Subscribe to The Nation
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Publication
Fridays. The very best of the week. E-mail
By signing up, you affirm that you’re over the age of 16 and conform to obtain occasional promotional gives for applications that help The Nation’s journalism. You may learn our Privateness Coverage right here.
Fridays. The very best of the week.
Thanks for signing up for The Nation’s weekly publication.
Repro Nation
A month-to-month publication on the worldwide battle for reproductive freedom.
By signing up, you affirm that you’re over the age of 16 and conform to obtain occasional promotional gives for applications that help The Nation’s journalism. You may learn our Privateness Coverage right here.
Thanks for signing up. For extra from The Nation, try our newest problem
Subscribe to The Nation
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Assist Progressive Journalism
The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or extra to assist us proceed to write down in regards to the points that matter.
The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or extra to assist us proceed to write down in regards to the points that matter.
Join our Wine Membership as we speak.
Do you know you may help The Nation by ingesting wine?
In January 2020, Dutchess Group School in New York banned a pictures professor named Lowell Handler from its property and declared him unqualified to proceed instructing there. Handler, the varsity claimed, had touched college students “in a sexual method” with out their consent and peppered his courses with suggestive feedback. “College students have a proper to an academic surroundings freed from sexual harassment and compelled touching,” wrote then-president Pamela Edington.
Handler got here beneath scrutiny after a pupil claimed that, throughout a dialog, the professor reached throughout his classroom desk and grazed her pubic space along with his fingertips. Within the weeks that adopted, different college students got here ahead with tales of uninvited contact. One informed a campus investigative panel that, after some “close to misses” by Handler above her breast, she started carrying heavy clothes in his presence, even throughout heat climate. She stated she requested male college students to face between her and the instructor as a protect.
Handler had taught at Dutchess’s Poughkeepsie campus for nearly 20 years. He admitted to touching college students, although he disputed the small print—insisting, for instance, that he touched the primary accuser’s arm. He additionally acknowledged making offensive feedback. However his clarification added a twist to the narrative: Handler has Tourette syndrome, a neurodevelopmental dysfunction that causes a variety of involuntary sounds and actions. When Handler touched college students, he stated, the gestures have been fleeting and reflexive, a manifestation of his situation, devoid of sexual intent.
For many years, Handler has been one thing of a Tourette ambassador. Within the Nineteen Eighties he traveled with Oliver Sacks, the storied neurologist, to doc the lives of individuals with the situation. Collectively they printed a Life journal article about a big Mennonite farm household with a six-generation historical past of Tourette. Handler narrated a documentary in regards to the syndrome known as Twitch and Shout. In a memoir by the identical title, he chronicled the perils of compulsive touching—as when his brother underwent a bone-marrow transplant that weakened his immune system. “Nobody was allowed to the touch him,” Handler wrote. “I couldn’t cease Tourettically tapping his ankle, nonetheless.”
At Dutchess, Handler was open about his situation. He talked about it at campus occasions. He disclosed it to his college students at the beginning of every semester.
When he acquired the president’s letter, Handler pleaded for his job. “I’ve come to acknowledge that I skilled an exacerbation of my Tourette’s Syndrome this previous 12 months and have become extra disinhibited,” he wrote to Edington. “I imagine that strains in my private life contributed to this habits.” Handler promised to re-engage in remedy, proceed his remedy, and make a “concerted effort” to switch his habits. When the school didn’t relent, he and his legal professional negotiated an early retirement to keep away from an outright firing.
Then, in March 2021, he sued. “The faculty terminated him solely on the premise of his incapacity,” stated the lawsuit, filed within the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York. The coerced retirement, it alleged, violated the Individuals With Disabilities Act (ADA).
Present Challenge
Representing Handler within the ongoing case is Michael H. Sussman, a civil rights lawyer greatest recognized for his efforts to desegregate public housing in Yonkers, N.Y. (Jon Bernthal performed him within the HBO miniseries Present Me a Hero.) Sussman has additionally litigated on behalf of sexual harassment victims, together with a New York Metropolis Housing Authority heating plant technician who was penalized after combating off her supervisor’s advances.
“For me,” Sussman stated of Handler’s pressured retirement, “it’s akin to blaming an individual who’s in a wheelchair for being in a wheelchair.” Simply as individuals with mobility points can’t immediately resolve to stroll, individuals with Tourette can’t resolve to not have tics. “These are very a lot involuntary actions and sounds,” stated pediatric neurologist Jaclyn Martindale, director of the Tourette Syndrome Specialty Clinic at Atrium Well being Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina. (She is just not concerned within the case.) “The way in which I like to explain it to households is: Are you able to forestall your self from blushing? It’s not one thing that’s in your management, even in the event you don’t need it to occur.”
