the sun is on my side

13 year old rejected from high school for being HIV+

fuckyeahfeminists:

democratsaresexier:

Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania denied Tim (not his real name), a 13 year old boy, admission because he is HIV positive. From Change.org

Although discrimination against people living with HIV is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Milton Hersey School doesn’t deny its reasoning. The school said in a statement, “we cannot accommodate the needs of students with chronic communicable diseases that pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others” — even though science and society have known for decades that HIV is not highly contagious.

Lawrence Stallworth understands how tough it is to be a teen living with HIV — Lawrence is 20, and he found out he was HIV-positive when he was 17. Lawrence teamed up with the organization Advocates for Youth to start a petition on Change.org demanding that the Milton Hershey School admit Tim. Please sign Lawrence’s petition today.

The Milton Hershey School purports to serve “children from families of low income, limited resources, and social need.” Tim is an excellent candidate to benefit from all the school has to offer. The school’s refusal to admit him not only hurts Tim, but spreads dangerous and prejudicial misinformation about HIV.

“It shouldn’t be the responsibility of a 13-year-old boy to teach the Milton Hershey School about the science of HIV or the moral obligation educators have to meet the needs of all students,” Lawrence says. “But this young man is doing just that — and we all have a responsibility to have his back.”

The Milton Hershey School is already receiving bad publicity for its discriminatory actions, but additional public pressure is needed to show them that they can’t just wait for this problem to blow over. Please sign Lawrence’s petition demanding that the Milton Hershey School end its discrimination against a 13-year-old young man living with HIV.                                                 

                                                                                                    

This is terrible that this young kid would be discriminated against! We all have a right to education.

Society wrongly associates certain types of “bad” people and behavior with HIV/AIDS, even though the disease can be spread in several different ways and anyone could get it. The marginalization (and sometimes criminalization) of HIV+ status is so ridiculously backwards.