AIDS and Disability Employment Discrimination in and beyond the Classroom

Roughly a year ago, in Chalk v. U.S. District Court Central California, a United States appellate court authorized a teacher to return to his teaching duties, after a California school department had barred him from his classroom upon learning he had Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The case parallels the widely reported events of the Eric Smith story of Autumn 1987. Teacher Smith was initially removed from his Shelburne County, Nova Scotia classroom, and reassigned to non-teaching duties after a medical secretary disclosed that Smith had tested positive for the AIDS virus. While Smith immediately refused the reassignment, he eventually accepted an educative position on the Nova Scotia Task Force on AIDS, which has recently completed its report.