Nonetheless, understanding Handler’s analysis didn’t all the time change how college students skilled his conduct. The preliminary accuser informed campus investigators that she froze and felt scared when Handler reached throughout the desk. “I perceive he has Tourette’s,” she stated. “However this shouldn’t be an excuse for college students to be consistently made to really feel uncomfortable and unsafe within the faculty surroundings.”
That’s what makes the case so difficult. The regulation tries to guard individuals with disabilities from discrimination. It additionally tries to guard college students and staff from sexual and racial harassment. “And the regulation is about resolving rights in rigidity,” Sussman stated. “That’s what the regulation’s problem all the time is.”
Again in 2016, earlier than the scholars’ complaints, Handler predicted this collision of various rights. In a column known as “Instructing With Tourette’s,” printed on the Chronicle of Greater Schooling web site, he wrote that college students typically complained of their course evaluations of his “repeated touching,” which he acknowledged might be annoying. And he posed this query to readers: “The place does the civil rights of a person with a incapacity intersect or ‘push the boundaries’ of the civil rights of the final inhabitants to stay unencumbered or uncompromised by different individuals’s actions?”
When a baby misbehaves in class, federal regulation requires directors to research whether or not that habits is the manifestation of a incapacity.
“Impulsively, you allow highschool [and] that necessary evaluation not exists,” stated Susan Stone, an Ohio legal professional who represents college students and professors with disabilities. School college students and lecturers—to not point out workers at noneducational workplaces—lack the protections that Okay-12 college students have. That places them on shakier floor after they’re accused of delinquent habits.
They’re accused with some regularity. “I most likely hear of a scenario like this”—at a college or elsewhere—“at the very least as soon as per week,” stated Amanda Talty, president of the Tourette Affiliation of America. Final 12 months, for instance, a pupil named Seth Pressler, who has the dysfunction, sued the College of Southern Indiana, claiming that it barred him from campus due to the involuntary, offensive utterances that typically accompany Tourette syndrome. Pressler, in line with the lawsuit, blurted out sentences like “I’ve a bomb,” which he adopted with apologies and explanations. Information accounts reported that he additionally shouted racial slurs, distressing his Black classmates. The college, in response, stated that Pressler didn’t qualify as disabled and posed a “important threat” to others. The case was settled out of courtroom.
Conflicts additionally come up for college students with autism, who’re getting into increased schooling in larger numbers than ever, partially due to higher Okay-12 help providers. Autistic college students typically have issue studying social cues and thus interact in behaviors that, to their neurotypical classmates, resemble stalking. In school, the help providers that earlier might need intervened are gone.
“You are taking a child who’s had a life jacket on, and that’s how they’ve been swimming for years, and you then put them into a special pool, take off the life jacket, and say ‘Good luck,’” stated Lee Burdette Williams, the manager director of the nonprofit School Autism Community. “They usually simply plunge to the ground of the pool. And one of many ways in which occurs is round their social interactions.”
The article of an autistic pupil’s consideration may file a stalking grievance beneath Title IX, the federal schooling regulation barring intercourse discrimination. “After which you could have [campus officials] swooping in to say, ‘That’s not allowed right here, and now I’m going to need to sanction you,’” Burdette stated. “And right here’s the child, furiously attempting to remain above water.”
Ideally, these kinds of conflicts could be resolved outdoors the disciplinary system. However all events should agree. “If the complainant is resistant, then the method is a runaway prepare,” stated Brett Sokolow, advisory board chair of the Affiliation of Title IX Directors. “It goes from grievance to investigation to listening to to enchantment. There’s no manner round it.”
In keeping with Sokolow, campus Title IX officers typically insist on utilizing the disciplinary course of, even when the habits stems from a incapacity, as a result of they don’t need to be seen as singling out any group for leniency. “My response is, ‘Nicely, OK, so that you discovered them in violation. Now it’s important to sanction them. How are you going to sanction them in a manner that adjustments this habits? Are you going to sanction them to not have a incapacity?’”
What makes this so tough is that sexual misconduct continues to be rampant on school campuses. In a 2020 survey of 182,000 college students, commissioned by the Affiliation of American Universities, 42 p.c stated they’d been sexually harassed in school, together with a majority of feminine and transgender undergraduates. Greater than 1 / 4 of undergraduate ladies had endured nonconsensual intercourse, as had 7 p.c of undergraduate males.
