Earlier this month Here & Now reported on the of a white 18 year old with schizophrenia. Many pointed out that his attackers were black, and attributed the incident to racism. But disabilities advocates, and others, saw something else: a very common attack on a vulnerable disabled person.
Disabilities advocates that disabled students are twice as likely to be victims of bullying as their non-disabled peers. Among those groups is Pacer, which operates a . Julie Hertzog, the center鈥檚 director, talks with Here & Now鈥榮 Robin Young about the issue.
Interview Highlights
On challenges for parents who have a child with a disability
鈥淢y husband and I are parents to David, who is now a 20-year-old young man who was born with Down syndrome, and some other really significant medical issues. When David was going into kindergarten, I was looking at him and thinking, 鈥楬ere鈥檚 somebody who鈥檚 so incredibly vulnerable at the age of 5, to being mistreated by his peers.鈥� And he had survived, literally had survived heart surgeries, and being on a trach, and having a feeding tube, and fought so hard to live that I thought, 鈥業f he goes to school and he鈥檚 hurt or harmed, it will just absolutely break my heart.鈥�
鈥淚n fact, he had a very successful school experience. But that was because the number of steps that we put in place to ensure that he was valued and respected and included.鈥�
Array
On stories of how kids with disabilities are bullied in school
鈥淲e do hear stories every day about how kids are being bullied. In fact, our organization got involved with the topic of bullying because of one absolutely horrific story that we heard. It came from a letter from a parent in a local, suburban school district, who had a son with developmental delays. And every day, there was a group of boys, of young men, who was taking his head, and they were slamming it into a locker, and then it kept escalating, so at one point they actually gave this young man laxatives, and then they forced him to wear a diaper. And the school, the administration at that time 鈥� this was in the early-2000s 鈥� wasn鈥檛 doing anything. Number one, we immediately went to that school and we talked about the laws that protect kids with disabilities, but we said, 鈥榃e need to change the culture around how we look at the topic of bullying, and also how we view individuals with disabilities,鈥� because so often they鈥檙e viewed as being different or viewed as less-than.鈥�
On efforts to combat bullying
鈥淎s a society, as a culture, we want to, number one, really start looking at, how can we change some of the stereotypes that we have about disability? When one out of five individuals have a disability 鈥� that鈥檚 pretty high in the population. And so, one of the things that we can really look at is even, how do we think about the language that we use? And so often, when I go into even a middle school or a high school, I鈥檒l hear disparaging terms, and the most common one is鈥� the use of the word 鈥榬etard,鈥� it鈥檚 a derogatory term meant to indicate that somebody鈥檚 less than. If we keep saying it, it keeps perpetuating the stereotype.
鈥淥ne of the things that we鈥檝e always looked at with my son David, too, is the concept of, what can we do to encourage those around him to be 鈥� and as young kids we call them 鈥榖ystanders鈥� 鈥� to be effective bystanders, and to be advocates for him? And again, it鈥檚 not only the kids with disabilities who are being horribly impacted, but it鈥檚 the other kids who are witnessing and seeing these things, and they don鈥檛 like it, and they don鈥檛 know what to do. We absolutely want to empower people to be able to have that comfort to speak up.鈥�
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