From the BBC, the [UK] Times:

Prosecutors in Scotland have apologized to the family of a teenager with Down syndrome for charging him with a racially motivated assault on an Asian student. The parents of Jamie Bauld, 19, are calling for changes in how law enforcement authorities treat people with intellectual disabilities.

The charges arose out of an incident in September in the special needs department at Motherwell College, in which Jamie pushed another student who had been following him.

His parents, Fiona and Jim Bauld, said they had been through a seven-month ordeal with the legal system over what they described as a minor fracas between two youngsters with learning disabilities. They said their son agreed with everything the police said, even though he did not understand the charges against him.

They believe that he was a victim of the zero-tolerance policy on racism under which police have to respond to any complaint, however minor.

Experts in Down syndrome say that the case shows insensitivity and is an example of bureaucracy gone mad.

The stories describe Jamie as having “a mental age of five.”

People with disabilities among those routinely excluded or under-represented

From HealthDay News in U.S. News & World Report:

A new analysis of the American clinical trial process suggests that the system for testing new drugs has routinely excluded or under-represented women, older people, minorities, disabled individuals and rural populations for decades.

“We’ve got a big problem,” said Daniel S. Goldberg, chief policy adviser for the report. “And it’s extremely urgent that we fix it. Because we’re trying to figure out how to streamline health care and make people healthy, of course. And the fact that we have under-representation in clinical trials undermines both of these goals and undermines the quality of the evidence we come up with.”

The report was conducted by the Chronic Disease Prevention & Control Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine in conjunction with the Intercultural Cancer Council, both based in Houston.

From the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a satirical take on New York’s new governor by Larry Wilmore, the show’s “senior black correspondent.” When Stewart refers to Paterson as the state’s first “legally blind governor,” Wilmore bridles. Partial transcript follows, rated R for a reference to former Gov. Elliot Spitzer:

Wilmore: Don’t take this away from us. He’s one of ours. Hear that blind people? He’s only 90 percent blind, but he’s a hundred percent black. So you know what? Back off. Careful.

Stewart: Larry, to get this far, a man in his situation has to show incredible fortitude.

Wilmore: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If by fortitude you mean luck. I mean Geraldine Ferrarro said it best. Barack Obama is lucky he’s black. Well if Obama’s lucky, this guy stepped in (bleep.) I mean, black AND blind? That’s the kind of luck you can take to the dog track …

Stewart: How can Gov Paterson avoid a backlash?

Wilmore: The most crucial thing is that he stay blind. Look, Americans like articulate black people but they go crazy for blind ones. (more…)

During his first news conference as New York’s governor in waiting, David Paterson criticized the widespread unemployment found among people with disabilities.

From the New York Times: an excerpt from the press conference:

On becoming the state’s first black governor and its first legally blind one:

“In some ways I feel that I’m sitting on a sand castle that other people built. There are so many African-Americans, both men and women, who throughout the past couple of centuries have struggled unremittingly to try to advance opportunity for all people and for themselves. I think they would have been far more qualified than me to serve in this position.

“The fact that it’s taken this long in some ways is a sad note. But if it in any way allows for African-Americans or those who are disabled – 71 percent of the blind are unemployed, 90 percent of deaf people in this country are unemployed. Maybe one of them could figure out a cure for cancer, but we can’t get them into the workplace. The educational proficiency of the disabled surpasses the national education average, and yet we have these horrible unemployment rates in those communities.

(more…)

Lieutenant governor has a history of defying the public’s expectations (New York Times):

He remembers becoming furious when Shirley Chisholm, the former congresswoman from Brooklyn, said she had encountered more bias because she was a woman than because she was black.

“Internally, I probably felt myself more discriminated against as a disabled person,” Mr. Paterson said in 2006. “And when I would experience discrimination from another African-American I would go ballistic. I thought black people were supposed to understand.”

– And more from the New York Times

(more…)

… he would be succeeded by Lt. Governor David A. Paterson, who would become New York’s first African American governor and the first who is legally blind.

New York governor Elliot Spitzer acknowledged in a brief statement that he had violated the obligations he had to his family and the public, though he offered no specific comments about a New York Times report that he was involved in a prostitution ring.

Spitzer did not specifically address the question of a possible resignation, but speculation was widespread.

Lt. Gov. Paterson, a graduate of Hofstra Law School, began representing Harlem in the New York State Senate in 1985. In 2002, he became the Senate minority leader — the first non-white legislative leader in New York’s history. He made history again in 2004 when he became the first visually impaired person to address the Democratic National Convention. He was elected lieutenant governor in 2006.

Paterson is a member of the American Foundation for the Blind, and serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee and a board member of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

From CNBC, BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post.

From Education Week (registration required):

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission this week heard testimony that minority students are placed in special education classes at rates far above the national average. Experts viewed this disproportionality as a problem, and said better teacher preparation, more federal monitoring and more parental involvement are needed to address it.

[Stephanie Monroe, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education,] told the commission that a 1992 survey found that although black students made up about 16 percent of the total U.S. student population, about 32 percent of students classified as mildly mentally retarded and about 22 percent of students diagnosed with serious emotional and behavioral disturbances were black.

“Sadly, those disparities have not changed significantly” since 1992, she said. (more…)