had a goal: to ensure that schools met the needs of students with disabilities. She was one of the first openly autistic candidates elected to public office in the country and saw her victory as a sign that her town was open to her perspective.

But if voters were, her colleagues on the school board were not: They consistently denied her the accommodations she needed to do her job, according to a discrimination lawsuit she filed against the school board and the city of Enfield, 20 miles north of Hartford. The accommodations she requested — both because of her autism and because she is hard of hearing — included asking board members to communicate by text or email instead of by phone, and to look at her while speaking to her .

The trial over the lawsuit, which accused the board and city of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, lasted more than four years. Last month, a jury sided with Ms. Hernandez and awarded her damages.

The amount? $10.

The nominal damages were the result of a 2022 Supreme Court decision, said Stewart J. Schwab, a labor law professor at Cornell University. In the case of Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, the court ruled that people who sued under the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits organizations that receive federal funds from discriminating against people with disabilities, could not recover damages for emotional distress.

Because the jury did not believe that Ms. Hernandez had concretely demonstrated that her experience had physically damaged her, she was denied a substantive award.

“The nominal damages, I'm incredibly proud of it,” said Ms. Hernandez, 44. “But it almost feels like they're saying the mental health damage isn't real.”

Despite the size of the settlement, the legal victory was significant, Mr. Schwab said. Discrimination lawsuits like this are often settled out of court, he said, because “these cases are difficult to win.”

Ms. Hernandez prefers emails and text messages to phone calls and group conversations because of her auditory processing problems, and she finds long meetings taxing. To address these and other challenges, she requested a printed outline of what to expect in advance at confidential meetings so she could prepare and follow better, and also asked if she could pass notes to other board members if she needed anything. clarified.

Initially, board members seemed receptive. Timothy Neville, the Democratic minority leader on the board, emailed Ms. Hernandez after her election and congratulated her for “turning what many consider a disability into a skill.” And in a Facebook comment in 2019, Ms. Hernandez said the board seemed willing to “brainstorm the issue” to accommodate her requests for accommodations.

But according to court documents, members of the board declined to communicate with Ms. Hernandez in writing, out of concern that messages could be “taken out of context” and used against them. Board members also believed, their lawyers said in court filings, that Ms. Hernandez was “portraying herself as a victim.” Attorneys for the school board and Enfield City Council declined to comment.

Witnesses told the court that Ms. Hernandez looked as if she could participate in her administrative duties without modification, according to Ms. Hernandez's attorney, Anthony May.

These types of misconceptions are why autism is considered an “invisible disability,” according to Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge.

Autistic people “may have a lot of stress under the surface, or confusion or overwhelm, but on the outside, to other people, it seems like they're just the same as everyone else,” Mr Baron-Cohen said. “So a change in mentality is needed.”

Significant progress has been made in understanding the psychology and neuroscience of autism over the past two decades, Mr Baron-Cohen said. General awareness of the disability has also increased, he added, and the concept of neurodiversity, or the understanding that people's brains work differently, has gained momentum.

But autistic people still have high levels of anxiety and depression, suggesting the support systems they need are not in place, Mr Baron-Cohen said.

John Elder Robison, who is autistic and advised the National Institutes of Health on neurodiversity from the George W. Bush administration into the Biden years, said it can be especially challenging to serve on a committee like a school board when only a or two of its members are autistic, because the other members will want a different pace.

But he said the treatment Ms. Hernandez requested would likely have benefited others as well. He expects that accommodations for autistic people will one day be as widespread as those for people with other disabilities, such as ramps for wheelchair users.

“It's hard for people to come up with the idea of ​​creating accommodations for people with disabilities,” Mr Robison said. “But I think over history, disability housing has become mainstream expectations.”

Mr. Robison added that it is likely that a number of currently serving politicians are autistic, noting that one in seven people in the United States is neurodivergent, a term that includes all people with brain differences, including people with ADHD, dyslexia and other diagnoses. .

“We need to recognize that neurodiversity is for all of us,” he said. “It's not like we have neurodivergent people applying for jobs or running for Congress or the school board. They are already here.”

Although autism manifests differently from person to person, this is one of the most common characteristics special interests, or an intense focus on one or two topics. One of Ms. Hernandez's special interests is democracy, something she says she is “fixated on with joy.”

Ms. Hernandez said that when she was elected, she was proud to be part of what she saw as a “paradigm shift” toward positive representation of people with disabilities in government.

And although the lengthy court battle left her feeling isolated from the city she has called home for nine years, her court victory has given her courage.

Ms. Hernandez's lawyers filed an injunction last week that would require Enfield to implement a policy allowing housing for elected officials and those running for office.

“I should be on the city council, and it should include people who look like me, and I am unrelenting.”
she said. “I hope that simply remaining determined will be enough to empower and encourage other individuals, with and without disabilities, to join me in being relentless.”