"If we feel afraid, it isn't what we don't know that frightens us, it's what we think we do know."
-- Allan G. Johnson in Power, Privilege, and Difference
Though a number of published research studies surfaced in reputable medical journals during the mid-1980s finding that the risk of HIV transmission to people living in close quarters and in non-sexual contact with people with HIV/AIDS was minimal to nonexistent, in 1985, the principal and school board of Western Middle School in Russiaville, Indiana, nevertheless, refused admittance of 14-year-old Ryan White following tremendous pressure from fearful and outraged parents and faculty after Ryan's diagnosis as HIV-positive became widely known.
After Ryan and his family fought a long and difficult battle to have him readmitted, a Circuit Court judge dissolved a restraining order, and Ryan returned to school. The White family received death threats, and a number of parents pulled their children and organized an alternative school. But that was then. We know better than that today, especially since 1990 when the Congress passed and President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which covers HIV-related discrimination.
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Complete article at Huffington Post : http://huff.to/thNIeF