That report was according to years of analysis chronicling a hostile sexual local weather on campus. In 2010, the Middle for Public Integrity, in one other report, documented the methods during which pupil victims run into institutional obstacles to justice. Virtually half the scholars interviewed have been funneled into secret faculty proceedings that led to lenient or no penalties. Some colleges threatened victims with punishment in the event that they spoke publicly in regards to the proceedings. What’s extra, the authors of the report concluded, federal oversight of Title IX enforcement was “overly pleasant” to directors, “which finally lets faculties—and rapists—off the hook.”
Associated Article
Our Stutter: Joe Biden, Brayden Harrington—and Me
Again then, when sexual harassment rose to the extent of against the law, faculties usually punted the case to outdoors regulation enforcement, stated Laura Dunn, a Washington, D.C., legal professional who represents victims (and herself survived a campus rape). If regulation enforcement didn’t reply, she added, “a number of colleges did nothing and simply washed their palms of it.”
In 2011, the Obama administration sounded “a name to motion” and outlined a brand new get-tough strategy. In a 20-page letter, the Division of Schooling’s Workplace of Civil Rights directed faculties to evaluate wrongdoing based mostly on a “preponderance of the proof,” a 51 p.c commonplace. That’s typical for civil instances, however a low bar in contrast with prison instances, which require proof “past an inexpensive doubt.” The letter additionally discouraged cross-examination in Title IX hearings, saying the confrontation may traumatize the coed who filed the grievance. Schools that didn’t comply may lose federal funding. “The decency of a nation is decided by how we tolerate, or don’t tolerate, the abuse of ladies,” then–Vice President Joe Biden stated on the time.
The 2011 letter, stated Dunn, offered an pressing corrective to a system that didn’t defend survivors. It elevated public consciousness that Title IX coated sexual harassment and violence. “Folks began submitting extra Title IX complaints,” she stated. “Enforcement motion simply spiked…. Faculties have been extra usually discovering college students accountable.” That lasted till 2017, when the Trump administration rescinded the letter and substituted its personal interim steering. In 2020 it enacted new rules that, in line with Dunn, have made it more durable for survivors to get justice.
However the Obama administration’s letter additionally had penalties for neurodiverse college students, in line with Williams of the School Autism Community. (On the time of the letter, she was vp for pupil affairs at Wheaton School in Massachusetts.) It panicked school presidents, who together with their normal counsels grew reluctant to take extra versatile approaches even when applicable.
That reluctance outlived the letter itself, Williams stated, and continues to get communicated down the executive hierarchy. “Plenty of the student-conduct people are of their late 20s and early 30s,” she stated. “They don’t have the expertise, the sophistication and nuanced pondering, and the boldness to push again. And so, absent any of these issues, they simply form of capitulate.”
When Williams was a university administrator, till 2014, she noticed Title IX utilized in conditions that, in her view, didn’t advantage its punitive power. “That is like bringing an automated weapon to a knife battle,” she stated she remembers feeling. Engaged on autism points, she added, has sharpened her focus: “If I believed Title IX was weaponized for neurotypical college students, it’s a nuclear weapon for college students with disabilities.”
Dutchess Group School officers declined to be interviewed about Handler, the pictures professor with Tourette syndrome. “On the recommendation of counsel, we’re suggested to chorus from contributing to a narrative that will have implications for pending litigation,” Peter Grant Jordan, the school’s president, wrote in an e-mail. However the school’s inside paperwork, together with its response to the lawsuit, make its place clear.
The case towards Handler started in October 2019, when he reached throughout his desk and touched his pupil. She confided in a buddy in regards to the expertise, and two days later the chums filed simultaneous complaints based mostly on totally different incidents. The faculty convened two separate panels to research the allegations.
Each panels concluded that Handler had sexually harassed his college students. One went additional, alleging a years-long sample of off-color feedback and unsolicited touching. In keeping with the scholars who testified, Handler needed to be the “cool instructor.” They stated he invited college students to smoke marijuana with him and instructed they name him “Kush Daddy.” He allegedly responded to a point out of The Vagina Monologues by saying that he cherished vaginas and was “married to a girl with a vagina.” When a pupil talked about consuming oysters at a restaurant, Handler reportedly stated that oysters made his ex-girlfriend attractive.
The panel heard that Handler touched ladies extra usually than males, and in additional delicate areas, together with their chests, thighs, and buttocks. One pupil stated she needed to vanish after Handler touched her simply above, after which just under, her breast. One other pupil, who additionally has Tourette syndrome, informed panelists she believed that Handler used his analysis as a “masks” for inappropriate contact. Dutchess’s legal professional concurred: “The conduct alleged by college students was not a manifestation of Tourette’s Syndrome,” she wrote in a response to the lawsuit.
