TURNERS FALLS — A lawyer representing the Young Shakespeare Players East told The Recorder on Friday that a finding by federal authorities this month that the youth theater company discriminated against an Amherst boy with a severe peanut allergy is “regulation run amok and a profound injustice.”
The Justice Department found that the director of the company, Suzanne Rubenstein, had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not making “reasonable” accommodations for Mason Wicks-Lim, 11. Federal authorities also said the program violated the law by retaliating against another child who voiced her concerns about the situation and by threatening to close the program entirely if required to make the accommodations — a statement considered coercive under the act.
If the company does not comply with the department’s recommendations, it could face a federal lawsuit.
The lawyer, Frank P. DiPrima of Morristown, New Jersey, said in a statement that the company did not discriminate against Wicks-Lim and did not “refuse to administer an Epi-Pen” in the case of an emergency — one of the requested accommodations.
“YSPE offered that YSPE’s only two adult volunteers would take instruction as to how to use the Epi-Pen, would administer it when needed, and would adopt the policy recommended by leading food allergy research organizations,” DiPrima wrote.
DiPrima is representing Young Shakespeare Players East pro bono, and serves on the board of directors of Young Shakespeare Players Inc., which his brother founded.
The Turners Falls company is a chapter of that company.
The only two points of disagreement between Ali Wicks-Lim, Mason’s mother, and Rubenstein, he wrote, centered around the fact that the company could not guarantee that an adult would be present around Mason at all times and that Wicks-Lim refused to sign a waiver of liability, which he said all parents are now required to sign.
Wicks-Lim’s lawyer, in a complaint filed with the federal government, said Wicks-Lim felt that signing the waiver meant the company’s staff would in fact not administer the medication.
Further, DiPrima said the company did not retaliate against the second student, Trinity “Sam” Picone-Louro of Wendell, for voicing her disappointment with the situation in an email.
Picone-Louro was kicked out of the program after she refused to apologize, according to the Justice Department’s letter of finding.
“YSPE did not discriminate against Sam because she advocated for Mason, but rather because of the rudeness of her email,” DiPrima wrote. “In another email within an hour of Sam’s, a boy in the program advocated for Mason, did so with civility, and is welcome back. The rude are not a protected class. Sam would have been welcomed back if she had acknowledged the disrespectfulness of her tone. Nor was there any demand for a public apology, only to the volunteer director to whom Sam addressed her email. Can it be that any youth program or teacher cannot insist on kindness, mutual respect, and civility?”
“It cannot be that a charity with no money, no staff, and two uncompensated volunteers, bears sole responsibility for 100-percent coverage, while the child’s mother refuses. Denying such responsibility is all-the-worse when hiding behind the noble cause of anti-discrimination,” DiPrima wrote. “Or is it these parents’ or their lawyers’ real objective to put this wonderful program out of existence? It certainly cannot pay any damages or lawyers’ fees and cannot exist as at present without its volunteer director.”
DiPrima said the company will “try to persuade every authority, state and federal, that any ruling against YSPE would be regulation run amok and a profound injustice.”
“This old lawyer believes YSPE will be vindicated,” he wrote.