Martindale, the North Carolina neurologist, stated she has not seen Tourette sufferers use the dysfunction as a canopy for voluntary misconduct. “I can by no means say ‘by no means’ or ‘all the time’—that’s simply form of the rule in medication,” she stated. “But when there are individuals on the market like that, it’s a wholly totally different dysfunction…. These are few and much between and shouldn’t be confused with Tourette’s.”
In interviews with The Nation, Handler stated he by no means touched delicate areas and didn’t single out ladies over males. Nor, he stated, did he invite college students to smoke pot with him.
A few of his remarks, Handler stated, have been misreported or taken out of context. For instance, he as soon as introduced up sadomasochism after a pupil had written a report about photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s nonetheless lifes of flowers. (Mapplethorpe’s S&M photos have been the topic of an unsuccessful prison prosecution in 1990.) In keeping with the investigative panel, the coed claimed that Handler tried to provoke a private dialog in regards to the sexual apply. Handler stated he did no such factor, however reasonably shared a little bit of related artwork historical past.
Handler agreed that different feedback have been inappropriate—a product of the disinhibition that, in line with researchers, typically accompanies Tourette syndrome. Since then, Handler stated, he has gone for a neurological workup that included a bodily examination and a evaluation of his medical historical past, signs, and medicines. He additionally began taking guanfacine, a prescription drug that helps with impulse management.
Sussman, the legal professional, stated the investigative course of morphed from two accusations into “a frontal assault on Lowell and his character [that] didn’t appear to me to have a lot to do with attending to the reality.” In an actual courtroom, Sussman famous, the defendant faces the accuser. That didn’t occur at Dutchess. “You had no alternative to cross-examine and even see the accusers, not to mention some other witness,” he stated. “This gentleman had been there 20 years, and I felt that some modicum of due course of—which included the suitable to confront—was requisite.”
Making an attempt to teach: A nonetheless from Twitch and Shout, the documentary narrated by Handler, which makes an attempt to demystify and destigmatize Tourette syndrome.
Advocates for individuals with disabilities, to be clear, will not be asking for a move. “The ADA doesn’t give a proper to create a hostile surroundings, or to harass somebody, any greater than it provides the suitable to assault somebody,” stated Zoe Gross, director of advocacy on the Autistic Self Advocacy Community.
Handler agrees that college students ought to by no means really feel like they’re in a hostile surroundings. “And I used to be unsuitable for partially creating that,” he stated. Had he understood the extent of the issue, he stated, he might need gotten the workup and altered his medicines sooner. And he might need been in a position to quickly suppress a few of his offensive feedback, he stated, the way in which others can delay an involuntary eye blink. (Martindale known as this a short lived repair that may set off extra frequent tics later.)
The query is how a university, or an employer, responds when somebody’s incapacity inadvertently creates an unwelcoming campus or office. Can an establishment ameliorate the scenario with out resorting to punishment?
“Once we are coping with the civil rights statutes, I believe that typically we form of see them as conduct codes,” stated Taylor Parker, a Title IX and ADA coordinator who has written about how these two areas of the regulation intersect. “Truly, the disciplinary response is only one half—and I wouldn’t even say the biggest half.” (Parker works for New School of Florida, however stated she wasn’t talking for her employer.) The choice, she stated, is supporting the accuser whereas additionally educating the accused. “Meaning actually working with them to know their very own conduct,” she stated, “and hopefully to intervene in conditions that seem like they might find yourself constructing right into a hostile studying surroundings.”
Sokolow, from the Affiliation of Title IX Directors, stated that’s what occurred at a group school a number of years in the past, the place an autistic pupil was accused of stalking. “He didn’t learn the indicators that she didn’t need something to do with him,” Sokolow stated. “He adopted her round like a pet canine.” Initially, the girl needed the school to adjudicate her grievance. “I’m scared to demise,” he recalled her saying. “How do I do know he’s not going to harm me?”
With the permission of the male pupil and his dad and mom, the school disclosed his autism to the girl. “Within the assembly, you would watch her complete physique simply shift,” Sokolow stated. “Her face modified. Her worry dissipated.” She agreed to drop the fees—and, in alternate, the coed acquired further counseling on how you can learn social cues. It was an amicable ending, Sokolow stated. “However it actually took quite a bit to get her to that desk. And, finally, it needed to lead to a lack of privateness for him.”
As for the Dutchess Group School case, Handler stated the second for an amicable decision has handed. His legal professional, Sussman, stated he anticipates settlement talks. However Handler stated that’s probably not what he desires. “I need to have my day in courtroom with them,” he stated of the administration. “As a result of I need to train them a fucking lesson.”